Wikipedia:Pornography

This is an essay, a page containing the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints, and they may be heeded or not based upon your judgement and discretion.

This page is designed to highlight the approach taken within Wikipedia with regard to what some contributors regard as pornography. There is no formal policy, or indeed definition (the Wikipedia:Profanity article has a semi-policy, but the discussion of generalities such as Wikipedia:Graphic and potentially disturbing images seems to be less popular than discussion of specific examples); despite this there is frequent debate on related subjects. This page is designed to point to some of what has been decided or not decided; as usual, discussion about this page and related subjects should take place on the talk page.

Existing policy

"Wikipedia is not censored" is a policy: some articles may include objectionable text, images, or links as explained in the disclaimer. The policy had previously been "Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors" but this was changed by 9 votes to 5. Attempts to define what censorship means were rejected.

Despite this, several images have been proposed for deletion on the grounds of being "unencyclopedic", because those proposing deletion feel either that they add nothing to the article in question or that they damage Wikipedia's reputation as a credible encyclopedia; similar points are made more generally everyday at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion and Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. One concern expressed is that although Wikipedia is not censored internally, it may be censored externally by others limiting access, and that a balance needs to be struck. In many cases other issues are also included in the debate, such as copyright issues. Those wishing to retain images usually put forward two arguments: first that any censorship is in principle unacceptable, and second that the particular image in question adds information to an article.

Jimbo Wales on obscenity

Further information: Wikipedia:Argumentum ad Jimbonem

While Jimbo's formal role has shrunk over the years, he is granted a tremendous amount of respect for his role in forming Wikipedia, putting it under a free license and guiding its formation. His opinion thus has much informal authority and he occasionally acts as an appeal of last resort. Jimbo in general endorses displaying topical images, even if some consider them obscene, but there are limits:

• Jimbo once removed a photograph of autofellatio from its relevant article, with the comment: "This image is completely unacceptable for wikipedia -- I don't even consider this borderline." [1] After some reverts by various editors, he stated, "for now the link version is a decent compromise" [2] The image was subsequently deleted for copyright violation, and replaced by a drawing, which was added to the article. [3] A month later, a free-licensed image was added as a link following the earlier compromise. [4]

• A photo used to illustrate Creampie (sexual act) was deleted by Jimbo with the summary, "Image would trigger 2257 record keeping requirements." This refers to the enforcement guidelines for the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act, which require the "publisher" of sexually explicit material, Wikipedia in this case, to obtain and maintain records proving that the model is of legal age.
• An extensive debate filling six pages of archives at Talk:Lolicon regarding a drawing of a seminude seven-year-old girl with a dildo and a teddy bear in S&M regalia was resolved by an out-of-process deletion of the image by an admin, who was congratulated by Jimbo.
• In June 2007, several lolicon versions of Wikipe-tan were uploaded. In the midst of the deletion debate, Jimbo deleted the images, noting, "pedophilic sexualization of a community mascot? No. - email me if you have questions."

Some examples of debates, decisions and non-decisions

Some of the pages linked here may cause offense to some people. Hence the frequent debates.

• The anal stretching photograph associated with the Goatse.cx article was removed from Wikipedia, but external links to it were retained. The record of discussion is at Talk:Goatse.cx/Vote
• A proposal to delete a parallel page to Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse without photographs of torture, naked and dead bodies and technically kept with the same text as the original article did not reach a clear consensus so the parallel article remained; however, consensus was later achieved for its deletion. The last debate was held at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse (no pictures) and a recreation was speedy deleted: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse (image free).
• A proposal to remove certain photographs in the article Clitoris was defeated and the images have been retained without a disclaimer; a parallel page without the images was deleted; the debate on the images in that article has continued. Records of some of the discussions are at Talk:Clitoris/Archive4 and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Clitoris (censored)
• An illustrative photograph associated with the Autofellatio article was removed from Wikipedia after several discussions. The record of the final discussion is at Image talk:Autofellatio.jpg/March 22 IfD
• Another illustrative photograph associated the same Autofellatio article was not removed, after a debate failed to reach a clear enough consensus. The record of the discussion is at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/Autofellatio 2
• A collage of nude pictures of Charlotte Ross was removed from Wikipedia. The record of the discussion is at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/Charlotterossnypdblue.
• A discussion formerly at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Nudity in Wikipedia (now perhaps only in an old version of the page).
• The debate about Kate Winslet's breasts at Wikipedia:Images_and_media_for_deletion/KateWinsletTitanic while a different debate at Talk:Titanic (1997 movie) on use of the same image talked about a compromise
• History of erotic depictions was featured in November 2006. Despite some outcry about the risque topic, the overall response was positive. However, the Featured Article director has stated that featured article Jenna Jameson, about a pornographic performer, will likely not be placed on the Main Page due to the subject matter.

Vandalism

Some offensive images have been used for vandalism; so too have other images, but offensive ones appear to be particularly attractive to vandals and particularly objectionable to the victims of vandalism. Images that are particular targets for vandalism are placed on a local list that restricts their usage to approved pages.

In the early days of the site, the "You have new messages" notice that appeared when there was a change to a user's discussion page was a simple link. Vandals found that by turning these talk pages into redirects to explicit images, they could force unsuspecting users to go to view them. This was considered so egregious a form of vandalism that the system message was changed to forbid redirecting from a new messages notice, as well as to add a "diff" that allows users to see what is changed.