Personally, I don't think it's worth having a discussion here about the merits of deleting these images. There's no chance in hell they are going to be deleted from Commons. What I'm more interested in is the locker-room nature of the discussions and how/if this can be addressed, as I think that is actually more likely to dissuade female contributors than the images themselves.
Ryan Kaldari On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 2:01 PM, Pete Forsyth <petefors...@gmail.com> wrote: > Ryan, thanks for bringing this up for discussion. I've put a lot of > thought into the series of photos this comes from over the years, and it's > well worth some discussion. I'd like to hear what others think about this. > Here is a link to the category for the larger collection; warning, there's > lots of nudity and sexual objectification here, so don't click if you don't > want to see that: > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Nude_portrayals_of_computer_technology > > First, I agree with Ryan that in the (various) deletion discussions I've > seen around this and similar topics, there is often a toxic level of > childish and offensive comments. I think that's a significant problem, and > I don't know what can be done to improve it. Scolding people in those > discussions often a backfires, and serves only to amplify the offensive > commentary. But silence can imply tacit consent. How should one participate > in the discussion, promoting an outcome one believes in, without > contributing to or enabling the toxic nature of the discourse? I think I've > done a decent job of walking that line in similar discussions, but I'm sure > there's a lot of room for better approaches. I would love to hear what has > worked for others, here and/or privately. > > Also, my initial reaction to these images is that they are inherently > offensive; my gut reaction is to keep them off Commons. > > But after thinking it through and reading through a number of deletion > discussions, the conclusion I've come to (at least so far) is that the > decision to keep them (in spite of the childish and offensive commentary > along the way) is the right decision. These strike me as the important > points: > * We have a collection of more than 20 million images, intended to support > a wide diversity of educational projects. Among those 20 million files are > a great many that would be offensive to some audience. (For instance, if I > understand correctly, *all images portraying people* are offensive to at > least some devout Muslims.) > * Were these images originally intended to promote objectification of > women? To support insightful commentary on objectification of women? > Something else? I can't see into the minds of their creators, but I *can* > imagine them being put to all kinds of uses, some of which would be > worthwhile. The intent of the photographer and models, I've come to > believe, is not relevant to the decision. (apart from the basic issue of > consent in the next bullet point:) > * Unlike many images on Commons, I see no reason to doubt that these were > produced by consenting adults, and intended for public distribution. > > If they are to be deleted, what is the principle under which we would > delete them? To me, that's the key question. If it's simply the fact that > we as individuals find them offensive, I don't think that's sufficient. If > it's out of a belief that they inherently cause more harm than good, I > think the reasons for that would need to be fleshed out before they could > be persuasive. > > Art is often meant to be provocative, to challenge our assumptions and > sensibilities, to prompt discussion. We host a lot of art on Commons. On > what basis would we delete these, but keep other controversial works of > art? Of course it would be terrible to use these in, for instance, a > Wikipedia article about HTML syntax. But overall, does it cause harm to > simply have them exist in an image repository? My own conclusion with > regard to this photo series is that the net value of maintaining a large > and diverse collection of media, without endorsing its contents per se., > outweighs other considerations. > > (For anybody interested in the deletion process on Commons, the kinds of > things that are deliberated, and the way the discussions go, you might be > interested in my related blog post from a couple months ago: > http://wikistrategies.net/wikimedia-commons-is-far-from-ethically-broken/ > ) > > -Pete > [[User:Peteforsyth]] > > > > On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 1:03 PM, Ryan Kaldari <rkald...@wikimedia.org> > wrote: > >> If anyone ever needs a good example of the locker-room environment on >> Wikimedia Commons, I just came across this old deletion discussion: >> >> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Radio_button_and_female_nude.jpg >> >> The last two keep votes are especially interesting. One need look no >> farther than the current Main Page talk page for more of the same (search >> for "premature ejaculation"). >> >> Kaldari >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Gendergap mailing list >> Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Gendergap mailing list > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap > >
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