Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 40

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Archive 35

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Archive 38

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Who is offended?

Who is actually "offended" by anything being discussed here? It seems to me that these images are being discussed with a hypothetical reader in mind. It seems that the argument is that we have to argue on behalf of a hypothetical, easily-offended reader. Do any of these people show up here and speak for themselves? Or am I mistaken—are any of the people embodying any of these sensitivities present? Bus stop (talk) 23:26, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not offended by any pictures we have. Just embarrassed, on occasion. --J N 466 23:34, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not "embarrassed". I consider them part and parcel of the world we live in. It is certainly possible to write the "goatse" article without images but if one is going to include images, the one that was there is not exactly unexpected. And pregnancy is a biological function—is it surprising it would be illustrated with a naked body? Bus stop (talk) 23:44, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Not embarrassed by the pictures, or their content, just by the quality of our editorial standards. Cheers, --J N 466 00:02, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The quality of our editorial standards fluctuate. That fluctuation in quality calls for vigilance, not a change in policy. Bus stop (talk) 00:24, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Restricting the ability of editors to produce appropriately illustrated articles, as the proposals here would, just because you are occasionally embarrassed by some editorial choices you disagree with is really not the way to improve the encyclopaedia. It's more akin to Throwing the baby out with the bathwater while using a sledgehammer to crack a nut than good policy. Thryduulf (talk) 01:42, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

For me, the issue is not whether I'm offended by controversial images, but maintaining Wikipedia's respectability. Peer reviewed sexology journals normally do not use images of the type present in Wikipedia's articles in this area. This is not primarily to avoid offending their readers, who, specifically researching human sexuality, probably aren't terribly upset by sexually explicit images. Rather, the editors seek to preserve the credibility of their journals in presenting science, not pornography with a token amount of science attached. This accounts for the difference of image choices between The Journal of Sex Research and Hustler. We can either adopt the image use practices of reliable sources covering article topics, thus conforming to NPOV, or we can do the Hustler thing. Which approach best serves Wikipedia's interests as an academic project? Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 02:48, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Neither an academic journal nor a pornographic magazine are general purpose encyclopaedias. We don't take the Hustler approach because they are out to titillate and arouse, we are here to educate; nothing is wrong with either mission but they are not comparable. We do not take the Journal of Sexology Research approach because they are an academic journal aimed at professional sexology researchers and practitioners with the aim of peer reviewing and then publishing original research in the field; we are a general purpose encyclopaedia, a tertiary source aimed at educating the non-specialist reader by providing them with an illustrated summary of the coverage in reliable sources, and giving them pointers to places where they can continue their research if they so wish and giving them the basic knowledge required to enable them to learn more if they do so wish. If you are more inclined towards creating a peer reviewed journal, then maybe Wikibooks or Wikiversity would suit you better, although my knowledge of both projects is not extensive. Thryduulf (talk) 03:30, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Gosh, you're right: we're an encyclopedia. However, I'd dispute that Wikipedia is only a "tertiary source aimed at educating the non-specialist reader". A quick look at some of our math and science articles should reveal information that would be outright incomprehensible to the average citizen. For instance, consider Quetiapine#Pharmacology. To someone who doesn't know the difference between the 5-HT₁ receptor and the 5-HT₂ receptor, much less A or C, what's the meaning of the statement that quetiapine is a "5-HT_1A (IC₅₀ = 717nM), 5-HT_2A, 5-HT_2C, and 5-HT₇ receptor antagonist"? I assure you that explaining the situation by saying that 5-HT_2A "is the main excitatory receptor subtype among the GPCRs for serotonin (5-HT), although 5-HT_2A may also have an inhibitory effect" while 5-HT_2c "is a G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) that is coupled to G_q/G₁₁ and mediates excitatory neurotransmission" will be extremely unhelpful in remedying the confusion. It should be obvious that Wikipedia is firmly engaged in the business of catering to students and professionals in medicine and other disciplines.

But Wikipedia does try to educate the non-specialist sometimes. So, can you find any other notable general purpose English-language encyclopedia, either online or in print, which makes similar use of gruesome content, sexually explicit material, and nude photographs of minors? Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 05:21, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The maths and science examples are a classic example of where we fail in our mission to be accessible to the non-specialist, but they are the exception not the rule (most science articles are accessible, maths is less good though). Perhaps the best way to illustrate to you how we are different is that academic journals don't have articles like Pregnancy and Penis, as they don't need them. This principle is enshrined at WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal (particularly points 7 and 8. Wikipedia is actually far more like the academic journal than Hustler because Wikipedia uses its image for educational illustrative purposes. Hustler is primarily image based, text is just there to support and enhance the images and the whole magazine is designed to be arousing to those attracted by its subject matter; Wikipedia is primarily text based, images are there to support and enhance the text with both presented in a dispassionate manner - if you tried to use Wikipedia as you would pornography you'd almost certainly fail miserably.

Can you find me any other general purpose non-specialist English-language encyclopaedia, either online or in print, which is not censored and not constrained in it use of images by cost, availability, or any of the other factors listed at least two other times in this discussion) and which adhere to the principles of NPOV (most forks of Wikipedia do not) and which are subject to the laws of the United States (as that is what we use to determine legality and illegality, other countries laws are different). Thryduulf (talk) 09:47, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Which other general purpose non-specialist English-language encyclopaedia, either online or in print, is not censored? At least nominally, we're discussing the "not censored" policy, not assuming it to be correct. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 18:27, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored - this has been repeatedly endorsed and every proposal to change that has either met with no consensus or been explicitly rejected - including the current ones. What else is there left to discuss about it? In this section of the page, we're discussing how or whether our image choice should be influenced by outside sources given that Wikipedia. However, the tactic of changing the subject when it's clear you aren't winning the argument has been commonly employed in these discussions so its perfectly understandable to get muddled. Thryduulf (talk) 18:46, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The whole point of this discussion is whether "not censored" is acceptable as it stands, with editors assuming that because RS are widely censored, and we aren't, our image use practices should be far afield from theirs. This stands in contrast to NPOV, which says that we follow reliable sources, rather than engaging in WP:ACTIVISM to try to set the world right. Reformulating "not censored" to comply with more fundamental content policies might involve saying that while content will not be removed just because editors find it to be objectionable, neither will we ignore the manner in which RS present topics on the grounds of remedying supposed censorship. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 21:43, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Thryduulf, I think this question needs answering. You say we shouldn't follow academic journals, because we're not an academic journal. Fine. You imply that we ought to be following the standard of the "general purpose encyclopaedias". Great.

Now please name a general-purpose encyclopedia that contains anything like the proportion of nude images that the English Wikipedia does. Since the vast majority of general-purpose encyclopedias have no articles on porn films, feel free to restrict your search to comparable articles, e.g., comparing the nude and lingerie-wearing white women in the English Wikipedia article on pregnancy vs. the images in any other general-purpose encyclopedia in the history of the world. In your personal opinion, do our image choices reflect the standards of any existing, non-WMF, general-purpose encyclopedia, or is the English Wikipedia following image selection standards completely made up by our own (young, white, single, childless, male) editors? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:37, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't have access to any print or cd-rom/dvd encyclopaedias to check them. The online edition of Encyclopædia Britannica doesn't show any images in the portion I can see, therefore it is impossible to judge their image choice. Enciclopedia Libre has only a stub article with a single image, what I think is a pregnancy test kit; this is not comparable to the choice of a clothed or nude woman. Hudong, the Chinese encyclopaedia uses a clothed image. EcuRed leads with a cut-away drawing of what looks like a near-term baby in a womb, which is not directly comparable, it has two other images - an ultrasound and a clothed woman. Doosan Encyclopedia uses a cropped image of the uncovered belly of a pregnant woman. Digital Universe, Banglapedia, Scholarpedia, Probert Encyclopaedia and the Canadian Encyclopedia appear not to have relevant articles. Den Store Danske Encyklopædi uses only drawings in the main body, but has both clothed and naked photographs in a semi-separate image section at the end. McGraw-Hill Science & Technology Encyclopedia and Columbia Encyclopaedia (both via Answers.com), Knol, Store norske leksikon and everything2 do not appear to be illustrated. Citizendium has only a short draft article, this is illustrated with a nude photograph. Encyclopædia Universalis and WIEM Encyklopedia don't use inline image, in the media sections/pages they include ultrasound images and diagrams only. Enciclopedia Italiana uses a small, tightly cropped image of an uncovered pregnant woman's belly credited to the Italian Wikipedia. If Internetowa encyklopedia PWN appears to have only a three-line stub with no illustrations.

These are all the current online general encyclopaedias that I can both find and access (several more are subscription only, closed, discontinued, broken or historical), several are not reliable sources as they are user generated content, other Wikipedias and Wikipedia mirrors are discounted for obvious reasons. Of the ones that have relevant articles and comparable image usage, there is a roughly even split between clothed and naked images, but the sample size is too small to make any reliable statement. The evidence does not support your assertion. Thryduulf (talk) 14:44, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Leaving out Wikipedia mirrors, the list you produced says:

Clothed only: Hudong, EcuRed,
Both naked and clothed: Den Store Danske Encyklopædi
Belly only: Doosan, Enciclopedia Italiana
No photographs of pregnant women: Enciclopedia Libre, Encyclopædia Universalis, WIEM Encyklopedia

I see none that offer photographs of breasts, buttocks, or genitals without also offering clothed images. In fact, your list suggests that out of the ~15 articles you found only one (1) wasn't a fork of Wikipedia and (2) showed the pregnant womans's naked breasts. Consequently, I'm not sure how you conclude that "there is a roughtly even split" in comparable articles: it appears to me that ~90% of the comparable articles chose to include images but chose not to include nudity. 90% vs 10% isn't what most of us call a "roughly even split" between nudity-displaying and non-nudity-displaying articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:47, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

No on has said that if an illustration is needed to aid in the reader's understanding of the work (that's one decision to make), and the only illustrations available are going to be offensive to someone, we would still use the images. There's no restriction going on (which is why when people say this is censorship, that's wrong, as no one is demanding censoring across the entire project). The only way to visually show human genitalia is through images of them, for example, but in the discussion of human anatomy, it is completely appropriate. That doesn't mean pictures with human genitalia are appropriate anywhere else on WP, but we're not censoring their use where they are appropriate. --MASEM (t) 03:00, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

People have brought up the "we need to X to make Wikipedia appear more respectable" argument many times, and it has always been shot down by the single fact that we do not cater to what one group finds "respectable". From arguments that we need to conform to MLA/Chicago/APA/etc style citations to be taken seriously to arguing we need to avoid the anonymous "anyone can edit" image by requiring people to sign up with their real life identities before editing. What these proposals fail to take away is that many disagree with what they find respectable, Wikipedia is ideological at its core with its aim to provide absolutely free content written entirely by volunteers, and by the fact that while Wikipedia has been praised for its idealism, by actually working, and criticized for the reliability of its content, concerns over Wikipedia's visage of "respectability" has been primarily fueled by outsiders misunderstanding core practices such as allowing anyone to edit, and from internal WP:drama over things most of the outside world never notices, and not by notable outside criticism of our actual editorial practices. I have heard Wikipedia praised for a variety of reasons such as being non-commercial and neutral, but it has been extremely rare that I have seen outside criticism due to things like nudity/etc, and those criticisms have been minor, petty, and not gained any traction. If you can demonstrate significant cause to be concerned and show convincingly how this might improve out image to the outside then that would be a more convincing argument.AerobicFox (talk) 06:55, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

For starters, Internet Watch Foundation and Wikipedia chronicles some fairly sharp external criticism of Wikipedia for child nudity. Does the IWF's attempt to block the image, shining a blazing spotlight of publicity on the "not censored" policy, constitute gaining traction? While I'm not claiming that the IWF's "child pornography" allegation had any merit, the fact that Wikipedia constantly skates close to the legal line makes incidents such as this inevitable. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 07:56, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The IWF's characterisation of the Virgin Killer image (apparently triggered by a single report) was questionable at best (if it was child pornography or otherwise problematic, why has it been legally on sale for 30-odd years? If it isn't legally problematic, why the need to block it? It is a long established convention on Wikipedia that album art is the best way to illustrate articles about albums, and in this case there was a consensus (even during and after the block) that this album was no different), but the majority of the reason why the saga was so high profile was the way in which they enforced the filter, causing widespread collateral damage while not actually achieving its stated aim. This is actually comparable to some of the proposals here - they would create collateral damage while failing to achieve what they ostensibly set out to, largely because what they're actually about (imposing one small group of people's idea of what is an is not acceptable on the entire encyclopaedia) and what they are presented as being about (improving Wikipedia's image, protecting children, etc) are not the same thing and neither are objectively definable.

In all the coverage I remember (and I was coincidentally reading some again last night) was there any significant criticism, internally or externally, of Wikipedia's not censored policy. Other than a small group of people wanting to impose their own standards of morality on (the world, Wikipedia, TV, etc), the principle of using images that are both of legal and encyclopaedic was widely upheld. It was the IWF who lost credibility and respectability in that affair, Wikipedia was widely seen as the good guy. So thank you for bringing it up, its a rather good illustration of the support NOTCENSORED has. Thryduulf (talk) 09:21, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The IWF got smacked down, hard, over the Virgin Killer affair, they looked like a bunch of latter-day Mary Whitehouses. That entire episode was a big win for remaining censorship free, Tarc (talk) 12:50, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The criticism of the IWF was based on the perceived incorrectness of their legal conclusion that the image was "child pornography", and their use of quasi-governmental authority to block it. To construe this as an endorsement of Wikipedia's editorial standards for itself (or lack thereof) is to assume the very issue being discussed here: whether, as "not censored" holds, legal force should be the only absolute restraint on controversial images. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 18:27, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Given the sheer number of times that the present "not censored" policy has been endorsed by the community and the lack of any single time when an attempt to change it has met with consensus, that there is no room for doubt about the status or appropriateness of the policy. Thryduulf (talk) 18:36, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. In practice, we state that our categorical "not censored," holds, but in reality, when there's an "offensive" image, more often than not it's replaced with no reason other than it's offensiveness. Hipocrite (talk) 18:48, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Then such removals should be reverted with reference to this policy - Wikipedia is not censored, and so attempts to censor it are counter to policy. Thryduulf (talk) 18:50, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

That's not what "censoring" means. If the consensus agrees a certain image, though illustrating the topic at hand, should not be used and it is removed, that is not censoring, that's editorial discretion. When we're doing it image-by-image, that's ok; its if someone argues that we should categorially remove all images of a certain type that that approaches what NOTCENSORED warns against. --MASEM (t) 18:57, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Masem is right. If you're trying to provide basic illustrations for Automobile, you should reject and remove images that contain nude women sprawled across the vehicles. NOTCENSORED is not a free pass for pushing a pro-nudity or pro-sex POV in images. Such an image might be useful in an article about the role of sexuality in marketing or about treating women as objects, but NOTCENSORED is not supposed to be a trump card that protects pictures that contain irrelevant offensive elements. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:44, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Just as a side note "But Wikipedia does try to educate the non-specialist sometimes. So, can you find any other notable general purpose English-language encyclopedia, either online or in print, which makes similar use of gruesome content, sexually explicit material, and nude photographs of minors?" the gruesome and sexually charged stuff may or not be useful for certain but if there are pictures you can prove as being minor's that are nude that could be addressed under the whole no child porn laws. Again you would have to have definitive proof it is a minor but if you have that it being removed should be really really simple since it violates a law wikipedia is required to follow. Tivanir2 (talk) 19:26, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Child nudity is not necessarily child pornography. Photographers such as David Hamilton have made a living by constantly pushing the boundaries in this area, and creating controversy. So, no, we cannot remove all nude images of minors from Wikipedia as illegal content. What we could do is follow NPOV. Exactly how many of the RS covering the IWF/Wikipedia debacle reprinted the "uncensored" album cover? Zilch. Even as they opposed the IWF's blocking of the image, the sources disendorsed Wikipedia's editorial standards by refusing to include the image in their coverage of the controversy. This provides useful guidance, if only we would heed it. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 21:59, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

While I agree with you that nudity != pornography, regardless of the age of the subject, you're overlooking a key aspect regarding coverage of the Virgin Killer album cover - copyright.

The album cover is not free content, and will remain under copyright for a goodly number of years yet, it is included on Wikipedia under US fair use rules - as our article is about the album that's perfectly allowable. The media coverage was about the actions of the IWF and its effect on Wikipedia, not about the album cover, so it's quite possible that use of the album cover in such articles in the USA would have been a breach of copyright (even if it wasn't it's likely that it wasn't thought worth the time to determine if it was or wasn't). UK law has no concept of "fair use", it does have fair dealing, but this is much stricter that fair use and would quite likely not allow such incidental illustration. I don't know enough about copyright law in other jurisdictions to know what the law is there, and just because it is legal to use fair use images that doesn't mean an organisation does (e.g. the Spanish and Swedish Wikipedias). All this of course only deals with the media that chose to illustrate the article full stop.
Looking at approximately 40 news article in English, French, Italian, German and Portuguese from a Google News Archive search for 2008 articles using the search Wikipedia and IWF, 4 four were illustrated with the Wikipedia logo and 1 each with the Wikimedia and IWF logos; 2 were illustrated with generic images related to censorship, and 3 were illustrated with generic computer/technology or internet images, the remainder (approximately 29) were not illustrated at all. None were illustrated with more than one image. Those that didn't include any images are irrelevant to determining image use. Of the 11 that did use images, the 3 using generic internet/computer images can be discounted as it's extremely likely that they wouldn't have used the image of an album cover to illustrate a similar article, regardless of what it showed. Of them the remaining 8 the 2 using the generic "censorship" graphics are making it explicitly clear that what they see as the key point of the story was censorship, not what was being censored. That leaves 6 that might have considered using the image (if legal in that jurisdiction, remember that the IWF believe(d) that it wasn't legal to host it in the UK, and that pesky thing called copyright), all are using the logo of the organisations involved - it's well established that there are no problems with fair use/fair dealing to include the logo of an organisation in a news article about that organisation, and so the logo is frequently used to illustrate any story about that organisation (particularly in business-focused media, of which at least one was, I'm not sure about the Portuguese one as I don't speak that language), regardless of what the story is - when the organisation has a very recognisable logo (which Wikipedia certainly does) this is often even more pronounced.
So from 40 articles we have 6 that might have considered using the album cover if it was legal - and we don't know the fair use/fair dealing, nor illustration policies that these organisations had in place three years ago. One of the purposes of newspaper images is to attract attention and familiar images do this very well, and the logo of one of the biggest websites in the world is considerably more recognisable than the cover art from a 40 year old album by a German rockgroup. In conclusion it's not possible to say from a sample size of somewhere between 0 and 6 (as we don't know how many did consider using the image) news media articles whether the editorial policies of an encyclopaedia were endorsed, rejected or not even considered.
This analysis took me about 45 minutes all told, and there were a hell of a lot more than 40 news articles, analyses, etc, written during the several days and since. Quite how your categorical statement that every news media organisation rejected our editorial stance on censorship looks distinctly like POV masquerading as fact. Thryduulf (talk) 23:44, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

You can certainly make excuses for why each and every reliable source reporting on a controversy over an album cover wouldn't want to reprint the cover, other than the obvious. However, the cover is hardly "incidental illustration" in articles about a conflict in which the legality of the cover was directly at issue. The elephant in the room is that RS are almost uniformly unwilling to print images of the type on the album cover. How is NPOV served by dealing in content that RS won't touch? Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 00:09, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

They aren't excuses at all. In that analysis there are some certainties, e.g. that articles that are not illustrated make not statement either for or against the image; some probables, e.g. that articles illustrated with a generic image did not consider using the image and so make no statement either way; and some unknowables, e.g. whether the six articles that used logos considered using the cover image. The key points are that rejecting the use of an image is not the same as not considering using it and that it is unknowable whether a source that didn't use an image rejected it or didn't consider it (did the source that used the Wikimedia logo reject the Wikipedia logo?). Legality is also a very tricky factor - without knowing the law of the place an article is published, the editorial policies and the focus of an article (one focusing on the characteristics of the image/article would have a much stronger case to use the image than one focusing on the effects of the proxy servers overloading). When dealing with print sources, you also need to consider space - for newspapers this means you need to consider the relative space allocated to the story (how many would have happily used the image if they has space for two pictures?). The website editions of some newspapers use identical content to the paper edition (including pictures) meaning that paper space considerations also apply here; others have different content (for example the Evening Standard paper sometimes contains articles not on the website and vice versa and even when the articles are in both places they're not always identical, particularly if a story is updated. In short - why an image was used or not used is unknowable. Thryduulf (talk) 00:54, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Let's apply Occam's razor to this situation, shall we? Which explanation is more parsimonious: that hundreds of editors of reliable sources have all decided to exclude the image for various idiosyncratic reasons, or that there's something about the image itself that they consider unprintable. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 04:29, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Try again, but this time actually listen to the reasoning not your preconceived ideas. I'm not saying that all editors have rejected this image for idiosyncratic reasons. I'll try and illustrate my points with examples that show they are not confined to this sort of image, here I'm using "unprintable" in the same sense you are - i.e. "unprintable for reasons of offensiveness, morality, taste or religion)

Some will not have used it because they consider it unprintable
Some will not have used it because it's not the most relevant to their article (e.g. 1: You have space for one photo in an article about a group that carried out a bomb attack, you have a choice of pictures of the bomb attack, the leader of the group or the group's logo. You choose the photo of the group leader - that doesn't mean you consider the bomb attack photo unprintable, just less relevant. e.g. 2: You have space for one photo in an article about contaminated fruit sales at a market, you choose a photo of the market stall, that doesn't mean you think the picture of a basket of fruit is unprintable, just less relant.)
Some will not have used it because they include no images at all (e.g. 1: you have space for no images in your article, so you use none. This doesn't mean you consider the bomb attack photo unprintable. e.g. 2: you are writing the article for a teletext service that cannot show images for technical reasons, this doesn't mean you find images of market traders or baskets of fruit unprintable)
Some will not have used it because copyright law or editorial policy doesn't permit them to use the image (e.g. 1: the law does not allow you to use the photograph, you don't think the story is worth risking a prosecution over, so you don't use the photo. This doesn't mean you think the photo is unprintable. e.g. 2: the market stall photo can only be used under fair use, your organisation's policy is never to use fair use photographs, and it's not worth losing your job over, so you don't use. That doesn't mean you find the photo of the market unprintable)
Some will not have used it because it's not legal to show it in their country. This not the case for the VK image in the USA, but national laws vary considerably in these sorts of areas, (e.g. 1: in your country it is illegal to publish photos of victims of crime without their consent, you don't know whether they gave consent or not, you decide the story isn't worth risking prosecution over, so you don't publish it. This implies nothing about whether you consider the photograph unprintable. e.g. 2: It's illegal in your country to print photographs of defendants before trial, and the story isn't worth contempt of court procedings, so you use the basket of fruit instead. That doesn't mean you think the market photo is unrpintable)
Some will not have used it because they weren't sure whether it was legal or not in their country - when publishing a newspaper you generally don't have much time to work these things out. (e.g. 1 and 2: in your country the law on copyright is complex and vague, the bombing and market stall photos are copyrighted by an organisation known to be strict about their copyright and far from averse to litigation. You can therefore only use photographs like this under certain conditions. You haven't got time to work out whether meets those conditions or not. You decide the story is not worth risking prosecution over, so you don't use it. This doesn't mean you think either photograph is unprintable.)
Some will not have used it because they illustrate every story about Wikipedia with the Wikipedia logo or a picture of Jimbo (e.g. 1: your organisation's editorial policy is that all stories about terrorism use a graphic that links together all the coverage of terrorism as the first or only image. There is only space for one image related to this story. The story isn't worth getting disciplined over, so you use the graphic. This doesn't mean you think the photo is unprintable. e.g. 2: This story is about the latest in a series of high profile prosecutions by the food standards body, so to quickly visually link it with those other stories you use the food standards body's logo, and the story isn't long enough to merit a second image. This doesn't mean the market image is unprintable in your opinion).
Some will not have used it because they thought that if they did their site would get blocked by the IWF (regardless of their opinion of the image) - something that would be disastrous for a commercial website. (e.g. 1: your country blocks images of violence, if you show this image it's possible that your site will be blocked, almost certainly losing it a lot of advertising revenue and market share and possibly putting it out of business. You decide the story isn't worth it and so don't show the image, regardless of the fact you disagree with the assessment - it's important to pick your battles but this doesn't mean you think the image unprintable. e.g. 2: The market stall happens to be in Cap D'Aged and incidental to the photograph there is a naked young woman buying fruit at the stall, her age is unclear. Images of naked children are sometimes blocked under your countries very strict child pornography laws. You decide that although your paper is a strong believer in the values of naturism that this story isn't worth any controversy, so you illustrate the article with a basket of fruit. This doesn't say you find the image unprintable).
Some will not have used it because they only had space for a small image and they didn't think the cover would be recognisable and/or meaningful at that resolution (e.g. 1: At the small size you cannot quite distinguish the salient parts of the image, and this would distract attention from the article and possibly harm your organisations reputation for very high printing quality, so you don't use the image. This doesn't mean it's unprintable in your opinion. e.g. 2: At the small size available, you cannot this market stall from any other so it's not worth paying the money to use the image. This does not mean you think it unprintable.)
Some will not have used it simply because they didn't think about it. (e.g. 1: The newspaper's staff photographer got several good images from a different angle, so other pictures weren't even considered. This doesn't indicate anything about the allegedly unprintable bomb image. e.g. 2: As this is a short snippet item of foreign news, you'll just use the country's flag as that's what you always do. You might not even be aware the market stall image exists, let alone have the opinion it is unprintable).

Some of these are rejections of the image, some aren't. Of those that are rejections, some are due to the nature of the image and some aren't. The point is it is completely unknowable why an image was used or not used. If all the sources we were discussing were uncensored, had no time pressure, were not constrained by the number or size of images they could use, and where the image was legal to host (and known to be legal), and none of them used it - then we could meaningfully say that it had been unanimously rejected for reasons relevant our project, but as we know not one of those factors to be true of every source (and some we know are not true to most or all of the sources) then we cannot infer anything relevant to us. Thryduulf (talk) 13:14, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

To be honest, I never got the fuss about Virgin Killer. If I can buy that record in record shops, and RS reviews have printed the cover, then there is no problem if we have the image. Tarc is right that it blew up in IWF's face. There's a write-up of it here. --J N 466 21:51, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Becoming more respectable would be a natural side effect of our following reliable sources, and a welcome one. But it is not actually the reason for following reliable sources. It's WP:NPOV. You simply don't know what you are talking about when you are wikilinking "we do not cater to what one group finds "respectable"" to WP:NPOV, AerobicFox. NPOV means being in line with respectable sources, and you obviously don't want to be in line with sources. Am I getting you wrong here? Are you prepared for our general approach to illustration to mirror that in reliable sources, yes or no? --J N 466 21:36, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

But NPOV is so boring. It's inherently conservative, requiring us to deal with the world as it is, according to RS, not how we would like it to be. It's just so much more fun to work to abolish shame over the human body :) Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 22:07, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I would answer "no",m myself. I see the attempt to link images to reliable sourcing as a bit of a red herring, and really, and attempt to do a backdoor removal of images that you do not like. Tarc (talk) 22:22, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

So what? If an editor removed text from an article because it was unreferenced, would it be acceptable to reinstate it on the grounds of the "not censored" policy, because the excised content happened to contain some particularly strong language? "You have bad motives for enforcing Wikipedia's content policies" is never a valid response to actions undertaken in compliance with WP:VER, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 23:47, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

If an editor removed text from an article because it was sourced to a picture diagram, or a movie, would that make sense? There is no need to remove sourced content just because it comes in a different format, be it picture, text, audio, etc, as long as the ideas/messages are the same.AerobicFox (talk) 00:09, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Text descriptions of images normally contain a large amount of ambiguity. If an RS described "John Doe" as "a thirty year old man with light skin, brown hair, blue eyes, a heavy-set build, freckles, and a moustache", anyone who uploaded an image containing their own artistic conception of "John Doe" would be pounced upon with charges of original research. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 00:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Your arguments are verging on the absurd as you create fanciful analogies to unreferenced text and such. The spirit of "we should have reliable sources that use images if we want to use images as well" seems sound at first, but its really just censorship via the backdoor rather than the front. If we take the Virgin Killer example, Amazon.com doesn't use the untouched original, nor allmusic, cduniverse. But it does exist, we can see by the extensive reliable sources in the article, so we use it since it is the original, which is preferred in our album articles. (Another case is Blind Faith|, though while most again use the alt image for that, [amazon does not) Going by this RS proposal, someone could make a case for the album cover's removal since many of the major record chains choose to self-censor. The Wikipedia is not bound by their self-censoring choices though, this the essence of "not censored"; freedom to do what others cannot. Tarc (talk) 01:55, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course, Tarc, you've just shot your own argument in the foot. As you point out, there are "extensive reliable sources [cited] in the article" which point to the VK cover image and others which point to the controversy over it, so that image is itself thoroughly based in wp:RS. How does this compare to an equally contentious image without any reliable sourcing tying it so closely to the topic? That being said, though, if someone wants to make a case that the VK image should be removed. why shouldn't they? Using a particular image is an editorial choice in a case like this (as you yourself say - "it is preferred in our album articles"), and we ought to be able to discuss the issue and make an appropriate choice without having to resort to draconian applications of policy. You shouldn't try to protect the project from censorship by brutally censoring every opinion you disagree with. --Ludwigs2 04:09, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course, any competent editor can see I did no such thing, as you missed the point completely. Reliable sources support the existence of the original album cover, but they do not use it. This proposal is centered on reliable sources' usage of images as a consideration for similar usage here. All I was pointing out regaridng the VK cover and sources is that they say it exists, that we didn't make it up, even though you cannot find it used in many, or any, popular discography websites. And no, anyone coming to that article talk page to try to get the album cover removed will be shutdown and blown off in a heartbeat. I have done so many times since that IWF debacle and will continue to do so personally. Trust me. Tarc (talk) 05:01, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Tarc, I'm sensing a pattern here: you only seem to work with one rule at a time. You get focused on NOTCENSORED and forget about NPOV; You get focused on the use of images in RS and forget about RS more broadly put. Does that strike you as competence? We have more than one guideline on project, and they are usually used together in a subtle and interrelated way, rather than fixating on one at a time and using it with rigid insistence. The VK image is useful for clear encyclopedic reasons laid out in reliable sources, so it hardly applies to our discussion here.

And yes, I recognize that you personally will continue to "shutdown and blown off" other editors with a fiery vengeance. I believe that makes you a serious problem for the project, and am sure that if you weren't as well-connected as you are that you would have been site-banned ages ago for harassment and incivility. You are what's wrong with Wikipedia, Tarc, and unfortunately you're not even capable of seeing it. But there's always hope for the future. --Ludwigs2 06:42, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

You interpretation of NPOV is fundamentally flawed, Ludwigs, particularly the "Accurately indicate the relative prominence of opposing views" part. Not every group of people who may be possibly offended by some image on the Wikipedia gets elevated to a position of "prominence". For example, the Western world's view, and the view of moderate secular Muslims, is that images of Muhammad are a-OK. The view of fundamentalist Muslims is that it is not OK. The two sides are not equal, and should not be treated equally within this project when deciding which images to use in the Muhammad article. You can hurl the "you're what's wrong with the Wikipedia" slurs all you like, but this is the prevailing opinion of the project. I understand your frustration at being on the proverbial end of the proverbial stick, but it is what it is. Tarc (talk) 13:24, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Tarc, you interpretation of standard English is flawed. The word offend has 2 meanings:

(transitive verb) to cause an individual to feel upset, annoyed, or resentful.
(intransitive verb) to violate a commonly accepted rule or principle.

You keep referring to the first (personal/emotional) use while I keep telling you that the problem is with the second (cultural/sociological) sense. I don't really care if you want to upset individuals endlessly; that's between you and whatever passes for your conscience. But violating the rules of a major religion without cause is problematic - it makes wikipedia look prejudiced. Plus, I sincerely doubt that your view is the prevailing view on project - at least, all I'm hearing here is you and about five other editors saying things that would give any normal wikipedia editor the willies, while plugging up the consensus discussion with bad logic and endless argumentative statements. But you keep thinking that if it makes you feel better; time and discussion will tell in the end. --Ludwigs2 14:30, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

My English is just fine, but your explanations are really distinction without a difference. If anything, cultural/sociological offense is even further down the scale of relevance here. Scientology doesn't like our coverage of Xenu and H-bombs, Muslims don't like us showing images of Muhammed, Mormons condemn our coverage of their magic undergarments and planet Kolob, and global warming denialists hate our treatment of them as...deniers. Too. Fucking. Bad. Minority points of view are not elevated to be alongside the mainstream points of view. We do not censor material because groups or cultures may be offended. Period. Tarc (talk) 15:01, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

But cultural/sociological issues are protected by NPOV in a way that individual offense is not. Any broadly-held cultural proscription is a worldview that needs to be balanced along with other worldviews - That doesn't mean we necessarily do anything about it, but we are required to consider it. As long as you could keep this focused on the offense of individuals you had a good smokescreen, but now that you are acknowledging that it's a sociological issue your argument simply doesn't hold in the face of NPOV.

In fact, it's becoming increasingly clear from your words that - far from trying to protect the encyclopedia from censorship - you are actively trying to censor cultural perspectives that you don't like. how ironic is that? --Ludwigs2 15:32, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Regarding "But cultural/sociological issues are protected by NPOV"...no, the absolutely are NOT. Religious, cultural, and social mores do not get preferential treatment in this project. We do not censor ourselves because certain groups own mores find such material offensive. It cannot be stated more plainly than that. It does not happen currently in this project, and despite your repeated deadhorse-beatings, it is extremely unlikely to ever happen in the future. Tarc (talk) 15:40, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Again, no one (except you) is talking about preferential treatment: NPOV says we must balance views according to their prominence, and the worldview of a billion+ people is certainly a prominent worldview. You are - again - trying to censor the project to conform with your own personal beliefs, and that is not acceptable.

With respect to the 'dead horse' issue: if you're feeling frustrated, then by all means feel free to to leave the discussion. If you honestly believe there is no possibility of change then you hardly need to keep saying it; continuing to repeat it in such strident tones makes it sound like you're worried about it, and trying to end the discussion before you own old nag gives up the ghost entirely. As far as I'm concerned this race isn't half over and our side's horse is still running strong. --Ludwigs2 16:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

The reason amazon et al. don't show the original cover of Virgin Killer is that the band themselves changed the cover, feeling embarrassed in hindsight. That doesn't change the fact that the cover was printed in countless reliable sources, and has been featured in reliable sources more recently, specifically in connection with the Wikipedia brouhaha. [1][2][3][4]. Vinyl sellers feature it too [5][6] as does Discogs [7][8]. A source-based "We mustn't show this" argument wouldn't fly. (At any rate, I'd be on your side if someone tried it on.) --J N 466 07:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Self-hatting for the sake of deescalation. Tarc (talk) 21:56, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Minority POVs do not get equal footing with mainstream POVs. I have dealt with ideological warriors on many topics here (along with their apologists, who may not necessarily share the belief but still advocate on their behalf, i.e. you), from Israel-Palestine to Obama/birthers to GW denialism, and the argument is always the same; NPOV means we treat all views the same. No, it does not. It means we treat points of view in proportion to their real-world proportions. You claiming that you're protecting the POV of "a billion Muslims" is extremely insulting and degrading. There is a gulf of opinion on the issues of Muhammad imagery within that "1 billion", and your drive to paint them all as fanatic protesters borders on bigotry, quite honestly. Tarc (talk) 16:41, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Tarc, you just lied about what I said (and I use the word 'lie' because you contradicted what I said it in the post immediately before this one), called me an apologist, and asserted that only fanatics would object to having their religious beliefs offended. You've effectively stepped over the line into full-fledged trolldom. Congratulations! --Ludwigs2 18:55, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Responding to one of the posts above. Please check out WP:Original Images:

Original images created by a Wikipedian are not considered original research, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments,

I already brought this up above, perhaps to another editor, but this policy should already be in your wiki vernacular. We are expressly allowed to produce content in a different media so long as the "ideas or arguments" are the same as the sources.AerobicFox (talk) 06:26, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

The issue is not about original images. The issue is about images (original or otherwise) presenting a topic in a manner than never has been used before in reliable sources on that topic in a manner that may push or act against a certain viewpoint. Despite there being lots of "naked bike ride" events across the country, we'd not use one to illustrate cycling since the sport is not presented in that fashion, though is appropriate on Clothing-optional bike ride. --MASEM (t) 14:26, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

You are using a logical fallacy here. NOTCENSORED doesn't mean NOTRELEVANT, and we're not arguing that it does. We don't use naked bike ride photos to illustrate cycling, not because of any censorship or potential offensiveness, but simply because they are not the most relevant or the most educational images to use. This is the same reason we don't use images of cars with models draped over them (clothed or otherwise) to illustrate articles on cars - the pictures without the models better illustrate the topic of the article and are thus the most encyclopaedic; that some people are offended by women draped over cars is irrelevant. Just as we have to make up our own mind what text is relevant to the subject, we have to make up our own mind which images are relevant. We do this with reference to reliable sources, but we don't slavishly follow what they do with text any more than we do with images. This is because we are subject to different constraints and serve a different market than they do. Thryduulf (talk) 14:54, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you, but I have play devils advocate to illustrate what the issue is. The NOR argue that comes from AerobicFox's comment is based on the fact that someone could point to NOTCENSORED to require an image of a naked bike ride in the cycling article because it is about cycling (a group of clothed bikers work just as well as a group naked bikers), so NOTRELEVANT is not an issue here. It's the fact that when the sport of cycling is discussed, they simply do not use images of naked riders to illustrate it; it is original research to presume they do - eg , this is a case I can fall back to sources to find out what they use and show the lack of nude riders in those sources. --MASEM (t) 15:15, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, now we're getting somewhere. You say, "simply because they are not the most relevant or the most educational images to use". I have made no other argument than precisely that. If we can agree that encyclopedic relevance should be informed by practices in reliable sources, rather than editors' own potentially skewed assessment of the encyclopedic relevance of "boobs" and the like, then this disagreement is over. --J N 466 12:29, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Encyclopaedic relevance is determined by a combination of many factors, the practices of reliable sources being just one. The relevance and relative weight of each factor (including the relevance and relative weight of each reliable source as a component of the relevance and relative weight of reliable sources as a whole) is different for every topic in every article. As I said earlier today (I think it's below) trying to legislate for every topic (and our only choices here are "every topic" or "no topic") is only going to make bad rules. As an example, the Wolrd Naked Bike Ride movement started in 2003-04 and since then nudity has been far more relevant to cycling than it was previously; thus the image choices of sources published before this date are going to hold less relevance than ones published afterwards. In comparison there was no similar significant change in the relevance of nudity to theatre in 2004, but there was in c.1969 (Oh! Calcutta!) - a date not significant to cycling. I haven't looked, but I suspect neither date was significant to the portrayal of images of Muhammed. There are many other factors to take into consideration just with sources, so short of a dissertation length policy, the only thing we can do (whilst maintaining NPOV) is to trust editors to make the appropriate decisions for each topic on the article talk page - which is exactly what we do with every other aspect of writing the encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 13:14, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry, but what you have written is an absurdity, on several counts. Firstly, we don't trust editors to make appropriate decisions when it comes to text. At all. We require them to cite sources for anything they wish to add. And I am really beginning to wonder whether you have actually grasped WP:NPOV, because the definition of the neutral point of view is 100% source-based. You can't say, "I will ignore sources, because they are irrelevant, but I will strive to give an NPOV presentation." It's a contradiction in terms. Please re-read WP:NPOV to understand what it means. --J N 466 14:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

JN466—choice of images is akin to choice of words with which to express oneself. There aren't going to be wrong or right words with which to express oneself. We choose our words according to our own guidance, which is complex. There does not have to be policy in place to rigidly control the words that we use when we are simply trying to articulate a thought which could be articulated by myriad other arrangements of the same words or different words. Similarly it is inadvisable to try to concoct policy language to rigidly control the imagery used in articles based on clunky and arbitrary criteria that in the present proposal are too vague to be realistically implemented, nor do I feel there would be wisdom in its implementation. Disagreements do arise over imagery and disagreements can be resolved on article Talk pages. The argument can be presented that one or more sources do not use the images (or the words) as presented by an editor that you disagree with. That is just an argument that may persuade some of your fellow editors. It has to be seen in the context of many arguments both for and against an inclusion of an image. Bus stop (talk) 15:13, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

JN466 - We absolutely do trust editors to make appropriate decisions about which text to include or not include, based on their judgement about a number of factors, including what is backed up by reliable sources. Just because something does not appear in every reliable source does not mean it doesn't go in to the article - we don't exclude information about an event in 2006 just because a source from 1953 doesn't mention it. We don't exclude information about one point of view because a book written from the opposing point of view ignores it. What we do is write our own words to convey factual statements that are backed up by relevant reliable sources - we don't consider the Bible a relevant source for statements on the life of Buddha so we ignore the fact that he's never mentioned there. We illustrate these factual statements with out own choice of images, guided partly by what relevant other sources show, but taking into account things like the balance and focus of our article and the focus, balance, restrictions and biases of the sources. If a source has a one paragraph mention of something our article focuses on, then the choice of illustration in that source is not very relevant to our image choice. If a source uses no pictures for anything, then it's not at all relevant to our image choice. If an image conveys something that is not backed up by the text, bring it up on the talk page and if a consensus of editors agree it will be removed, if a consensus of editors does not agree it will stay. If the consensus opinion doesn't support yours then accept that and move on. The more you go on about it in various random forums the less likely they are to see your opinions as persuasive - doubly so if you just keep reprhasing the same arguments without listening to the other side. Thryduulf (talk) 17:25, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

It is not "including what is backed up by reliable sources". RS coverage is a sine qua non. And you forget that NPOV requires presentation of significant minority viewpoints. You don't need every source to include a particular type of imagery. You just need some sources to include the imagery, and it becomes a significant minority viewpoint that has to be included. I don't care if it's just a minority of sexologists, or a minority of Muhammad biographies, or whatever, that include a particular type of imagery, while a whole bunch of others don't. The basic idea should be to reflect the range of illustrative approaches in reliable sources, appropriately. Cheers, --J N 466 08:13, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure I understand your position now, but to the extent that it's possible, "The basic idea should be to reflect the range of illustrative approaches in reliable sources" has some relevance. Obviously we cannot represent both illustrated and non-illustrated approaches, and we have to be aware of changes in technology and knowledge can impact how something is illustrated; for example Memristor was only a theoretical concept between invention in 1971 and production in 2008 and so could not have been illustrated photographically before then. A good example of changing knowledge is illustrated in some of our dinosaur articles, e.g. Iguanodon, where illustrations from different periods show different ideas of how it looked. I've explained also changes in weight due to events somewhere (possibly above) using the example of the World Naked Bike Ride changing the relevance of nudity to cycling. The technology available to printers, and the cost of printing, also play a role in how many and what type of illustrations a source shows. We need to take these things into account when assessing how relevant a source's choice of image to our own and thus how much weight it carriers. Thryduulf (talk) 10:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Thryduulf: You're sitting on a well-known human cognitive bias - the tendency to significantly over-estimate both the importance and frequency of rare events. You focus on the Naked Bike Ride - an event that happens maybe once a year - and ignore the 'clothedness' that is the day in and day out normal experience of everyone. You focus on a few lifelike images of Muhammad created for the aristocracy in the Persian and Ottoman empires, and ignore the overwhelmingly conventional use of stylized or abstract depictions. Yes, if you glue your eyes to the microscope so that all you can see is this one thing then obviously that one thing is going to look big and important to you. But that doesn't make it important.

You're beginning to make me think that I should start applying FRINGE here; that is the correct guideline when editors have a distorted perception of the balance given in sources, right? --Ludwigs2 15:33, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Eh? I'm not saying that the WNBR means that we should have a nude image for the lead of cycling. I'm saying that the topic of nude cycling is more significant now than it was previously (in relative terms of course), such that it might be appropriate to mention and illustrate in that article or subarticle of it (I'm not an editor there, I've not read the article recently, so I'm in no position to judge whether it would be or not). My point is that the choice of a WNBR source not to have any illustrations of naked cyclists cannot be taken to have the same relevance as a post-WNBR source choosing not to have an image of naked cyclists. As for Muhammed, I have not said any such thing - I have said that what images or are not chosen should be made with reference to things other than offensiveness. I've never been involved with the Muhammed article and I don't have an opinion what images should be used. What I care about is that editors should be free to choose the most encyclopaedically relevant images without being hamstrung by non-neutral censorship or imposition of one culture's POV. I fail to see how WP:FRINGE applies here, given we are talking in astract terms about general policy - not talking about what content should or should not be in any specific article. Thryduulf (talk) 16:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Thryduulf: I actually agree with what you've said in this paragraph, but I fear you're missing the subtleties of the situation. The problem I'm consistently running into is editors exaggerating the relevance and importance of images merely to force controversial images onto a page. let's take the WNBR example just as a hypothetical. let's say a handful of editors decided that they want to promote WNBR (for whatever reason - maybe they are avid naturists, maybe they just think it's a cool thing). So, they go to the cycling article and put in a tasteful WNBR image in the lead. Here's what happens from that point:

one or more people revert the image, on the grounds it's inappropriate;
the WNBR advocates revert (serial reverting, if needed) claiming that it's a perfectly reasonable bicycling picture.
talk page discussion ensues, with editors trying to explain that this is maybe not the best representation of cycling.
the WNBR advocates assert that the images are tasteful, so that all objections are merely prudish objections to nudity, and cite NOTCENSORED.
many, many pages of circular talk page discussion ensue, and a month or three (or six) later the issue is (maybe) resolved by RfC, with the WNBR advocates still claiming censorship if they lose the RfC

Do you see what happened? NOTCENSORED, which is supposed to be a tool for preventing advocacy, turns into a tool for enforcing it. In that particular case common sense would eventually win out - I can't see a nude image sticking in the lead of the cycling article - but the point is that NOTCENSORED is used solely to disrupt consensus discussion about the image. it's a cock-block maneuver where editors can hold off the obvious, simple, common-sensical result almost indefinitely simply by reducing all discussion to some question of 'being offended' and then dismissing it out of hand. All I've been asking for here is some limitations be placed on NOTCENSORED so that this cock-block tactic can't be used, because that only leads to wp:BATTLEGROUNDs.

I like NOTCENSORED - it's good policy when used well. but when it's used badly it makes talk pages worse than root canals. There has to be some room for debating the appropriateness of image choices, but so long as determined advocates are willing to reduce every question of appropriateness to some putative 'offense', discussion is impossible. That's not the way the project is supposed to work. --Ludwigs2 17:27, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

@Thryduulf — Firs of all I agree that it does not make sense to "neutrally balance" outdated, anatomically incorrect depictions of Iguanodon or T. Rex with state-of-the-art pictures reflecting current thinking. And you are right that our approach to illustration will often end up being a patchwork, just as our text has to balance opposing sources; our text does not look like either of the original sources, but becomes a synthesis of both. And again you are right in that we have to balance sources that avoid depicting something, say Muhammad or a sexual practice, against sources that do; we may have to balance sources using drawings against sources using photographs, etc. When sources avoiding illustrations and sources using them are both in our RS pool, I reckon we will always end up looking a little more like the sources including them, because if it's a significant viewpoint, represented by a significant proportion of reputable sources, inclusion of the viewpoint means we include the image that goes along with it. And if one half of the article has no image, and the other half has one, overall we will still have one image, just like the article that had one. I don't see a way around that. We'll just have less imagery per text unit, which is all the concession we can make to the sources not using imagery. But at any rate, if we do include a controversial image, we should be able to point to at least some sources out there that include such images. I am uncomfortable with breaking new ground, because that isn't how this project is set up to work. If we should turn out to be the first educational source ever to have shown an image like the autofellatio photograph, it makes me queasy. I feel more comfortable defending an image like that on the basis of NPOV if I know there is at least some sexologist source e.g. out there that shows such an image. --J N 466 22:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

This the essence of "not censored"; freedom to do what others cannot??? This is the essence of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR: the requirement to conform to reliable sources. This is no less the case for images than text; neither receive special permission for editors to undo the sources' censorship. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 04:29, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is. An online, non-profit encyclopedia is not a walmart or an amazon.com that has to keep itself PG in order to cater to paying customers. The Wikipedia does not have such concerns, no quotas to fill or bottom line to meet. We are free to provide information unfiltered by others' religious extremism or your conservative prudery. Tarc (talk) 05:01, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Accusing editors supporting image neutrality of being motivated by "conservative prudery" is no more helpful than ascribing militantly exhibitionist liberalism to proponents of "not censored". Now, I understanding that "not censored", as you construe it, involves taking leave of reliable sources to the extent deemed necessary to avoid endorsing their censorship. How are we to determine whether the sources are omitting information by way of censorship, or because of WP:FRINGEness? Hasn't "not censored" been defended hundreds of times on the basis that offensiveness is so subjective as to be editorially indeterminable? Yet, when information is absent from a reference, a conclusion that censorship is afoot requires a subjective evaluation of offence, and attributing this motive to the personnel responsible for the omission. Otherwise, the sources might simply be ignoring an extremely fringe POV. I imagine that users attempting to foist crackpot medical information upon Wikipedia will create pornographic videos in which to present their theories, then claim that RS have censored them :) Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 06:20, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I've invoked NOTCENSORED to deal with efforts to remove "offensive" text. (Usually, it's someone unhappy because deadly diseases are plainly labeled as having terrible prognoses because won't somebody think of the patients!) But I wouldn't be keeping such text if the sources didn't back it up, just like I wouldn't keep an "offensive" image if the sources didn't back it up. I really don't see any point behind distinguishing between the two. I'm not going to remove an "offensive" sentence that says people die from a deadly disease, because the sources support that content; I'm also not going to add an image of a gravestone to such articles, because the sources don't support that content. Why should I use a different process for evaluating material that is presented in text and material that is presented in a photograph? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:50, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Because Wikipedia is saving the world from evil censorship perpetrated by right-wing religious extremist prudes of course. Since these malefactors have stealthily established editorial control over all too many otherwise reliable sources, we should not be beholden to their benighted standards :) Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 04:38, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Alessandra: sarcasm of that sort doesn't really work when the people you're aiming it at actually believe exactly what you say. They'll just get confused: they won't understand why you're suddenly agreeing with them. just an FYI. --Ludwigs2 06:48, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I am able to speak with Alessandra and interpret big words just fine, L. Don't be a Butt-insky. Tarc (talk) 13:24, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's good to know that. However, if you want to have a private conversation with A, try email. otherwise I'm free to talk with either of you as I choose. --Ludwigs2 14:11, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

And I am equally free to put you in your place, for all to see. Tarc (talk) 15:01, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes Tarc, and that's precisely why I believe you represent what's wrong with Wikipedia. You personalize everything. You can't simply discuss the issues, you are compelled to attack everyone who disagrees with you. but whatever: you keep on trying to 'put me in my place'; it doesn't do anything except annoy me, and over the long run it makes you look like more and more of a chump, which only works in my favor. --Ludwigs2 15:17, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Hey a novel idea can we try WP:civil for a bit? Also I view this entire proposal as a way to either circumnavigate consensus or a way of saying that there is a wide-spread competence issue. Editors have been shown to be able to both discuss rationally at length whether certain images should be kept or removed, and instead we seek to tie the hands of contributers. If this was about gratuitously offensive imagery I wouldn't have an issue with it since we don't try for shock value, but it is about catering to peoples needs. I see it as three options 1. leave as is 2. change it if there are enough people (won't drawing those lines be fun) 3. sanitization of everything. With the options presented my personal view is that the acceptable option is 1, so I still say this is not a good plan. Tivanir2 (talk) 15:29, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I have been discussing the issues, Ludwigs. I believe it was you, very early in these discussions on both Muhammad/images and Jimbo's talk page, who characterized other you disagree with as barbaric cretins who are purposefully and intentionally displaying images offensive to Muslims for no purpose than to be offensive. Tarc (talk) 21:56, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

We have to draw lines with many, if not all of our policies, including WP:AT, WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:PT and so on and so forth. We draw a line when we decide if WP:3RR applies, and that's one of our most deterministic policies. The thing is there already is a line, there's no image of the burning US flag at United States for example, so all that we would be doing is acknowledging its existence and making sure its applied vaguely consistently. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:42, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Pretty sure burning a flag would fall under the whole free speech idea not the flag itself. Showing an image of something as it is being destroyed isn't exactly the best use of imagery. For example we wouldn't show a religious building in the process of being demolished, since it doesn't actually show the truly intended object. My only issue is that people want to move around other policies for the sole reason of something being objectionable. Hell I find a burning flag objectionable but if it was at free speech I wouldn't have a leg to stand on based on objectionable content. The only rationale being dismissed on a daily basis with the NOTCENSORED is based around individuals complaining about people's sensibilities. If they bring up any other reason to remove it (copyright, NPOV, FRINGE) they at least get some debate going. Tivanir2 (talk) 18:29, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

If the offensive image is required to have some value (as it would show how some people feel about the United States) we could stick a picture of the burning US flag in the foreign policy section.

And actually quite a lot of the arguments made here, for people like myself, aren't saying we should just follow people's sensitivities but we should follow our sources, which is how we work out what's WP:FRINGE.

If you believe in free speech no matter the cost it should be really easy to stand up and support a burning US flag for the foreign policy section of United States and so on to show that we aren't censored.

The only arguments against include such an image in United States are general offensiveness, whether the image is necessary, and what our sources do (although some reliable sources do use images of burning US flags), all of which have been criticised as arguments when applied to different images such as those with Mohammad and pregnancy.

Personally I think a burning US flag in United States is pointlessly controversial, but my position on the matter is consistent because I feel the same way about other images regardless of the culture or background of the people who feel other images are pointlessly controversial. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:40, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Still don't think it would hold, even in the foreign policy section. The U.S. foreign policies wouldn't be how it is perceived that would be other countries reactions to foreign policy which goes off on a tangent. The courts gave the right to burn a flag under free speech and unless I have missed that being changed it continues to be protected by the constitution. Besides I would be curious what images you would mark as "pointlessly controversial" since I am sure if I ask 10 people that question I will get 10 separate answers. The solution isn't to remove everything, it is to reach a consensus on whether or not images are necessary regardless if they are offensive. Working for removal of something for violating policy is comendable, working to change policy to make violations is pointless. Tivanir2 (talk) 20:03, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

There is certainly significantly more value in an image of a burning US flag than there is for the nude that was in the lead of pregnancy which no-one has managed to give even as much of a justification as I have given here.

With regards to working out which images are "pointlessly controversial" - well we can follow our sources - just like we do for titles which aren't explicitly about verification. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:49, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually I think the argument that the image would have value on the US page is flawed as the entire world doesn't burn the US flag. Are there places that do? Certainly but it is by no means a majority. Tivanir2 (talk) 18:48, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The same argument applies at Pregnancy and at Muhammad to remove the nude from the lead there, and to reduce the number of images of Muhammad's face respectively. Its great that we basically see eye-to-eye on this. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

We aren't going to reduce images of Muhammed in the article just because some Muslims don't like it, though. That is a reality that you really need to work on accepting. Tarc (talk) 18:57, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Quite possibly, but the argument Tivanir2 is using here is exactly the same as the one actually made to reduce the number of images in Muhammad.

I think following Islamic traditions in a similar way to the way we do at Jesus and Buddha for their religions respectively is a far more powerful argument than straight offence, which is the argument made here by Tivanir2 against including an image of a burning US flag at United States (a position that I note not a single person here is prepared to support). -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:52, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Interesting twist on my words but no that isn't what I meant. The problem we are facing isn't people wanting to lower the amount of images to fit the percentage of POV, it is to remove ALL images because they offend people. If the burning flag is decided to be kept on a country article it wouldn't upset me though I do think it would not provide much benefit (hell people burn the american flag for issues that america doesn't even weigh in on.) Also the key difference is that ALL pictures of muhammad would have to be removed to make people happy and the people fighting for their removal have essentially said "we need a comprise as long as you give me everything I want." Subsequent removal of all images to cater to a specific groups views is censorship. If the majority of editors agreed the burning flag was helpful to illustrate the US article I wouldn't be railing against offense since it is a valuable contribution regardless of offense. 132.3.53.68 (talk) 22:04, 30 November 2011 (UTC) Apologies for unsigned comment wikipedia decided it was a good time to log me off. Tivanir2 (talk) 22:08, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not concise.

Just sayin'. -— Isarra (talk) 07:35, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Even more so on talk pages.

ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 09:34, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah. unfortunately, if we don't find a way to solve this kind of nonsense, we're eventually going to have to write a new section title 'Wikipedia is Not Relevant'. --Ludwigs2 22:13, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I hope that was a descriptive observation rather than a prescriptive guideline proposal. patsw (talk) 22:23, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

@Ludwig's that would require people to be prepared to solve problems logically and take a step back - most people seem to be unable to do so - welcome to the human condition. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:26, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Taking potshots at other editors is never going to get your point across. It certainly has not made myself more amenable to your positions.AerobicFox (talk) 22:57, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not taking potshots at anyone, just going with my experience of life in general - including on Wikipedia - but not in any way aimed at this discussion. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:08, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I'll take your word for it that you were not referring to discussions between you and Ludwig and other editors above. I would advise you exercise more awareness with your posts though as it is reasonable to assume other editors may make that interpretation considering the location of both your two's posts right beneath the above discussion.AerobicFox (talk) 23:18, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Well at least there is an attempt at being concise on the articles. It is the debates on what things should be like that lack a succint quality. Tivanir2 (talk) 23:26, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I apologise for any indication that it applied specifically for this discussion - you are right it was probably unwise to mention. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:48, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

No problem, I apologize for initially assuming otherwise.AerobicFox (talk) 00:51, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

How to end this so we can all move on?

I've been trying to think of a way to get some sort of closure to this discussion (there have been over 1200 revisions to this page this month, nearly as in the whole of 2010 [9]), and it's clear that the "discussion" is just going round in circles with no new arguments being presented.

I don't see anything that raises to the level of ArbCom
I suspect a user conduct RfC would result in more IDHT, and Ludwigs isn't the only user who hasn't stopped beating the dead horse
I can't see many admins wanting to take the time necessary to read through everything that's being said, and I'm not confident that a closure of that sort would be heard either.
Mediation has been explicitly rejected for being of no benefit in a situation like this.
Walking away would be nice, but I suspect that would be seen as a victory for tendentious editing.

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to proceed? Thryduulf (talk) 23:48, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

You seem to have exhausted the options. The problem is that there's an utter failure of reason and communication on this page. Either we get people to pay attention to reason and communicate honestly (which isn't likely to happen at this point), or we refer it to someone else. Given the scope of this problem, maybe we should try a novel approach. get the two sides to independently create revised versions of the NOTCENSORED passage (the other side can use the current one if they like), along with rationalizations for why it's needed, and then toss it up for a system-wide RfC (not just a standard policy RfC, which would only gather the people already here, but one of those 'everybody's invited' banners that gets thrown up on everyone's page).

either that, or we could ask for binding mediation - I believe there's a provision for that through ArbCom, separate from the normal behavioral cases? --Ludwigs2 00:32, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I'll predict how this will end. Folks trying to get this change over the objections of the community will finally be topic banned. I give it 2 months. ICANTHEARTHAT has rarely been matched in terms of raw character count. Hobit (talk) 00:39, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

charming, typical, but ultimately unhelpful. --Ludwigs2 00:47, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Arbcom isn't going to be one sided, Arbcom will come down on anyone who refuses to engage in some form of dispute resolution and who also refuses to walk away.

You guys (on both sides) can decide either to engage in dispute resolution, or walk away or suffer the consequences at Arbcom. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 01:01, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Then perhaps you and Ludwigs should start walking? This is a settled issue as far as most people here are concerned, there nothing for Arbcom to do over feelings being hurt over a failed RfC proposal. We have lengthy discussions here on the matter, there's nothing else to do. Tarc (talk) 01:06, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to walk away until the discussion is taken to some sort of dispute resolution. Denying that some form of dispute resolution is appropriate will simply be used as evidence against you.

60% is nowhere near enough to justify no further dispute resolution without significantly higher levels of evidence presented and even then some form of compromise would almost certainly be required. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 01:09, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Eraserhead: why don't we just open the mediation case? I'd be fine with that. most likely people will refuse to participate, but then at least it's on record that they refused to participate. --Ludwigs2 01:15, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I would rather wait for this RFC to be formally closed, or at least a few days - that will also give everyone an opportunity to calm down. But if someone else opens a case in the meantime I won't reject it. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 01:20, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Um, it actually was meant to be productive. I'll try again. I only see three possible outcomes: A) consensus changes B) you all give up on trying to make the change (at least for a while) or C) you all get topic banned. Ludwigs, could you let us know what needs to happen before you accept that you aren't going to get a change here and so stop trying? Hobit (talk) 01:16, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Hobit: I've told people that multiple times. I'll give in the moment someone offers a convincing reason why the position I'm advancing is improper, incorrect, or unworkable. I respond to reason, but never to nonsense. I don't have any interest in threats, warnings, dire predictions, unfounded claims of consensus, personal insults, declamations of fact, insinuations about my character or motivations, or any of the other silliness that makes up the bulk of what people say to me. Is that sufficient? And please, no more prognosticating, unless you're enjoying the role of Cassandra. --Ludwigs2 03:56, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

We have already explained why what you're advancing is improper, incorrect, or unworkable. Whether you accept it or not is not something that anyone here is terribly concerned with. Tarc (talk) 04:05, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Tarc, no offense, but the reasoning you've offered is so unconvincing that it's almost not worth talking about. To be convinced of your view, the way you've expressed it, I would have to believe that all religion is fundamentalism, and that all circumspection is prudishness. That wouldn't convince a child. You're welcome to try again, but you don't seem to want to. Now, if all you're going to do is sit there and try troll me… --Ludwigs2 04:49, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

What part of "not...terribly concerned with" did you find confusing? Not a single bit that I have ever posted here was an effort to convince you of anything, as that isn't what we're here for. From this point forward, we're continuing on with the status quo of not-censored policy. You have failed to sway an appreciable number of editors with your position. What you, individually, feel about what I have to say is irrelevant. Tarc (talk) 05:19, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Tarc, ridiculous. So far as I can tell, no one elected you Lord and Master of this policy, and your continued efforts to claim that title are (frankly) boring. Why don't you go somewhere and wait until you have something meaningful to say, rather than pompously asserting that everything is going to happen just the way you want it to. yeesh… --Ludwigs2 06:23, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

For me it will involve some form of serious dispute resolution. The Muhammad issue has been problematic since at least I raised it (briefly) over a year ago, if not significantly longer.

If it goes to some form of serious mediation and I don't get my way that's not a big issue as far as I'm concerned. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 01:20, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Could you clarify? TI don't think this going to be able to go to mediation--too many folks involved to get everyone to agree to start. So ArbCom or bust or is there something else you'd accept? Ludwigs, how about you? Hobit (talk) 01:37, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Arbcom won't take the case until there is a serious attempt to resolve the matter without them. Until we have attempted to follow through with some other form of serious dispute resolution that point hasn't been reached.

If people refuse to either walk away or engage with formal mediation (or another serious form of dispute resolution) then that will be a really simple piece of evidence that can be used against them at the then inevitable Arbcom case. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 01:57, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

When Ludwig says "...there's an utter failure of reason and communication on this page", he is obviously talking about those he disagrees with. Surely it's a personal attack. HiLo48 (talk) 01:05, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

If you think this is an issue raise it at Mediation and/or Arbcom. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 01:09, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Part of the problem I think is that we aren't asking what the question is: there are sides that want to fight over how NOTCENSORED is written and should be taken to pursue their personal ideals on WP. I think we need to first state what is the goal. Is it to end endless disputes over images used in articles? Is it to find the right clarity in policy? Or what. Until we know what we're asking, its hard to end the dispute because we have no end goal.
We also need to remember that that Foundation has said their statement along these lines, and thus that's a line we can't cross. That likely needs to be a starting point and not an end point to try to match. --MASEM (t) 01:15, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Which is why limiting the scope to the two main troublesome articles, pregnancy and Muhammad will help a lot - then it won't be a full policy discussion as anything decided there can be done under WP:IAR if needed. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 01:20, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to try, but DR is for content disputes. This is a disagreement over the application of existing policy, which no DR venue will overturn, or really even be willing to try to, IMO. A centralized RfC is really your last gasp of a chance. Tarc (talk) 01:21, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Taking the two most controversial articles to mediation is not an attempt to change policy as it's well within the scope of WP:IAR. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 01:27, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't really see that as a proposal made in good-faith, then, to take two of your pet peeves to mediation as some sort of trial balloon. We already held an RfC on Muhammad/images this past month, I don't recall if ever got the formalized "this is an RfC" banner atop of it, but for all intents and purposes a very wide-ranging discussion was held over the last 4-5 weeks that amounts to the same thing. And the same thing was found there as we have seen here; no support for image removal based on the vague sensibilities of some Muslims in the world. I've never been to the Pregnancy article and really have no horse in that race, you can do wit that what you like. But either way that goes, it can't be brought back here to try to force changes upon WP:NOT in the general sense. Tarc (talk) 01:39, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

There has been no shortage of discussion related to those two articles either. As with here, those hoping to change policy to suit their personal POVs have failed to gain consensus. Reso lute 01:42, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Masem, as I see it, this dispute breaks down into the following sub-disputes:

criteria of censorship: When is a proposed change to a controversial image a more-or-less normal editing activity and when does it represent censorship?
content-value of imagery: How to determine the importance of an image to article content?
editorial vs. readers' preferences: When do editorial preferences trump the established cultural preferences of our readership? (note that the obvious answer is 'when they need to', but the criteria for 'needing to' are hotly disputed).

ultimately what we come down to an absolutist vs moderate split on all three points: editors on one side claiming that there are no criteria, there's only censorship, importance and need, while the other side takes a more nuanced view in which discussion of these issues is possible. does that help any? --Ludwigs2 01:41, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

@Resolute, that there has been no shortage of discussion is precisely why escalation is appropriate.

@Tarc, if you've made any attempt to follow what I've done on the project you cannot seriously argue this is a pet peeve, I bought it up at Muhammad over a year ago and walked away because I didn't care to pursue it. That it's still a significant unresolved issue makes taking it to some form of dispute resolution entirely appropriate.

Above strong arguments are presented in favour of your position - e.g. what the Met has done for their exhibition, it doesn't mean that some form of dispute resolution isn't appropriate. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 01:51, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Sure, there is some discussion... but I see 77 comments currently on this page made by the individual pushing this. The horse's carcass has been beaten so badly that he's just bashing the dried blood on the ground at this point. Will going to other forms of DR succeed? I doubt it. Personally, I don't see the point of mediation over a failed proposal just because a couple editors won't drop the stick. ArbCom? Ludwigs already tried that and was told that they don't handle content disputes. And the last time they tried changing policy by fiat, it generated a holy row. The only thing they can touch is behavioural, and really, that's not the best solution for Ludwigs, unless he desires to go out a martyr. Reso lute 02:04, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

"Unless he desires to go out a martyr." He might just be wanting exactly that.[10] Thryduulf (talk) 03:14, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

While I'm sure I've made more comments than I should (probably ~50 from a brief search) I'm perfectly happy to go along with the result of serious dispute resolution - whatever it is. If Ludwigs doesn't go along with the result of dispute resolution then he will be blocked and/or topic banned. I see no evidence so far that he won't abide by the result - he's been far more positive on dispute resolution than the majority of others who have commented in these latest sections. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 02:08, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

What form of DR are you looking for and why? When a proposal fails, it fails. You can try again if it seems like it was a wording problem or something. But in this case, there isn't anything to mediate that I can see. We do changes like this via RfC, and that has failed to create a change. I just don't see this as something mediation can solve--too many parties (all at the RfC) and not even anything to mediate over. Just a "this policy should change" and "no it shouldn't". How do you mediate that? I think the only next step is ArbCom, but I hear that's already been rejected (by ArbCom). I think the only next step is to drop it. Could you clarify exactly what you're looking for and find a venue that would be willing to take this with A) so many folks, B) no agreement by all involved to be involved and C) a proposed change in policy as the locus of the dispute? Hobit (talk) 02:53, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

The arbitration request was about the image choice in the Pregnancy and Mohammed articles, and was framed in such a way that strongly characterised it as a content dispute (see [11]). The user conduct and other issues surrounding the RfC on this page have not been the subject of a request (to my knowledge). Thryduulf (talk) 03:11, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't object to mediation on the grounds of fearing I'll be found in the wrong or something like that. I object to it because it's not what mediation is for. Mediation is for behavioural disputes between a small number of editors, this is a dispute over two things (1) does Ludwigs2's interpretation of the WP:NOTCENSORED policy have consensus support from the community; and (2) does the proposed change to the WP:NOTCENSORED policy have consensus? All a mediator could do in this circumstance is say "yes" or "no" to these questions, and that is explicitly outside the remit, "MedCom will not arbitrate or adjudicate a dispute". Thryduulf (talk) 03:05, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

well, this isn't doing us all that much good; mediation would be a change of pace, at least...--Ludwigs2 04:51, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm just curious Ludwig. Would anything make you give up? HiLo48 (talk) 05:26, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I answered that already, a few lines before this. and right back at you: would anything make you give up? I've seen no sign of that so far. --Ludwigs2 06:26, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

No, probably not, but I'm on the side of the status quo, so I have less to prove. With you being the one seeking change, the onus is on you to present a strong case with good will. Leaping around the legalities of Wikipedia is stretching the boundaries of good will. HiLo48 (talk) 06:41, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

@Thryduulf, you aren't really quoting the mediation committees remit. They obviously will not force the issue and will only facilitate discussion - quite rightly. And if certain users don't cooperate then the process won't succeed. However a refusal to cooperate with a serious attempt to resolve this issue (in the scope of Muhammad alone I think at this point, adding pregnancy is too much for one case - and that will need escalating separately) is a conduct issue which can be addressed by the arbitration committee. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:46, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

". I think we need to first state what is the goal. Is it to end endless disputes over images used in articles? Is it to find the right clarity in policy? Or what. Until we know what we're asking, its hard to end the dispute because we have no end goal."
Here are the reasons from those supporting this:
"Any substantive change to the policy would shift the playing field." Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 03:46, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
"This would shift the burden: Editors who want to use the images need to show that the images add enough value to the article to offset the detrimental side-effects of using them."--Ludwigs2 21:53, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
etc, etc. Editors here have come in trying to change policy to be able to be more successful in their talk page disputes because they feel WP:NOTCENSORED is too much of a roadblock to overcome to remove irrelevant offensive images. Since it is currently clearly explained in Wikipedia:Offensive material and elsewhere not to do this I can only imagine that these editors here have also tried to remove images based off their being offensive, failed to convince other editors, and now want a policy which makes some sort of condemnation of offensive material instead of allowing it and instructing the discussion to focus on relevancy. If you really want to keep escalating this campaign against offensive material then I won't stop you, but I predict you will be unsuccessful and that you may start self-imploding at some point if you don't just learn to get along with and have productive discussions with other editors.AerobicFox (talk) 07:51, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I want to go to formal mediation (though I probably could be persuaded that informal mediation is better) to resolve the content dispute around the images in pregnancy and Muhammad. We've used 100k words on this topic on this page alone and ~600k words at Talk:Muhammad. The dispute on Muhammad has been going on for 4 years.

If the discussion has been going on basically continually for 4 years the rules aren't as important. Far more important is to produce some sort of result that everyone can live with.

It very frequently comes up that people say that hard cases don't make policy. This is definitely a hard case. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:21, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

On the Muhammad article, this so-called content dispute is pretty much one or two users constantly swimming upstream against a consensus that has been solidly against them for four years. They have forum shopped it to at least a half dozen places, and failed every time. And while I am sure you mean well Eraserhead, I suspect everyone else is more than a little tired of the tendentious behaviour of said editor(s). You may think it useful to go to yet another forum to try and push that case, but personally, I think it is just a further waste of everyone's time. Time that would be far better spent building an encyclopedia. Reso lute 14:53, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I think Resolute hit a very important head right on the nail with this. I suspect that any further attempts at this will be most definitely seen as forum shopping - and that won't go well. In all honesty, with well over a half dozen attempts in just recent times, I'm impressed that nothing else has come of this yet. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 18:00, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Escalation through the dispute resolution process is how you resolve difficult problems. This is one. Escalation through Wikipedia's dispute resolution process isn't forum shopping. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:30, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

It can be when the same issue has been discussed in several places already after the arguments keep getting rejected. The only problem is that a small handful of editors refuse to acknowledge WP:IDHT and WP:DEADHORSE apply to them. Thryduulf (talk) 20:49, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

And such will continue[12] with an effort to group together a force to overturn community consensus and policy. Except, I predict those who had reasonings that were so arbitrarily in violation of policy will now work harder to hide those reasons behind rather inventive uses of policies - as we've seen from one or two earlier. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 21:03, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, that's looking like an attempt to game the system by creating an activist group. It would be deleted as such if it were in Wikipedia or userspace, but on user talk I don't know what can be done. AN/I? Thryduulf (talk) 21:23, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Horsehockey. Organization of editors according to wikipolitical POVs is a time-honored practice. Consider Wikipedia:WikiProject Inclusion, Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion, Wikipedia:WikiProject Rational Skepticism, Wikipedia:WikiProject Paranormal, and so on. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 21:42, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Correct, except in this point, when some motion to change or ignore policy is proposed, it can be pointed out that the support garnered was through canvassing those with only one specific POV. It's a big difference when one specifically targets certain articles. So, have fun with it. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 21:54, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Firstly I don't really see why a discussion on a user's talk page has to follow WP:CANVASS.
Secondly if it wasn't there I would have asked for a wider audience to be consulted.
Thirdly its an attempt to introduce greater structure.
Fourthly with regards to repeated discussions over and over have the majority of discussions been closed by an administrator as "not done"? If not stop complaining, its perfectly legitimate as long as the discussions are productive. "No consensus" and "not done" aren't the same outcome. Stop making the same point when it has been explained as false over and over. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:23, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Ending this, fo realz

Getting back to the original question, option #5 ("Walking away...") at this point is really the only viable one. Several editors have made proposals, all of which seem to have failed to attract much support. Short of trying to edit war their suggestions in, there's nothing that is going to change within WP:NOT at this time.

Motion to close? Tarc (talk) 06:48, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I would second a motion to close.AerobicFox (talk) 07:51, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

If you want to get an uninvolved administrator to close the RFC that sounds sensible. This doesn't mean that I don't think we need some form of formal mediation over the specific and limited topic of Pregnancy and Muhammad. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:21, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't see non-binding ~~medication~~ mediation as helpful; there are enough parties that someone would object. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:13, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Given the whole problem is editors refusing to accept consensus then non-binding mediation is likely to be as much use as a chocolate teapot is for serving freshly brewed tea. Thryduulf (talk) 09:25, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

*I strongly disagree... I've eaten chocolate teapots (and chocolate bunnies and chocolate eggs), and I happen to enjoy them. I'd thus posit they are of greater use. ;-) ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 15:48, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Good point, I have clarified my statement. I agree with your opinion regarding the value of chocolate as a food product (as long as it hasn't got orange in it). Thryduulf (talk) 15:56, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Then we can see who those editors are, if they exist and enact sanctions on them - just like with every other content dispute. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 09:58, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Mediation isn't about enacting sanctions. Only a community discussion at somewhere like WP:AN/I or the ArbCom can do that. Mediation is about facilitating discussion to bring about consensus. There is consensus against your views and proposals here, I believe from what others have said there is similar consensus at the relevant article talk pages, mediation cannot overturn a consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 12:21, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Mediation will make it blindly obvious who those editors are though, and then Arbcom can sanction them. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:29, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I think this is part of the problem. You are seeing this as a discussion about what specific images are or are not appropriate for those articles, it isn't though. It's a discussion about the project-wide policy that applies to every article and every image on those articles, where some editors have used Pregnancy and Muhammad as two examples to illustrate their point. I've not been involved with those articles, but as I understand it your views about what should be there have been rejected. You have since come here to try and get an end-run around that consensus having failed in the attempt to do so via the arbcom. If I read other comments correctly then it has also been rejected at WP:AN/I. Now (or actually about a week ago at least) you can add to that list a failure here as well - your arguments have been rejected.

If you want to go to (in)formal mediation about the images used on a specific article, you need to convince the editors on the talk pages of those articles that it is needed. However, if, as is apparently so, there is a clear consensus rejecting your opinions then mediation wont help you even if you do manage to convince others to get there and have the case accepted (It's more likely than an RfC about this page, but still not likely as there has been discussion productive enough to reach a consensus, even if you don't like the result). We, the editors here, can not (note this is not 'will not') agree to mediation about the content of those articles. Thryduulf (talk) 09:25, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

My ideas have only been rejected here if the discussion is closed as "not done" if it is closed as "no consensus" which seems likely that doesn't mean my ideas have been rejected.

A large portion of this discussion isn't really about the general case - its about the specific cases I have mentioned and getting them out the way means we can have a far more sensible general case discussion.

FWIW the reason this case was rejected by the arbitration committee, where I first got involved, is because they don't handle content disputes - and only handle conduct disputes. So far this has been a content dispute, and thus the mediation committee is the appropriate venue. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 09:58, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of whether the discussion here was focused on general cases, specific cases or the general case illustrated by specific examples, this page does not have the power to make any changes to the content of an article, only the talk pages of those articles or pages explicitly purposed for and linked from the article/talk page (e.g. an AfD or a WikiProject) can do that. Thryduulf (talk) 12:21, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

If we achieve a result and change something in the policy it does as per WP:POLICY... -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:18, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

No. If by some miracle you get the policy change you are asking for, you would be able to go back to the article talk pages and say that "The policy has changed, these images should therefore not be here". If other editors agree with you that the images aren't compliant with the new policy, then the images will be changed when there is agreement on what should replace them. If the consensus of editors do not agree that the images are prohibited by the new policy, then the images will remain. Thryduulf (talk) 20:36, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

If there's no consensus for changing WP:NOT, why should editors who oppose changing it engage in mediation when the purpose of mediation would be to contemplate a change? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 10:10, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

You could make the same argument about any content dispute.

There are several reasons why they'd want to get involved. Firstly to be able to stop talking about it continually, and secondly because refusing to engage in sensible amounts of dispute resolution is disruptive. This discussion at ~100k words alone is long enough to justify some sort of mediation, let alone the ~600k words at Talk:Muhammad.

Of note I have no intention of using mediation to change the policy, just to sort out the two most controversial applications which will clear the air in this discussion. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 10:45, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

The problem with "walking away" is that Ludwigs2 has shown a tendency in the past to wear down his opposition and then declare consensus when he is the only one left in the room.—Kww(talk) 11:09, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

And then when he applies or references this consensus elsewhere the whole cycle starts again. Thryduulf (talk) 12:21, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I think we've gone far enough this time that another cycle won't be allowed to begin. That's when you hit up AN/I with solid evidence. Tarc (talk) 14:11, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

If you actually want to achieve results you don't go to ANI if you've already been there and achieved nothing. If you haven't done anything wrong dealing with an arbitration case isn't a big deal. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:45, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Don't lecture me, eraser, I am well aware of how Arbcom and AN/I work. The point of going back to AN/I is if any of the editors on the short end of the stick here attempt to go forward from, this point either by edit-warring or starting up yet another RfC. If either of those happen, we go back to AN/I and say "look what has happened since we were here last time". Arbcom isn't necessary for any of this IMO. Tarc (talk) 21:57, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

If this RFC is closed as "no-consensus", as I'd expect, there are no editors at the "short end of the stick".

You can argue that editors on both sides have over-argued the point (how else do you get to 100k words in a month?), but it takes two to tango so its not really plausible that only editors on one side of the discussion have over-argued the case. If both sides have over-agrued the case then the most helpful next step would be to add additional structure to the debate. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 12:35, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Umm "no consensus" in an RfC isn't a tie; it means that the proposal failed to carry the day. That's a clear side of a stick. Second, your logic is fatally flawed. Speaking up in support of the status quo cannot be "over-arguing". If we stay silent, then the Ludwigs' of the debate just take that as silent consent and plow forward. We have had a simple point counter-point going on here, and as long as the "point" keeps trucking along, the "counter" is more than justified. Tarc (talk) 15:59, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course no consensus means the proposal failed to carry the day, as the status quo has to have an advantage to it. However challenging a no-consensus result is a perfectly reasonable thing to do if you bring a better worded and productive proposal to the table. Its perfectly reasonable to try and reach a consensus - either positive or negative.

And you don't have to reply to every point anyone makes. Given you only need no-consensus to "win" you can certainly agree to disagree at any reasonable stage. You could certainly have agreed to disagree after the first 3-4-5 points. Additionally if an editor is only making literally the same points you can link back to the previous discussion.

The only good reason for continuing to respond to someone's points over and over and over is because you think they are strong and different points and are worth countering. And you can't complain about that - that isn't a conduct issue. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:36, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't fully agree. It doesn't help to continue to respond to the same points with the same counterarguments, but it may help to continue to point out that ~~L----~~ the editor's points are the same points in different phrasing. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:59, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

~~I suggest that we agree to disagree, in its details its a subtle issue :). -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:09, 27 November 2011 (UTC)~~ On re-reading I agree. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:49, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I have asked a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests#Tendenitious editing on discussion pages about whether a case based around a semi-hypothetical situation like we find ourselves in currently is potentially within their remit. Please do not continue this discussion, present evidence of your conduct, characterise the situation as you see it, object to anything about how I've described it, etc. there. It is explicitly not a request for arbitration or judgement of any sort, it's a question about whether a request to the arbcom would likely be rejected as out of their remit or not - if they think it is outside their remit then there is no point any of us spending time on collating evidence, making statements, etc. as it would all be wasted. Even if they do decide it is in their purview there is no guarantee or obligation for there to be a request nor that if a request is made that it would be accepted. If there is a request (and subsequent case) then everybody can have their say and present their side of the story. Thryduulf (talk) 12:43, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

As I commented there, I think one of the admin notice boards is a better next step if the behavior continues. I see no reason for Arbcom to get involved at this time as the community hasn't yet tried to fix the problem. Hobit (talk) 19:28, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
- I agree with that, it was more to get an idea of where we could go ultimately if it comes to that (I hope it doesn't) - if we know arbcom is or is not an option it might affect the way it is viewed at AN. Thryduulf (talk) 19:32, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
  - If the issue is truly a refusal of a small number of editors to accept consensus then mediation is hardly going to produce a significant compromise over the current position and those editors conduct will become apparent and can be dealt with either at mediation or at the arbitration committee.
  - If the issue is truly one of conduct I am still going to file the mediation request, but then it becomes much easier for the arbitration committee to take the case if that fails, as there is no alternative, and they will be able to address those conduct issues and lock down the images one way or another (probably by straw poll) as they did over Ireland's article titles.
  - At 600,000 words and given what has been said here I think its extremely unlikely that any process before the mediation committee or arbcom will achieve results here - lets try and end this. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:27, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
    - Banning L2 would achieve results, as most of the 600,000 words are his. I don't see anything else that is likely to achieve results, but — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arthur Rubin (talk • contribs)
      - Sorry if I give you an edit conflict but that isn't really true. While L2 is the #4 contributor overall he has only been contributing since March 2011, which a) means he's made a lot of edits to the page recently, and maybe significantly more than other editors, but b) this has been an issue at some level since December 2007 and the half million words (or whatever it is) covers that whole period. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:11, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I think we should be giving the discussion on this page a rest. It's been essentially the same relatively small group of editors who have been debating this, and while some useful ideas have been voiced, perhaps now is a time for reflection and digestion. Mediation is not an option -- the 10 editors or so who were mainly involved here don't represent a quorum to change policy anyway, so even if those 10 editors could be led to an agreement in mediation, it would be meaningless, as policy requires wider community input. Let's all take a breather, and let this page return to some semblance of normality. --J N 466 21:49, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
- For clarity the mediation suggested here was to apply to Muhammad and/or pregnancy as I think taking the difficult cases out of the discussion means that the discussion here is more likely to be productive. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:18, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I think, given the various past image discussions/consensus prior to this discussion on NOT, we are not ever going to be able to come up with a wording that collaborates every past image discussion, beyond "WP is not censored, but the option of using controversial images may be set by consensus on a case-by-case, article-by-article basis." I think we can all agree on that point.
From that there are only two other points I would think we can agree on as well to include in NOTCENSORED or other pages:

That image choice should be guided by (but not set by) what sources for that topic use. Note that I would prefer the stronger idea of "set by" but I understand the concerns that others have said that sources may not always publish images. Still, however, I think any discussion on the relevance of a potentially objectionable image should start with a survey of the literature to see if that can be immediately justified or not. Looking at the sources just needs to be mentioned in NOTCENSORED, but we can't require that aspect.
That there is one unique case for image selection that being the lead image, since this is unavoidable when you land on that page. The lead image should use common sense discretion if the topic uses a mix of objectionable and non-objectionable imagery to use the least objectionable as the lead, simply to avoid shock on arriving at a page. After the lead, it's fair game: the reader has the ability to understand from the text that there's potentially offensive content on the page and can choose to ignore it or not after that, but not when they click a blue-link to go to the page in the first place. This again doesn't mean the lead image can't be objectionable if by the very nature of the topic it will be that case: eg: I have no idea what else you could use to provide a lead image for any article on human genitalia, for example, that won't involve a naked body part at some point, photographed or drawn.

I believe that everyone can agree these general principles hold true, but we aren't going to be able to get any stronger or more objective points that some might prefer. It might be worthwhile to have a noticeboard for objectable content that can attract more eyes to help boost the decision to use or avoid certain images all together. --MASEM (t) 16:46, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

No, I can't agree to that because it's setting up "offensive" images as somehow different to "inoffensive" images. Offensiveness is irrelevant to image choice and image placement - we use the most appropriate image for the circumstances, and that will be different for every single article.

Setting up a special noticeboard for offensive images is one of the worst suggestions on this page as it will become a POV-pushers paradise and possibly bogged down in irrelevant discussions about whether an image is offensive enough to be on that page. There is also likely to be drama elsewhere when a group of users take an image they can't agree about, but which none of them find offensive, to a general noticeboard whereupon they get trouted by someone for polluting the general board with images they think are offensive. Where consensus cannot be reached on an article talk page about an image, then the standard RfC process should be used regardless of what the image shows - whether it is offensive is irrelevant remember.

As for the "image choice should be guided by other sources", as I explained above the relevance of other sources to our image choice policy varies so much by subject matter that anything stronger than "can be guided by" is going to be severely detrimental to the project, particularly as there is not actually a problem in >99.999% of the encyclopaedia (as of this timestamp 0.001% of "all content pages" is 38.1 articles, and so still probably too high). Thryduulf (talk) 17:34, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

In the context of NOTCENSORED, we are clearly focused on potentially offensive or objectionable images. If someone comes here to read what our NOTCENSORED policy is, we are explaining that objectionable images should be discussed for inclusion, there is no objective metric to consider (outside of legal requirements in US/Florida). If this were on another page, like our MOS on Image use, that may be another thing altogether, but here, we specifically advising on what images commonly come up under NOTCENSORED.

Right now, the isolated discussions at specific articles are POV-laiden, because only people interested in those topics are giving their input. The images used in these articles need to meet global consensus for appropriateness, and thus the idea of a global image discussion board would be helpful towards that. And yes, I do agree that the first step on an image choice problem should be at the article talk page, but when no consensus can be reached, the image board could be used. This also may be helpful if/when the Foundation adds that image tagging/filter aspect to help decide on categories so that's forward thinking on that.

We use "guided by sources" throughout other policy pages (core of NPOV and NOR), and as I state, it's meant as a starting point, not a final determination. If consensus of editors agree that an image type that no source uses is best for WP, then there you go, we use that image. The point is that sources shouldn't be ignored as input into the consensus discussion. --MASEM (t) 18:03, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I get what you are proposing, but frankly, I think such a noticeboard would only serve as a form of dispute enhancement. While you envision it as a place to go if no consensus can be reached, I would suggest history has shown that most noticeboards get used when someone doesn't get their way. The last thing Wikipedia needs is yet another bureaucratic battleground. Besides, we already have WP:NPOV/N. Reso lute 18:18, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

If the idea of a noticeboard is going to be that much of a problem (I think most experience editors know when things are being CANVASSed and and put a stop them them), we should still encourage editors to seek outside opinion via RFC, it would be helping to have such listed somewhere in a central place and possibly with a conclusion of their results so that further issues can be determined by looking back at past conclusions. --MASEM (t) 18:28, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Masem—you say, "We use "guided by sources" throughout other policy pages (core of NPOV and NOR), and as I state, it's meant as a starting point, not a final determination."

Actually I don't find "guided by sources" on either WP:NPOV or WP:NOR. Bus stop (talk) 18:37, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

First sentences of the body of both policies state this but not in those exact words. --MASEM (t) 18:42, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Outside of one paragraph in WP:DUE which applies to over-emphasizing minority views there is nothing in NPOV that pertains to images. One could argue items such as naming (not really relevant for this discussion), balance (largely an extension of DUE) might apply. However, none of that deals with whether an image is offensive or not and does not concern itself with technical reasons for why an image isn't present. A minority view does not in any way seem to be linked to offensiveness or not and I think trying to wrap NPOV over that is a huge stretch of that 1 statement. Really it seems if anything NPOV has specifically sidestepped images as best it can rather than deal with them.∞陣内 Jinnai 23:01, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Just because NPOV doesn't say anything about images doesn't mean it doesn't apply. I could create a graph for an article (a free image) based on freely available data putting together a correlation without causation (number of chicken eaten in the US by year verses pirate attacks), insert it in an article to justify a fringe data point, and then say "well NPOV doesn't apply to images, you can't remove it!" and then be completely laughed off the site. In a similar manner, when we choose to include an image that we know well-enough is controversial, we should be asking if we are creating that controversy ourselves on the image, or is it already an established issue and thus a factor we can ignore and thus appropriate in NPOV coverage. Basically, I think it's more the case that NPOV has never been approached about the idea of images because it doesn't come up. But again, the only reason I point to NPOV and NOR is that elsewhere in policy there are several places that we follow the sources to construct our articles, so extending that concept to images is not a novel approach. But like these other policies that follow the sources, it is not a strict adherence, allowing for IAR/consensus-based periods for stepping away from sources when it is clearly warranted. --MASEM (t) 23:18, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

First off, your assertion on the data chart of chickens and pirate attacks wouldn't be covered by NPOV; it would be covered by NOR as you'd be asserting the two are linked; that's synthesis. Therefore that analogy is a false comparison to say a depiction of nude or semi-nude photo in pregnancy.

Let's assume though you found some source out there which Wikipedia generally considered reliable to back up your statement (and its not a case of CIRCULAR). Before the image is even considered, you'd first have to assert the prose is not FRINGE. If you can assert that its not a fringe theory to enough editors, then adding a chart to depict this will not have any issues because that's a logical extension of that...unless you try to rig the graph in some unusual way to emphasize something. However that would not be an issue that the idea of a graph is invalid, just your graph is invalid. So similarly while a specific depiction of a nude image may be in question because of of a POV it portrays, that there is a nude image does not come into play as far as NPOV is concerned. If there is a nude image in of a model posing for car, that is already covered by NOTCENSORED as a shock image. In pregnancy article, one example of a NPOV image concern could be whether the image(s) show(s) what most people consider a pregnant woman to look like without representation to what month she is in or perhaps only has an image from one trimester. That is a legitimate NPOV concern for an image as it could give a biased impression of what pregnancy is. Another might be chosing a women who have larger swelling of the stomache than the average person. That the image is nude or not is not an NPOV issue.∞陣内 Jinnai 23:43, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I think Masem's point is that it would be covered under NPOV, for exactly the same reason that it would be covered under FRINGE. FRINGE is an expansion of DUE. Nothing is covered by FRINGE that isn't also covered by DUE.

I disagree that nude images are always neutral.

Some nude images are inherently biased: We have an undisputed encyclopedic need for a nude image of an adult female at Human body. We do not, however, need a porn still at that article, or a woman posing in high heels, or a woman reclining on an unmade bed. These are not neutral, unbiased representations of the female body, and despite the fact that we have thousands of them on Commons, we're not using any of them, and (almost) nobody thinks that NOTCENSORED would or should protect such an image.
Sometimes the choice of a nude image is inherently biased: We do not have a need for naked people in the articles on Swimming, Swimming pools, or Beach. A snapshot of naked people going swimming is not a "shock image", and they are unremarkable in Naturism and Nude swimming. But if you added nude images to Swimming, you would very likely be accused of trying to push a pro-nudist POV. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:11, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

On the other hand, given that at least partial nudity on beaches is common and even uncontroversial throughout much of the world, going out of our way to remove an image from beach that contained nudity, just because it contained nudity, could also open one to accusations of pushing a POV. postdlf (talk) 02:40, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
- Postdlf, that misses the point. Swimming is not about nudity or even about the human body. Swimming is about swimming. Adding images of nude or topless swimmers doesn't tell us anything at all about swimming, it just distracts the reader with an unnecessary and provocative image. --Ludwigs2 03:46, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

And those two posts highlight the basic issue here. One describes nudity on some beaches as common and uncontroversial. The next says that images from such scenes would be provocative. We are a diverse community. HiLo48 (talk) 04:07, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Which is why (as I've been saying all along) we should only be provocative where we have a good, clear encyclopedic reason to be. I have no problem with being provocative in fair measure, but there does need to be some moment of measurement to it. Otherwise we end up as a Yellow press encyclopedia. --Ludwigs2 04:13, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Indeed its no different than the Mohammad issue. It's one set of culture's acceptable norms trying to push its POV on another.∞陣内 Jinnai 04:15, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh dear yes, Ludwig. I highlighted that we had two diametrically opposed views being presented, and you proceeded as if the ONLY possible view was the one you saw. Many of us do not see nudity on a beach where that is the norm as provocative in the slightest. Can you please try to accommodate that view in your world? HiLo48 (talk) 05:06, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, HiLo, we all know that naturists exist, and we all know that they hold distinctly FRINGEy views about whether nudity should be considered "provocative" in any everyday context.

But the fact that this minority group exists doesn't mean that the naturists get to promote their nudity-is-normal POV in contexts where it is completely irrelevant (e.g., a naked person standing next to a car, in an article about vehicles) or uncommon (e.g., in an article about beaches, since the vast majority of beaches in the world are not places where nudity is the norm and the vast majority of reliable sources about beaches do not include nude images). There is no encyclopedic purpose behind including nudity in such contexts, and there is an obvious POV behind the desire to promote nude images in such articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:22, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Right, but NOTCENSORED means that a proper frame for discussion about whether the nude image is included is whether it represents a neutral point of view, NOT whether it is potentially offensive or provocative. To me the question would be, what portion of beaches have the nudity illustrated by the photo. If it was a minority less then say 20%, adding an image that highlights the nudity would clearly not represent a neutral POV in light of the other photo selections and level of discussion about the nudity topic in text. All NOTCENSORED is meant to do is to stop the discussion from being about the offensiveness and make it about whether the image is otherwise suitable, which in this case, in Beach, as currently written and illustrated, I think it would not be. Monty ₈₄₅ 18:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Look, if it makes you feel better to cast it that way, fine, but in truth you're just dissembling. The reason why there are relatively few clothes-optional areas in the world is that most people respect the fact that there is a social more involved. So, the small proportion of beaches that allow nudity (the NPOV argument) is a fair reflection of the fact that nudity runs against the standards of almost all cultures in the world, and so we are right back at the issue of offending against cultural norms. As I've said before, failing to distinguish between the individual experience of offense (which is emotional state irrelevant on project) and offense against broadly held standards (which is not an emotional state, but the violation of a cultural regularity) leads to endless confusion. --Ludwigs2 23:01, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a diary?

Maybe it would be useful to include something like: WP is NOTDIARY? I have just tagged several tennisplayer articles for being overdetailed, e.g. Andy Murray , but the problem also exists in other sports articles. Their career or season chapters includes so much trivia details that the articles become all but unreadable. Virtually every opponent they faced during the season gets mentioned, often including the score of the match. Sometimes even complaint about slow courts after loss of a match, or little injuries, and other daily trivia things like that. Hence the article become like a diary, and editors (not rarely fans) just go on adding to it week after week. MakeSense64 (talk) 10:47, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

This seems like a combination of WP:NOTNEWS and WP:NOTSTATSBOOK. If so then I'd say it's covered already, although you may want to add at WP:NOTDIARY shortcut to one of those sections. Thryduulf (talk) 12:26, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't know I can edit on this page. I did mention WP:NOTNEWS on the wikiproject Tennis, but I think NOTDIARY would be more clear for some members who are too eager to add any daily news about their favorite sports star. MakeSense64 (talk) 12:50, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, thought this section was WP is not a dairy. Jheald (talk) 17:11, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

It certainly feels like it is at times! Thryduulf (talk) 17:24, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

On October 11, someone added a fact.
On November 22, another fact was added
On December 5, Resolute lost his mind over these inane additions.

This is an unfortunate byproduct of being the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It is good in a way as it shows potential new editors how easy it is to make a difference on an article. But, it takes a serious and committed writer to clean up the prose and remove the trivial additions. Reso lute 02:09, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a learning or teaching tool

I propose we add this subsequent to conversations taking place both via email and here [13]. Lots of students have began editing and we need to make it clear to the WMF that students are not here primarily to learn but to improve Wikipedia. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:08, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from but I think the idea is flawed. We have encouraged this type of program before as long as the net result is still of benefit to WP (we are getting new and improved articles), and the students benefit by learning how to do proper research and cite material. So it's not that we aren't a learning tool, but that's not our primary focus. I think the aspects covered by that conversation fall more under the existing WP:NOTWEBHOST. --MASEM (t) 00:56, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Surely, Wikipedia is a learning tool (?). And if there is learning, there must be teaching also. --FormerIP (talk) 00:58, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia is one of many tools available these days for both teaching and learning. Sure, it doesn't look like a traditional teacher, but it still plays a role. HiLo48 (talk) 01:03, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Call Guiness, but HiLo and I agree here. ;-)---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 01:29, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

What's meant is "Wikipedia is not an institutional learning and teaching tool". I agree with this. Yes, people learn, but it's not a tool for students to earn academic credit. See bottom of this talkpage. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 01:34, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Agree with the above sentiments. WP is for everyone, and we ought not to make special adaptations for one segment of the population. Of course, schools and universities are places where "becoming a Wikipediaholic" can and needs to be encouraged. Teachers and students are welcome to help shape how we do things generally, but otherwise need to work within our parameters. Having said that, I take no view on how a given professor chooses to publicly measure participation effort; I would trust him/her to put subtler evaluation methods in place and keep track of the quality of participation. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:05, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

To Seb az86556, we're not here to help professors set a circirculum for education, but they are certainly free to make an assignment about editing Wikipedia within our standards and practices. As long as what is being done towards their academic scores is not disrupting WP, we're completely fine with that. --MASEM (t) 02:13, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and I hope you also agree that we ought not to have to suffer grad students (or any other students for that matter) making 'experimental' posts here to satisfy what xhe may consider part of his/her assignment. We already have enough visitors making changes simply because they can. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:16, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

My only point with this was that we need to keep everyone encyclopedia focused and this focus should not be lost. Yes Wikipedia can and has been used with great benefit as part of classroom assignments and if these are a benefit to the encyclopedia they should be encouraged / supported.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:56, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not adapted specifically for use in classes. I don't think you really meant to be that hilariously cynical as the heading, did you? B^e——C_ritical 21:00, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

What is the difference between being "educational" which is central to the concept of an encyclopedia, and being a "learning or teaching tool"? I can understand an editor's frustration when students, as part of a class project, substitute in their "revised versions" of articles full of misconceptions and poor grammar. But that happens without class projects as well. Education is not the problem, but is the solution. --Bejnar (talk) 22:02, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

the problem with conscript editors is that their focus is hitting the grading criteria not improving the articles - I've been involved in a few of those recently and it's a bit of a car-crash, they stick in copy-vios, they constantly revert to their shitty versions - anything to make sure they hit the word count they need to hit. --Cameron Scott (talk) 22:40, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information

Since the RfC seemed to have a consensus that incidental material should not be protected, I would like to add to WP:INDISCRIMINATE.

Collect of incidental material. While Wikipedia tries to be an exhaustive source of information, including text, images, audio and video, for each topic, information that has only marginal relevance to an article may be removed. Just because certain information may be deemed incidental for one article, such as a broad-topic article, does not mean it is incidental for another, such as a spin off article that covers a section of a broad-topic in more detail. Not every detail of a subject needs some kind of representation.

There is nothing I can find on the current page that states this. If someone can show me where it is already, please do so. I know there is NPOV, but that can be hard to completely remove certain material unless its WP:FRINGE standards and the info may not be violating NPOV, such as a diagram.∞陣内 Jinnai 19:57, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Err, I don't think there is any possible way you can claim that RFC revealed a consensus that "incidental material should not be protected". Reso lute 20:05, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the RfC even revealed a workable definition of "incidental material". --FormerIP (talk) 20:09, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

There doesn't need to be a workable one. We don't have workable definitions for a number of Wikipedian terms that are used by policies and guidelines. A lot of them are done on a case-by-case basis. This just makes it clear you can't cite WP:NOTCENSORED to defend incidental material which i do believe the RfC did achieve consensus for.∞陣内 Jinnai 20:15, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

If you think the RFC came to a consensus get an uninvolved administrator to close it. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:19, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

We already have WP:IMAGES#Pertinence_and_encyclopedic_nature. What would this proposal add except an apparently different - though unclear - standard and a great deal of potential for confusion? --FormerIP (talk) 20:21, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

It looks like a bid to create a first-mover advantage - changing the onus from the person who makes the WP:BOLD removal to gain support for their position per WP:BRD to one where people who wish to restore the status quo have to try and generate a new consensus. Beyond that, it is unnecessary policy creep. Even by his own argument - we don't need such a policy addition. Issues can be, and are, discussed on a case-by-case basis. That is how it should be. Reso lute 20:34, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

No, it sure did not achieve consensus. At best it was no consensus, leaning toward the opposing viewpoint. As such, I oppose your proposal. Reso lute 20:21, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I could have sworn sometime in the last 3 years, Jimmy Wales and the Foundation issued some statement that effectively said something to this end, leading to a purge of (basically) naked photographs from Commons that lacked immediate use within any project. If this did happen, there's no need for this statement, since that would apply to en.wiki too. --MASEM (t) 20:35, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

You're only half mistaken. Jimbo did go and clear out a bunch of images, causing a massive furor in the process. Such that, I believe, he no longer makes administrative actions on Commons. The result was Commons:Sexual content, a proposed policy that has twice failed to gain consensus. So no, there was no foundation action, and no, that action does not apply to en.wiki. Reso lute 20:44, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I knew there was something but could not immediately recall the fallout, so doesn't apply. --MASEM (t) 20:51, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Oppose This would be a field day for edit warring to remove content that at least one editor thinks is "incidental". WP:INDISCRIMINATE is already widely cited in matters completely unrelated to and unsupported by its actual text; it doesn't need a nudge in that direction. Jclemens (talk) 02:39, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
Oppose, we don't need something that contradicts WP:BRD. Thryduulf (talk) 11:58, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
weak Oppose I personally don't disagree with what is proposed to be said per se, I just don't think it needs to be here, mainly for the reasons Jclemens has stated. Hobit (talk) 02:43, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't much care one way or the other. It's basically a summary of WP:DUE in three sentences. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:54, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

The path to Wikipedia policy fundamentalism -- a case study

What did WP:NOT say about Wikipedia and censorship at the end of each year? Let's see. Text that first appears in a year is green. Text that last appears in a year is red. Text that only appears in one year is blue.

2000
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Nothing. WP:NOT was started in September 2001. [14]

2001–2003
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Nothing.

2004

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Wikipedia is not censored for the 'protection of minors' (content-rated). Firstly, anyone can edit an article and the results are displayed instantaneously, so we cannot guarantee that a child will see or read nothing objectionable. Secondly, Wikipedia has no organized system for the removal of material that might be thought likely to harm minors. However, articles can be, and are, censored by consensus.

2005

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors

Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive. Anyone reading Wikipedia can edit an article and the changes are displayed instantaneously without any checking to ensure appropriateness, so Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images are appropriate for children or adhere to specific social norms. While obviously inappropriate content (such as inappropriate links to shock sites) is usually removed immediately, except from an article directly concerning the content (such as the article about pornography), some articles may include objectionable text, images, or links, provided they do not violate any of our existing policies (especially Neutral point of view), nor the law of the state of Florida in the United States, where the servers are hosted.

2006

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Wikipedia is not censored

Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive. Anyone reading Wikipedia can edit an article and the changes are displayed instantaneously without any checking to ensure appropriateness, so Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images are tasteful to all users or adhere to specific social or religious norms or requirements. While obviously inappropriate content (such as an irrelevant link to a shock site) is usually removed immediately, some articles may include objectionable text, images, or links if they are relevant to the content (such as the article about pornography) and provided they do not violate any of our existing policies (especially Neutral point of view), nor the law of the U.S. state of Florida, where Wikipedia's servers are hosted.

2007

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Wikipedia is not censored

Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive. Anyone reading Wikipedia can edit an article and the changes are displayed instantaneously without any checking to ensure appropriateness, so Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images are tasteful to all users or adhere to specific social or religious norms or requirements. While obviously inappropriate content (such as an irrelevant link to a shock site) is usually removed immediately, or content that is judged to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy can be removed, some articles may include objectionable text, images, or links if they are relevant to the content (such as the articles about the penis and pornography) and do not violate any of our existing policies (especially neutral point of view), nor the law of the U.S. state of Florida, where Wikipedia's servers are hosted.

2008

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Wikipedia is not censored

Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer). Anyone can edit an article, and changes made are displayed immediately, so Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms.

Obviously inappropriate content (such as an irrelevant link to a shock site, or clear vandalism) is usually removed quickly. Content that is judged to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy, or that violates other Wikipedia policies (especially neutral point of view) or the laws of the U.S. state of Florida where Wikipedia's servers are hosted, will also be removed. However, some articles may include objectionable text, images, or links where they are relevant to the content (such as the articles about the penis or masturbation). Discussion of potentially objectionable content should not focus on its offensiveness, but on whether it is appropriate to include in a given article. Beyond that, "being objectionable" is generally not sufficient grounds for removal of content.

In particular, when a cited quotation contains words that may be offensive, it should not be censored.

2009

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Wikipedia is not censored

Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer). Anyone can edit an article, and changes made are displayed immediately, so Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms.

Obviously inappropriate content (such as an irrelevant link to a shock site, or clear vandalism) is usually removed quickly. Content that is judged to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy, or that violates other Wikipedia policies (especially neutral point of view) or the laws of the U.S. state of Florida where Wikipedia's servers are hosted, will also be removed. However, some articles may include text, images, or links which some people may find objectionable, when these materials are relevant to the content. Discussion of potentially objectionable content should not focus on its offensiveness but on whether it is appropriate to include in a given article. Beyond that, "being objectionable" is generally not sufficient grounds for removal of content.

Words and images that would be considered offensive, profane, or obscene by typical Wikipedia readers should be used if and only if their omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternatives are available—however, when a cited quotation contains words that may be offensive, it should not be censored.

2010

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Wikipedia is not censored

Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer). Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms.

Since anyone can edit an article and most changes made are displayed immediately, inappropriate material may appear before it can be removed. Obviously inappropriate content (such as an irrelevant link to a shock site, or clear vandalism) is usually removed quickly. Content that is judged to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy, or that violates other Wikipedia policies (especially neutral point of view) or the laws of the U.S. state of Florida where Wikipedia's servers are hosted, will also be removed.

However, some articles may include text, images, or links which some people may find objectionable, when these materials are relevant to the content. Discussion of potentially objectionable content should not focus on its offensiveness but on whether it is appropriate to include in a given article. Beyond that, "being objectionable" is generally not sufficient grounds for removal of content.

Nor will Wikipedia remove content because the internal bylaws of some organizations forbid that information to be displayed online. Any rules that forbid members of a given organization, fraternity, or religion to show a name or image do not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a member of those organizations.

2011

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Wikipedia is not censored

Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer). Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms.

Since anyone can edit an article and most changes made are displayed immediately, inappropriate material may appear before it can be removed. Content which is obviously inappropriate (such as an irrelevant link to a shock site, or clear vandalism) is usually removed quickly. Content that is judged to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy, or that violates other Wikipedia policies (especially neutral point of view) or the laws of the U.S. state of Florida where Wikipedia's main servers are hosted, will also be removed.

However, some articles may include text, images, or links which some people may find objectionable, when these materials are relevant to the content. Discussion of potentially objectionable content should not focus on its offensiveness but on whether it is appropriate to include in a given article. Beyond that, "being objectionable" is generally not sufficient grounds for removal or inclusion of content.

Wikipedia will not remove content because of the internal bylaws of some organizations that forbid information about the organization to be displayed online. Any rules that forbid members of a given organization, fraternity, or religion to show a name or image do not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a member of those organizations.

Hans Adler 21:47, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Observations

The idea that Wikipedia is not censored first came to WP:NOT in 2004. In that year, this was strictly about the fact that Wikipedia is not a protected environment for children. "[A]rticles can be, and are, censored by consensus."
In 2005, this is (to a limited extent) generalised to any material that violates specific social norms. It is pointed out that on some articles such material is relevant. The governing rules are NPOV and the laws of Florida.
New in 2007: BLP concerns as a new reason for immediate removal.
From 2008, we apparently no longer guarantee that material violates general social norms, either. Discussions about offensive material should not focus on the offensiveness. [According to fundamentalists, this means that offensiveness must not even be considered.]
Only in 2009: "[Offensive material] should be used if and only if their omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternatives are available". [According to a fundamentalist reading, this implies that offensive material is not subject to normal editorial decisions. If it makes the article slightly more informative, slightly more relevant or slightly more accurate, then mere policies such as NPOV cannot kick it out.]
New in 2010: Rules specific to an "organization, fraternity, or religion" do not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a member. [According to fundamentalists, this means that we may not even consider these rules in our content decisions.]

The changing role of NPOV is particularly interesting:

2005: "[...] some articles may include objectionable [material] provided [it does] not violate any of our existing policies (especially Neutral point of view), nor the law [...]"
2011: "Content that is judged to violate [BLP], or that violates other Wikipedia policies (especially neutral point of view) or the laws [...] will also be removed"

So in 2005, offensive material could only be included if it did not violate NPOV or the law. In 2011, offensive material can only be removed if it does violate BLP, NPOV or the law. (This is the simplistic and incorrect, but widespread interpretation.) Moreover, the relevant passage has now been buried in a wall of text. Hans Adler 21:47, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Application

What started 7 years ago as an explanation why children should not surf Wikipedia alone, has since become the single most powerful tool of POV pushers. The reminder that we do censor articles, by consensus and policy, was quickly removed. Whenever a sufficient number of editors want to hurt the feelings of a large group of readers they don't like, they can do so using the following strategy:

Pick an article that is important to many in the target group. (Recently notable examples: Muhammad for Muslims, pregnancy for socially conservative people.)
Add an image or images to the article that will offend the target group. (Figural depictions of Muhammad or nudity.)
Claim that the image[s] make[s] the article slightly more "informative, relevant, or accurate".
- When others deny this, just contradict them. Instead of giving evidence, claim that they just want to censor the image[s] because they are offended.
- When others agree but say that another image is better for other reasons, just contradict them and follow the same strategy. Or propose using both images.
- When others agree but want to move an image to a less prominent position where it is even more informative and relevant, change the topic by resorting to ad hominem attacks or procedural disruption.
- When others agree in principle but say that the value is very marginal and must be weighed against its offensiveness to a large number of readers, deny that such weighting is legitimate.
Do not even try to convince your opponents. If you clearly don't listen to them, they will get more and more angry and retaliate against your personal attacks. They may even appear more disruptive than you. (This is basically a variant of the "civil POV pushing" method.) Remember that your goal is not a consensus to include the material (unattainable because it is against NPOV) but no consensus.
If you ever find yourself in a corner and a consensus against you is about to form, claim that you have won and that everybody except for one or two disruptive editors agrees with you. This changes the topic elegantly by taking the discussion to a meta-level and prevents any consensus very effectively.
Make sure to always restore the disputed comment if someone removes it (unless Jimbo or an arbitrator removes it, in which case it's probably game over).
- If the offensive material has been in the article for a while: The "long-standing version" is privileged. In conjunction with vague invocations of "NOTCENSORED" and a bit of ruthlessness your side will win every edit war.

A necessary condition for this method to work is, of course, that the target group is sufficiently unpopular. Hans Adler 21:47, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

First we don't go out of our way to offend people per WP:Offensive materials and once again you layer a bad faith argument against the people involved. In any biography the individual EXPECTS to see an image of the person that is being discussed be it on religious proscription or not. Hell there are pictures in the Xenu article and I am fairly certain no one even attempts to claim those are going to be accurate since it is suppose to be a lifeform no one has seen. This has nothing to do with a group being popular or unpopular this has everything to do with censorship. Like I said I don't like the idea of seeing a burning flag of any nation let alone my own but if it is in the free speech area I can't say a damn thing because my entire argument would be about offense. Plenty of groups are offended every day, similar to the idea that portions of the world are most likely offended by images of women as they aren't more clothed, but that doesn't matter. Continuing to push the line that people are not willing to have a civil conversation about possible removal of pictures on non offense related grounds is pure bullshit since we already have seen people carrying conversations on how to make something better. Making a thinly referenced criticism section because IDONTLIKETHAT, even if it is laid out in policy that supports how we have gone about things is ludacris. Tivanir2 (talk) 22:12, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

The main reason why the majority of things were added was that it never needed saying (explicitly) before then. I'm pretty sure that much of it corresponds to when censorship and similar proposals were rejected, things got added as a way of documenting community consensus so it could be referred to when somebody new came along and tried to impose their POV on the encyclopaedia. I'll not bother to repeat the answers to your arguments as they're already on this page several times, but they arguments are still as incorrect as they were the last five times they've been made in the past three weeks. Thryduulf (talk) 22:50, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Thryduulf has hit the nail right on the head. I've been around here since literally day one (though didnt have much interest in editing till far more recently). I remember various of the changes to policies and the reasons behind them. In virtually every case, it was because such was thought to be self explanatory because of other policies covering it - something I have argued about as well in the past few months. But, as "special interest groups" seeked to censor Wikipedia, NOT was made more and more specific to combat such actions. In no particular order, there were numerous sects of Christianity, those of various sects of the Islamic faith, various governments, various political organizations, the CoS, various corporate entities and some LPs who deemed censoring articles was the way to "collaborate" on Wikipedia. One who remembers various "POV pushers" (for lack of a better term) from each group will also note that the changes to policies (especially NOT and wp:censor) coincide with such events. Nothing disparaging meant in this next statement, and it's not directed at anyone here in particular (or even indirectly), but in some instances, the reaction was "we're right, there is no other POV, anything else goes against our religious/political beliefs". Some of the backlash some may see here could be subconsciously due to such, from those of us who've been around long enough to see what (in the past) were idiotic arguments used to try to ensure that only one POV was ever shown.

For those of you who are versed in Christianity, you can probably guess how devastating that would be. "The POV of Sect A of Christianity is the True Word, and we'll rewrite all articles to fit within that POV - because it's not POV pushing - it's pushing accuracy and fixing "misconceptions". Christianity was just one area such took place in. Images of Muhammad was another. "We're offended. Our religion says this. Nothing else matters". Should we move on to Ireland? Politics? CoS? The CoLDS' repeated attempts at changing their articles? The Ex-Gay movement trying to burying their actions and previous words and rewriting related articles as recruitment pieces? The list goes on and on...

And thus, NOT was changed, and changed, and wp:censor was added, and changed and changed. Fixing wp:censor is great - as long as it doesn't cripple it so it can no longer protect Wikipedia from those who wish to rewrite history, including the histories of others (such as one sect of Christianity demonizing another's interpretations).

With that in mind, one can perhaps see why picking any side in any such argument, based off religious/political/whatever beliefs, or who gets offended; can be a very very dangerous door to open... which brings us back to unbiased use of the other policies and guidelines. This particular policy has been changed for a reason. Perhaps I noted such reasons more than other old-timers because I spent so many years watching how Wikipedia worked, instead of editing articles. I for one would not have thought such changes were necessary - until history unfolded itself and it became very evident that such changes were strongly needed to combat such nonsense. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 23:23, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

So basically we have an analysis that shows a policy evolving through the years as the project grows in size and complexity. And this is a problem...how? Tarc (talk) 01:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, this is an interesting case study in how community consensus reacts to forces seeking to twist what Wikipedia is for. As problems pop up, our policy is altered gradually to combat the tendency. It's a nice study in emerging organization in the face of environmental pressure. — Coren ^(talk) 02:46, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but the problem is that NPOV does seem to have fallen by the wayside in the counterpush. --J N 466 02:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

That "problem" is in the eye of the beholder. Not all points-0f-view art equal. Tarc (talk) 02:53, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

It's objectively measurable, Tarc. Look at book covers, or RS illustrations of pregnancy. Hell, you can look at Google Images with safe search off: [15] The most frequent image is not a nude one. But no one thinks about that any more – there is just a reflexive resistance against any perceived effort to reduce the prominence of a nude image, because Wikipedia is NOTCENSORED. So we managed to keep people from deleting nude images. Great. Now we have to learn to distinguish where they make NPOV sense, and where they don't. --J N 466 02:59, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Facepalm The question of whether to put a naked image of a pregnant woman at the top of the article or further down the line is one that can be solved purely by local discussion at that article's talk page, you don't need and never did not to come to WP:NOT to get a ruling or guidance about that. There ware plety of other rational arguments to make against using that image right at the top without fabricating a new and very tenuous "pictures used in RS" argument. Tarc (talk) 13:52, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, it's easy. :)) It just takes X00,000 words and several months of "local discussion", spiced with countless invocations of NOTCENSORED, to get the illustration of a single article to conform to editorial standards in RS. Even when the issue is a complete no-brainer. --J N 466 15:09, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

We need an easy approach so badly that we should start to "look at book covers" to determine our content? The old adage about not judging a book by its cover is actually very correct as much of what a book portends to be on the surface is different from what is goes on to actually argue and say. Distilling the argument of a source requires evidence-based discussion around it, if you start making assumptions such as "X doesn't have a picture of Y, therefore X believes Y is inappropriate" without any direct statements from X stating that to be the case then you are beginning WP:OR/SYNTH and not reliably expressing the sources arguments.AerobicFox (talk) 18:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

You don't need to argue about inappropriateness at all. For example, if no source reports that Person X likes stamp collecting, the inappropriateness of saying that he does doesn't even enter discussion. We simply summarise, neutrally, as best we can, what sources do say, without spending much thought on all the things they might have said, but didn't. We only start thinking about that when someone adds an unsourced statement that strikes us as odd. Same with images -- if there is an image that strikes lots of people as odd, or incongruous, we should investigate. --J N 466 19:38, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The issue isn't what the most common image is. Obviously, the most common image of a pregnant woman is one where she is clothed, because it is normal for pregnant women to wear clothes. However, the most informative and encyclopaedic image might be one where she is not clothed. Because readers are less likely to want to see examples of what the dresses of pregnant women look like and more likely to want to see examples of what their bellies and boobs look like. --FormerIP (talk) 03:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Haha. That's not a source-based argument; it's just a form of "It's better because I say so." And "because I like to look at boobs, that's what I'll assume readers want to look at too". --J N 466 03:19, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

No, and I wasn't trying to be funny. Women's bodies undergo change during pregnancy, and that is something that readers are entitled to expect illustration of in the article. --FormerIP (talk) 03:22, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

You were being involuntarily funny. Nothing against showing changes in women's breasts in the article, but it's not the right lead image. Why? Because it's not the lead image in reliable sources. --J N 466 03:25, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I have to admit that "Because readers are less likely to want to see examples of what the dresses of pregnant women look like..." did make me grin a little. Gee, I wonder if the poster is a man? Heh. My take on the issue is defining pregnancy primarily as a social condition (Nothing fits anymore! You have to get a whole new wardrobe! People treat you differently! You're going to have a baby to take care of! Your relationship with your POSSLQ is going to change! etc.) vs. defining pregnancy primarily as a medical condition, a sort of disease that women get. Given the demographics, it's not hard to guess which approach is going to be seen as the obviously correct emphasis, is it? Herostratus (talk) 04:04, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

If you can find an image that adequately depicts pregnancy from a sociological perspective, then fine. You correctly guessed that I'm a man. I'm correctly guessing that you've never been pregnant ;). --FormerIP (talk) 21:10, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, FormerIP, I wonder if you'd take a look at the list Thrydulff produced above. He surveyed ~20 general-interest encyclopedias and found exactly one image of a naked pregnant woman (and, by the way, unlike ours, that one was not an emotion-laden amateur art nude of an identifiable person). So either 95% of encyclopedias aren't encyclopedic, or photographs of naked pregnant women aren't necessarily encyclopedic content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I can't see the list you're talking about, but who cares. Wikipedia does not follow other encyclopaedias and it contains more images that any other encyclopaedia. If we were to follow the competition, most of our articles would contain no image. Why are images of naked pregnant women not encyclopaedic whereas pictures of them clothed are? Surely something other than pure prudishness?--FormerIP (talk) 02:20, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Well I apologize a bit for my excessive outburst a little bit ago, and since I have calmed down a bit I will post a slightly more happy and more useful post. First the removal of images falls under NOTCENSORED because the only valid point presented to remove them is "they offend people." NOTCENSORED clearly states that offense doesn't matter so unless you come up with a better argument for removal, it is a perfectly valid response. I am under no obligation to raise standards on one article used exactly along the lines of other similar articles simply because someone is being offended by it. Hence until a viable intelligent argument comes out that doesn't use "it offends people and you haven't sufficiently justified it to me" I say good day. Also as a side note @Jayen I would welcome debates on things such as whether it goes against NPOV which we can have civily since it doesn't stem from offensiveness, and if the points are good I may even switch sides based upon the evidence for that sort of push but I am not going to back off on censorship which is what the original demand boils down to. Tivanir2 (talk) 03:15, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

It would indeed make sense to take offensiveness out of the discussion altogether, on both sides. To that extent the current wording is actually useful. If someone complains about offensive images, they should demonstrate that reliable sources don't use them in that way. And those wanting to keep them should demonstrate the opposite. No need for offensiveness to feature anywhere in that discussion, really. --J N 466 03:23, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I personally presented six (6) reasons for changing the lead image:

better technical image quality
greater ethnic diversity
compliance with the WMF resolution on least astonishment
the greater value of an image from the third trimester compared to the second trimester
the unencyclopedic nature of an amateur art nude
the greater educational value of using the nude with a detailed caption lower in the article.

But I see that you have declared all six of these reasons to be invalid reasons, "because the only valid point presented to remove them is 'they offend people.'" Or perhaps you didn't ever bother to read the many reasons that people presented? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I must have missed your earlier post. Just so I understand, were you presenting this as a list of genuine reasons, or an example list of pretexts for censorship? --FormerIP (talk) 02:26, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I apologize for the late reply. These are genuine reasons that apply specifically to the single pair of images in question: there are six different, non-censorship-related reasons to prefer one image over the other for the lead, and one good reason to prefer the other image over the one for another use in the article. It happens that one image showed a woman in clothes and the other didn't, but that's basically irrelevant. The presence or absence of clothes, for example, doesn't change the technical quality of the image (which is a matter of lighting and composition, not of clothing). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:00, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, yes and no (re: offensiveness), yes, we could remove it from the equation, but no, RS isn't the only criteria we should use in determining content. But I understand what you mean. As for NPOV, the problem isn't NPOV becoming less important or waylaid... the problem is often (check out far more than the Muhammad article, you'll see) NPOV being used as an excuse to bypass wp:censor and other things. No matter what changes to policy are enacted to combat external pressures, people try to figure out which other policies they can use to combat such to push their POV. Every tool in our arsenal to combat censorship, POV and so on will open the door for others to wikilawyer based on them. That, sadly, just happens to be the way things work. That brings us back to "what other RS' do" - which was a problem recently on (coincidentally) another article in the Wikiproject Islam scope, where an editor, to get his way, kept citing what "this reliable source does/claims/whatever" and deeming everyone else's sources as unreliable or less reliable. The argument seemed valid on the face of things, but the truth of the matter turned out to be pushing a bias by trying to invalidate source that did not fit his worldview. No matter what route one takes, such games will go on. And it can make it difficult to find a solution. My solution is simple: I don't edit on many topics I have a great interest or more accurately, a specific point of view on. No matter how strongly I argue for or against something in a topic, chances are it's a topic I'm not strongly interested in. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 03:47, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

You know, the thing I find most ironic about this is that somehow this has left Wikipedia is Not Censored' far behind and become 'Wikipedia Tells the Rest of the World to Fudge Off'. Not that there aren't good uses for NOTCENSORED, mind you, but the vast, VAST majority of text spilled is over cases of petty, pissy little snubs. I mean seriously: neither the nude image at Pregnancy nor the images at Muhammad are world-shattering content: they are relatively trivial material that would normally stay or go as a minor matter of editorial preference. But some people dislike the images because of particular cultural worldviews, and then other people get on their high horse because they don't want the first group telling them what to do, and this minor matter of editorial preference blows up into an endlessly congested ego-ridden mess. stupid.

This problem is actually easy to fix, but it requires editors to cease obsessing over trivial matters. Yes, Wikipedia is not censored, but that does not mean that it has to be rigidly defended in every minor arena as though it were a matter of life and death for the project. We write this encyclopedia for the general public, and so we ought to at least give lip service to what the general public (in its excessive diversity) wants and prefers. Otherwise the project is just being pointlessly obnoxious.

I mean, it's absurd: I make one simple suggestion - that we should not mindlessly offend the people we write the encyclopedia for, but should consider their interests where possible - and it opens up several hundred pages of whoop-ass. What's wrong with this picture?

Ask yourself a question: How does offending cultural mores and religious beliefs over trivial matters help build a better encyclopedia? I can see how squabbles of this sort might be needed when material is really pertinent to article content, but that's not the case in any of the situations I've been involved in. There is a value to maintaining a good rapport with our readers, and that sometimes means we have to give a little. And yes, yes, I know all the fear-mongering stories about how if we give even a little 'they' will ravage the project; I just have no use for that kind of paranoid silliness. Take the NOTCENSORED principle that far and it stops being a benefit to the project and starts being a bloody curse. --Ludwigs2 03:48, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)That would at least be a decent argument other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT or WP:ILIKEIT. Whether RSes use it or could be an indicator on whether the image is apporpaite or not, but it should not be a major point, but as a secondary point that could sway an argument when other considerations are considered.∞陣内 Jinnai 03:50, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

"How does offending cultural mores and religious beliefs over trivial matters help build a better encyclopedia?" You have this the wrong way round. We are not offending anybody or anything to build a better encyclopaedia. We are building a better encyclopaedia and if that happens to offend anyone, well so be it. It's not possible to not offend anyone because there are plenty of examples where you have only two choices, both of which offend some people. For example at Nudsim you can either show nudity or not show nudity, it's not possible to do anything else. Showing nudity will offend those who find nudity offensive, not showing nudity will be offensive to those who think nudity is no big deal and by not showing it you're saying it's something that should be hidden. So we have two choices - decide which point of view we prefer and offend the other one(s) so we don't offend them (regardless of how, why or which one we choose), or decide to be neutral and treat every POV the same without following any, regardless of who is offended by what. Since the very beginning we've chosen option 2 (which we've chosen to call "NPOV"). There isn't a choice between NPOV and NOTCENSORED, you cannot have the former without the latter. In certain circumstances it's not going to be obvious which option is the NPOV one, and that's what we have talk pages for. What factors are relevant will be different for each discussion, with the one exception - offensiveness is never relevant. This proposal is trying to legislate for all cases based on the views of a small number of people about what factors should be taken into account in one or two specific cases, which is only going result in bad rules. Thryduulf (talk) 11:46, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

We've been telling him that for over a month now. Every single time a new tangent breaks out we have to fend of the "why are we purposefully pissing [group X] off for no good reason?" We explain that pissing them off is not the intent, nor do we feel that the reason for the image inclusion is "no good", but as this is about the dozenth time I've had to say the above, it ain't working. Tarc (talk) 14:02, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree with the analysis except the conclusion "offensiveness is never relevant". Offensiveness should be considered once all other factors (encyclopedic relevance, NPOV, etc. etc. ) have been discussed through consensus and results in two or more choices for image use (this includes the choice "use no image at all"). If consensus has determined to a degree that two options for images are equally valid, have the same encyclopedic value where they are used, leaving the consensus stuck between these, but one is known to be a less offensive choice (with a heaping dose of common sense) than other options, that option should be picked over the more offensive ones, particularly if we're talking the article's lead image(s). But again, strongly emphasizing that this is the ultimate tie-breaker in case of a completely stale-mated consensus; whether something is offensive or not shouldn't enter at all into the decision process. And note: one thing to always consider in these debates is that as long as we are talking free images, it is always possible to include multiple options in an article (if that's possible): eg: I would not see an issue with Pregnancy having a clothed-woman lead image and a nude-woman body image. --MASEM (t) 14:20, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Thryduulf, Tarc: Here is precisely the IDHT sticking point; maybe if we work this through we can get somewhere. You are both apparently making the (to my view) absurd claim that every odd thing entered into an article is by definition making the encyclopedia better. While I certainly accept that most of the time editors are trying to make the encyclopedia better, not every editor has the same values, not every effort at improvement succeeds at being an improvement, and not every actual improvement is of equal value. Images are particularly variable: they can run the gamut from being mere eye-candy to making vital contributions to the reader's understanding of a topic, and it simply makes no sense to treat all images as though they are all equal, all the time.

When you destroy distinctions of this sort, you destroy knowledge by reducing everything to subjectivity. Thryduulf did it just above:

Thryduulf asserts that "We are building a better encyclopaedia" (emphasis mine) - explicitly claiming that all additions are definitively equal improvements
Thryduulf asserts that the offense to broadly-held cultural mores is equal to the offense Wikipedia editors feel at not being allowed to violate them - explicitly reducing everything to intellectual, moral, and emotional subjectivity
Thryduulf concludes (since all additions are equal improvements and that all objections are equally subjective) that we must in all such cases offend someone so we might as well be offending them. (apparently the concept of noblesse oblige is a bit of a mystery to you guys…)

The use of NOTCENSORED in this fundamentalist manner opens the door to all sorts of petty abuses. Effectively it allows an editor to add any old image he finds appealing and fortify it against all objection, just by claiming that the objections (whatever they may be) are really about offense. An editor can impose his own personal tastes and preferences on our entire readership for no other reason than that he feels like doing it, because NOTCENSORED allows him to place his personal tastes and preferences above every other consideration. it's - again - absurd. Do you see what I'm getting at? --Ludwigs2 16:25, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

One editor cannot add a potentially offensive image to an article and then use NOTCENSORED as a shield to protect it on his own: specifically, NOTCENSORED states Discussion of potentially objectionable content should not focus on its offensiveness but on whether it is appropriate to include in a given article. - an implicit declaration that inclusion of objectionable content should be decided by consensus, not one or a fringe minority of editors resisting the larger consensus. Or to be more exact: NOTCENSORED, like all other policies and the like, is not written as an absolute, and thus should not and cannot be used in a Wikilawyering manner to get ones' way (whether to force the inclusion of a type of image, or demand removal of such); if you can't sway the consensus on a page, then continued arguing will be seen as tenacious and beating the dead horse. --MASEM (t) 17:03, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Please stop twisting my words. I have never said that "all additions are equal" or "all images are equal" they are not. If someone adds anything to an article that another editor doesn't think is beneficial then either they revert it and/or discuss it. If the consensus of the discussion is that the addition is beneficial it stays, if the consensus of the discussion is that the addition is not beneficial it goes. The only problem comes when someone doesn't accept that the view they have is not supported by consensus. Is there any blood still left in that horse carcass, Ludwigs? Thryduulf (talk) 17:06, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

@Masem: One editor can do it, but it's not likely to stick without support. However, there are numerous editors who will involve themselves in such disputes merely because they are concerned with censorship (without regard to the actual issue), and then it becomes tremendously easy to do. That's what happened on both Pregnancy and Muhammad - the images were added by some particular editor for some reason of his/her own, but the people who defend the images do it almost exclusively as a principle of censorship. That's bad.

@Thryduulf: I quoted you exactly on what you said. However, if you I misunderstood you and you agree that all images are not equal, then I assume that you also agree that some images are of little to no value to articles. If that's true, then please explain to me why images of little to no value should be protected by NOTCENSORED? Assumedly an image of little to no value was added because some editor liked it; why should that first person's personal preferences outweigh well-established cultural norms? And please don't feed me that backhanded line about the first editor being 'offended'; no one is offended by not seeing something they want to see (they may be annoyed, or frustrated in a 'spoiled child' sort of way, but not offended). To my mind, if it's a choice between a wikipedia editor's preferences and the well-established mores of a cultural group, then all other things being equal the cultural mores should win out. Wikipedia is not the correct place for editors to challenge the beliefs or mores of any community in the real world, and we should avoid doing so except where we clearly must to write an informative encyclopedia. --Ludwigs2 17:39, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Indeed all images are not equal, some images are of little value to articles, and NOTCENSORED does not protect any image that is not relevant to the article. NOTCENSORED only protects images from being removed because people don't like them. You refer to "well-established cultural norms" but whose are you talking about? We are a global encyclopaedia and the "well-established cultural norms" even in countries like Britain, France and the United States (and in some cases even regionally within countries) are different from each other. I don't know where you are from, but your words and behaviour speak of different cultural norms to those I grew up with in northern and then south-western England. Choosing what images to show based on not offending the social and cultural norms of one group of people is censorship.

The problem as I see it with regards to the images at pregnancy and Muhammed is that you think they add little to no value to the article, but a consensus of editors disagrees with you and think that the images do add significantly to the article. You have tried to then argue that because the images are offensive to a set of cultural norms that this outweighs the usefulness of the images to the article - and that is exactly what NOTCENSORED is there for, to stop one set of cultural values being imposed on a global, NPOV encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 18:32, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Thryduulf: You've made two mistakes here (probably unintentionally):

You seem to be asserting that Wikipedia needs to pick one cultural norm and adhere to it; at least, that's what it sounds like when you say "but whose [norms] are you talking about?" In fact, it's perfectly feasible to to show basic respect for all cultures without violating the quality of the encyclopedia. We do it the way I've suggested it be done from the beginning: Don't do things that go against cultural mores without having a good reason. That involves acknowledging that there's a cultural concern out there and weighing it. So:
- We acknowledge that there's a fairly universal social more against casual nudity in public spaces - even in Britain that's the case, though they are more relaxed about it than other lands. On nudism, the article is about nudity so we have a good reason to use a nude image in the lead; on pregnancy we lack that clear mandate.
- We acknowledge that there's a proscription in Islamic law against depictions of Muhammad. On Depictions of Muhammad the article is about such depictions so we have a good reason to use them; on Muhammad we lack that clear mandate.
I get that people don't want to 'give in' to Muslims or prudes - I've heard variations on that sentiment repeated often enough to make me nauseous - but that's just ego talking; wp:BATTLEGROUND mentality. there comes a point where we just have to acknowledge that using a particular image isn't worth the trouble it creates or the offense it causes, and save our energies for places where it's worth fighting about it.
The cause of the disturbances on both Pregnancy and Muhammad was not that I think the images have no value and other editors think they have value. On the contrary, I suspect that I have roughly the same opinion of the value of those images as any proponent (I don't happen to think it's a bad image). The problem is that the proponents evaluate conventional mores and Muslim culture as worthless; so worthless in fact that there are frequent assertions that such opinions are not even allowed to be voiced much less considered. It's a complete upturning of NPOV, the censorship of broadly-accepted norms in the real world simply to indulge the tastes of a few advocate wikipedia editors. ridiculous!

What your argument really amounts to is not a defense of NPOV, but rather the imposition of your own Western, liberal, secular, intellectual viewpoint on the rest of the world. It's internet colonialism (if you'll pardon me coining a phrase), except that the savages you're trying to civilize aren't really savages but just anyone who happens to disagree with what you think is normal and acceptable. Is that what you think Wikipedia is meant for? --Ludwigs2 20:46, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much every thing in that comment is wrong. What my viewpoint on any given topic is is irrelevant - I find plenty of things offensive, but I don't try and remove them from the encyclopaedia. It is not that we want to be NPOV by being uncensored, it's that we cannot be NPOV without being Uncensored. We are going out of our way not to impose our views or anybody else's views on the encyclopaedia. Your opinion is that we should respect the POV of major groups of people and ignore the POV other groups of people. We cannot do that. Thryduulf (talk) 23:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm asserting the exact opposite - Wikipedia cannot pick any cultural norm to follow and remain NPOV. When I said "but whose [norms] are you talking about?" I was asking you (Ludwigs) a question related to your assertion that we should follow cultural norms, i.e. whose cultural norms do you (Ludwigs) want us to follow? Thryduulf (talk) 23:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

There is not "a fairly universal social more against casual nudity in public spaces", see for example Nude beach, Cap D'Aged, Quarup, Nudity#Non-western perspectives, World Naked Bike Ride, etc. so your argument doesn't hold water. Thryduulf (talk) 23:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Some Muslims believe that, not all do, some Muslims believe that all depictions of humans are against Islamic law, most don't. These are irrelevant though because we do not follow the POV of any one group. Thryduulf (talk) 23:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

It's not about "giving in" to Muslims, prudes or anyone, it's about being neutral. We cannot censor based on offensiveness to one group of people but not based on offensiveness to another group of people. As I explained above it's not possible to offend nobody, so we do not take into account offensiveness at all. Full stop. Thryduulf (talk) 23:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

This rather proves that either you've not listened to a single thing that has been said in this discussion or you've just not understood. We don't care about offensiveness because it is irrelevant, we don't care about "cultural mores" because they are irrelevant. We don't think either they or Muslim culture is "worthless" - it's just we don't follow them, because to do so would be biased against the ones we don't follow. What Muslims find offensive is just as irrelevant as what you find offensive. Thryduulf (talk) 23:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much every thing in that comment is wrong. What my viewpoint on any given topic is is irrelevant - I find plenty of things offensive, but I don't try and remove them from the encyclopaedia. It is not that we want to be NPOV by being uncensored, it's that we cannot be NPOV without being Uncensored. We are going out of our way not to impose our views or anybody else's views on the encyclopaedia. Your opinion is that we should respect the POV of major groups of people and ignore the POV other groups of people. We cannot do that. Thryduulf (talk) 23:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I refactored your text into a single block - please don't chop up a cohesive post that way.

So, to answer your questions:

I don't want wikipedia to follow any particular norm (except perhaps the kind of careful circumspection you generally find in academic circles). What makes you think I have anything particular in mind? all I've ever said is that we should not offend cultural mores unless we have a good reason to, whicb seems entirely sensible to me. I still don't see why you object to it.
Nude Bike Ride counter-examples? seriously? I'll buy that argument when I see you strip down and go grocery shopping in the buff, or when I find out that you constantly see people flipping through playboy images on their iPads during business meetings. Hell, in every place I've ever lived even getting a glimpse of nudity requires a couple of dates and some earnest persuasion, and I've lived in San Francisco. There is undeniably a universal social more against casual nudity in public spaces, and asserting otherwise is patently delusional. I can see how you might not want that to be the case - who does? - but please don't deny the evidence of everyone's eyes.
Who gets offended by removing an image of a nude woman or removing an depiction of Muhammad? Wikipedia editors? people in the real world don't care, surely, so long as they get the information they need from the article. What you're really saying is that a few Wikipedia editors get their panties in a bunch because they don't get to display an image that's not really necessary for the article. So if we have to choose between offending a major religion and irritating a handful of wikipedia editors, which do you think we should do?
Irrelevant equals worthless, Thryd. This isn't about following Islam, nor is it about promoting one religion over another. I would (and do) make the same argument for any different group. this is about not being dicks towards groups where we don't have to be. You simply fail to grasp the concept of common courtesy, that there's a value in not being insulting straight out of the box. and that's just sad.

Last point: NPOV does not require NOTCENSORED to work. Yes, NOTCENSORED is helpful where there is actual determined efforts at censorship. However, that's not what's going on: you are asserting that everyday, garden-variety social norms and mores are somehow a form of censorship. it's like NOTCENSORED is the "No Trespassing" sign we hang on our bedroom door because we don't want those stupid adults to come in and mess with our shit; not a mature attitude towards the problem at all. You force me into the role of an adult, where I have to explain to you why it's important to be kind to others where you can, and frankly that just sucks for me; It's not a role I'm suited to. so stop it. --Ludwigs2 00:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

With this statement are you going to stand up and say you support the burning US flag for the United States article so you are practicing what you preach? With regards to nude beach etc. come on, they are by far in the minority. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the burning flag, if it's relevant to the article it should be in there, if it isn't it shouldn't be. Nothing else matters. As for " With regards to nude beach etc. come on, they are by far in the minority", the point of NPOV is that we don't support or oppose ANY point of view or culture, regardless of whether they are a minority or a majority. NPOV means "neutral" not "the majority". Thryduulf (talk) 00:01, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course, but neutrality includes WP:UNDUE. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:11, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

It does, and that's part of assessing the relevance to the topic. I've not read the United States article in a while, so I don't know whether there is a relevant part of that article (my gut feeling though is that if it's relevant anywhere it's more likely to be in a more specialised sub-article than the main overview about the country). Assessing the relevancy of images to topics, and assessing the weight of those topics, is something we do every day on the project without drama. We don't have an article specifically on flag burning (that title is a redirect to Flag desecration) which at first glance looks very sparsely illustrated for a Wikipedia article. It's interesting to note that the lead image there is of a "modified" American flag being burned. Thryduulf (talk) 18:32, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I was aiming my WP:UNDUE comment at the nude beaches thing. Nude beaches are by far in the minority. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Hans, your analysis of the changes in policy over time are interesting to see (it'd be interesting to generate this on various policies over time, actually), but your analysis of the application is an excellent example of assume bad faith. Generally speaking, I see consensus run toward Masem's analysis—we should not gratuitously offend (so we would not, for example, utilize nude photos of humans if clothed photos would serve the same encyclopedic purpose), but we should also not suppress any information of encyclopedic relevance in order not to cause offense (seeing nude pregnant women clearly illustrates the physiological changes that pregnancy causes in the body, in a way that seeing a clothed pregnant woman does not, seeing depictions of Muhammad throughout history provides historic context, both in ways that text alone has difficulty in fully conveying). Did it occur to you that, rather than being cackling villains, maybe those who disagree with you just as genuinely feel they're doing the right thing as you do, and maybe that's why they frequently gain consensus? Generally, when someone is using NOTCENSORED to disguise a POV push or the like, they're shot down quickly. When I see successful invocations of NOTCENSORED is when someone is trying to censor, that is, to remove pertinent and encyclopedic information or images because they're "offensive". That is exactly what NOTCENSORED is intended to prevent. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:43, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Seraphim: I don't know about bad faith, but it is clearly what actually happens in discussions - I've been on the butt-end of this for weeks and weeks now (not to mention previous experiences), so that's not really deniable. I personally don't see it as any intentional effort to be crapulent: to my mind what we have is an indulgence in excess - too much of a good thing turning into a bad thing,a s it always will. We have editors who have found a simple, mindlessly programmatic method of resolving some serious censorship problems (which is all-in-all a good thing) but they have turned and applied that same mindlessly programmatic method to things that aren't serious problems, or even to things that aren't actually censorship at all. It has become a way for them to impose their will on the community without regard to context, under the fantasy that they are still doing good. I'm sure that all the vocal opponents to change here think of themselves as glorious defenders of the wiki (and I'm sure that most of them have barn-starred most of the others at one point or another), but these situations get out of control because they refuse to accept that there should be limits to their actions.

I swear, NOTCENSORED has become Wikipedia's pepper spray, and there are too many people spraying it just so they can get whatever they want, no matter how ridiculous. it's nuts. --Ludwigs2 16:45, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Ludwig, have you even considered that the reason you feel you are the "butt-end" of so much rejection is because most people actually believe you to be simply incorrect? That the limits you believe there should be are simply honestly not shared by most people? Why must you presume that anyone who disagrees with you about what is or is not a serious problem do so because they are mistaken, and never consider that you might be? — Coren ^(talk) 18:26, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

(e/c) Coren, I know that people think I'm incorrect, and I'm more than willing to consider the possibility that might be true. However - and you and many others seem to miss this important point - I'm not just voicing an opinion, I am making an argument (and a damned good one, at that). I expect a certain number of people to tell me to shut up and go away, of course. That's the nature of politics everywhere; there's always a Maginot line of die-hards who try to protect even the worst ideas out of deference to the status quo. Getting through that line is a question of patiently explaining and re-explaining until the fortifications weaken and the argument starts to sink in, and after that happens we can have the real discussion which will actually decide the issue. On this particular issue the fortifications put the historical Maginot line to shame, but... We'll get to the real discussion as soon as people are ready for it.

If you think I enjoy this kind of thing, think again; my periodic fits of pique ought to tell you otherwise. But I've never been the sort to let my own emotional states interfere with reason, and I'm certainly not inclined to let other people's emotional attachments get in the way either. If you want me to admit my position is incorrect, show me that my position is incorrect; do that and I'll drop this like a hot potato on a cold day. But be aware that if you actually engage this issue with me I expect you to have the same open-mindedness and willingness to accept reason that I have. fair enough? --Ludwigs2 19:18, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

No one is asking you to admit if you are incorrect or not. I think everything I've read based on your arguments is to understand that you may be believe a specific approach to objectionable images needs to be taken, and that's your opinion, but it rubs against the grain of the larger consensus of the whole project. To keep on thumping your view, even if you believe you are 100% correct and the consensus is 100% wrong, to try to get the consensus to change is not helpful when the arguments get drawn out this long: that's what leads to tenacious editing. I believe that the majority of people involved in this discussion are asking you to respect the consensus of the whole even if you feel that is completely wrong, and edit, participate, and discuss within those bounds. That's a necessity of any open project to function properly without a chain of command. --MASEM (t) 19:38, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Masem, you misunderstand: I am happy to admit that I am incorrect if someone can demonstrate to me effectively that I am. I prefer when other editors behave the same way. That's the way a healthy consensus discussion works. You seem to be asking me to respect reasoning I believe to be impoverished simply because some smallish number of editors are hung up on that poor reasoning and can't see beyond it (and yes, smallish number is correct - there are maybe 20 people involved here, and the sides are roughly split numerically). While I understand the interpersonal politics of the situation far better than you might realize, that request does not strike me as reasonable. How does my sacrificing rationality to save us from a stubborn dispute advance the project? Until this issue is resolved, the same stubborn nonsense is going to crop up on page after page after page (just as it had done for years before I raised this issue). It's better for the project if we bite the bullet now and fix this rather than continuing to allow it to run rampant. --Ludwigs2 19:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Again, that's not what was asked. First, realize there is no "correct" answer here, so you cannot be more correct than anyone else. Unless the Foundation says something more concrete on handling of such images, there is no correct answer, only what consensus decides. And the point of a healthy consensus is to recognize when your POV on the subject of discussion is clearly the minority, and, importantly, continue editing work within the bounds set by consensus even if you know it is wrong. I, for example, strongly disagree about the arbitrary use of cover images under WP:NFCC allowances, but recognize that the consensus agrees they are ok, so I don't edit war against that. When you are considering your POV to be the "correct" one and that to go with consensus would require you to "sacrifice rationality", that's the problem that we're running into - not the direct issue with the NOTCENSORED aspect but the continue pounding of the issue when its clear that the consensus doesn't appear ready to move in that direction.

I will also point out that in the past, when there has been discussions on changes to policy or guideline pages that have otherwise ended in no clear consensus, the usual solution is to maintain the status quo, until a better change is suggested. This is what I'm seeing here; NOTCENSORED covers much of the concerns given but not is the exact words or in as many words as some would like; adding those words however leads to potential misunderstand others have pointed out. I would project that the end result of this discussion is that NOTCENSORED stays as it is, since I'm not seeing any proposal for change that has clear acceptance. Even if you feel that the lack of clear instruction may be harmful in the future, we'll deal with that when it comes. Right now, there's such a loose question of what is needed to be done to make more discussion less helpful since we're just running in circles. --MASEM (t) 20:13, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

How do you know his view is in the minority? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:17, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Masem: the intellectual relativism defense? I expected better. The fact that there is no 'correct' answer (a point I agree with) does not imply that there are no 'better' arguments, and better arguments are what are supposed to hold sway on project. Consensus is not majority rule, nor is it enforced obedience to the status quo, nor is it determined by vague ad populum assertions. What we have here is a few editors who have made reasonable proposals for consideration and a few other editors who have thoroughly disrupted the discussion by angrily opposing everything. With that in mind, I see no reason to stop trying to build consensus for my position, because I think my positions is both intellectually stronger and more in the interests of the encyclopedia than the current status quo. Unless you are instructing me to stop trying to build consensus using your position as a sysop? --Ludwigs2 21:08, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't know that Ludwigs' view is the minority, but the reading of this page and the intensity of his arguments suggest it is. But that's not what I'm trying to say. Again, I know that I'm 100% correct that most cover use images on WP fail a direct reading of NFC and the Foundation's Resolution on images. I pushed for an RFC. The RFC came back resoundingly that consensus agrees cover image use was actually fine. I abide by that decision, even though I know my argument is stronger. Part of working in a consensus-driven open environment like here is knowing when to back down and go with the flow.

And to me that's the issue. I'm not seeing an RFC. I'm seeing a disorganized mess of discussions that start from various article talk pages that have come to here. This entire process would be much better if there was a formal RFC (likely at a centralized page, advertised at VPP/CENT) establishing exactly the perceived problem and how to fix it. This would gain a larger number of eyes and thus achieve a better result than what's happening here where I'm just trying to guess what the larger issues may be. --MASEM (t) 21:30, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Can I see the RFC which came back resoundingly that consensus agrees that cover image use was actually fine? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Non-free content/Cover art RfC, closed by non-involved admin. --MASEM (t) 22:10, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Masem, just at a glance that seems like a more-or-less civilized, organized discussion. How did that happen? whenever I try to start such a discussion here I get mobbed by 3-4 people all talking at cross-purposes. That's part of what makes this debate so hard: I end up trying to have three distinct discussions interspersed with each other, which makes it almost impossible for any one discussion to reach a meaningful conclusion. discourse over a fractal geometry; never pretty. --Ludwigs2 23:53, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Without seeing how you started discussions before, I can't answer. But the more organized you start the RFC, with a clear goal and result, the more likely you'll have a organized discussion. I'm going to offer to help draft one for this, see new section below (in a moment) if this seems like a goal. --MASEM (t) 23:59, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

So the new argument is we are going overboard with the policy of not being censored because we offend the wrong sorts of people? The problem is to delete something entirely, the only purpose to do so in the case of muhammad, is to cater to religious prescripts of a faith. Granted they are a large faith but it is still trying to justify we should not worry about offense unless there are enough people or a specific group of interest involved. The fact is, over time there have been no less than half a dozen justifiable reasons to keep the pictures but they have been dismissed by specific individuals, when these same arguments are in line with other content on this project. The fact that there seems to be some sort of claim that "these images have to do more because they are offensive" is hog wash. At the end of the day the idea that people are offended and it shouldn't be so doesn't carry the day so as soon as I see some reasonable attempts at using policies that actually would be an impact not a simple IDONTLIKETHAT I will be happy to debate things at length. Tivanir2 (talk) 18:45, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Presuming this is a reasonable summary of Ludwig's views I don't think there is anything there that's particularly controversial.

Besides the arguments that have been used to defend not including a picture of the US flag burning in the United States article are basically exactly the same as the arguments used to reduce the number of images of Muhammad. We are basically very long-windedly agreeing with each other. The only difference is that some people aren't being entirely internally consistent with their views across different subjects, but I'm sure that's a weakness we all face - as the vast majority of articles have sensible images, and there are probably a fair few topics where I'd be more extreme than other editors. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:59, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The NPOV argument of his is completely concocted bunk. We've had to deal with his shifting arguments of why to get rid of images that are perceived to cause offense, whether it is that we're being purposely offensive to Muslims, that the images are "incidental" and unnecessary to the articles, that we're all raving "not censored" fanatics, and probable 3-4 other rationales I've purged from memory. Now it is "it isn't neutral to not consider the "Muslims-who-don't-like-images POV". Horse puckey. Tarc (talk) 19:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

If there are four different logical arguments in favour of a position, that's hardly something that makes it weaker. Much the opposite. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:49, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

They aren't any stronger when all of them come back to a think of the children motive and about offense. It would make it stronger if they were things like this is fringe POV and gratuitously offensive. The reason I have issues with the arguments is all of them have traced back to offense so far, and well NOTCENSORED covers that. Tivanir2 (talk) 21:33, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

If so then the same logic can be used against your desire to avoid having a burning US flag in United States. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:44, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes it could and that is the beauty of it. However you still need to reach consensus on whether it is useful for the article. If you manage to convince others that view point is a good one have at. 132.3.53.68 (talk) 22:06, 30 November 2011 (UTC) Again apologies for wikipedia signing me out. Tivanir2 (talk) 22:09, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Well done for being the first person in this entire discussion who is prepared to support that position - of course maybe you aren't an American so <shrug>.

Of course if you wouldn't be able to persuade the community that the image of the burning US flag isn't acceptable then unless we are relying on our editors double standards (and possibly hypocrisy) we won't be able to find a consensus to include the controversial images at Muhammad either. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:12, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Um those would be too entirely separate arguments. As for the info I am in the military and an American but that doesn't mean I bury my face in the sand when something is completely about offense. I just want it to go where it should (which may or may not be on the US article) be it the US article, an article on perceptions of foreign policy, or freedom of speech. Just because I don't like it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be there. Also is there an argument somewhere that the only reason it should be off is because it is offensive? Because that I would point out NOTCENSORED to but if there is another argument (such as it adds nothing to a reader's understanding and is not supported by text) then I would also weigh that. The problem is even though I can accept there are things I do not like there are others that try to say things need to be removed because either I do not like it or others do not like it. That being said if someone convinces me it needs to be there I will fight for it just as hard as I fight for other images. Tivanir2 (talk) 22:27, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I do genuinely respect your position. It is definitely consistent. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Starting a more centralized, organized RFC on this

I would like to propose that we engage in a more organized RFC than what this past discussion on WT:NOT has been to try to gain clarity on the issues. I'd be willing to work at drafting it (I've done these many times before) though will need a some input (NOT NOW) towards that. I'm only tossing that idea out to get a straw poll and make sure there are no major objections to this. Specifically, my thought here is to determine what, if any, changes need to be made to NOTCENSORED aligned with any other policy/guideline pages to account for actual practice or to set specific goals for objectionable content. But what the actual goals will be, I don't yet for sure. --MASEM (t) 00:02, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd be amenable to that, particularly if you can think of some way to structure any discussion so it doesn't explode like it does here. --Ludwigs2 00:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
- There is no way to guarantee that it won't explode. However, i think that would be a good idea. We nail down the goal posts and whatnot.∞陣内 Jinnai 03:49, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

If we are to have another RfC then we need to be clear in what we're asking. Looking at the comments in the "RfC on NOTCENSORED" section, there is clear consensus that incidental material can be removed if it's not relevant to the article, regardless of whether it is offensive or not. I say this because the majority of comments in both sections say exactly that. We don't need to ask that question again, the answer is clear.

This then leads us onto what questions need to be answered. This page is not the place to ask about specific articles, so that rules out questions about Muhammed, and Pregnancy, etc.

There is possibly a question about image choices/reliable sources, but what is actually being proposed is unclear and seems to have changed multiple times. Consensus seems to me to exist for the follwing statements. Statements in square brackets are what I consider to be logical inferences from what has been said, bit are not necessarily explicitly supported.

The image choices of primary and secondary sources are not directly relevant because they and we have different goals, different constraints and a different purpose, although we may look at these and use them as one factor in our choices about images.
The image choices of comparable sources (meaning illustrated, online, global, uncensored, NPOV, general purpose encyclopaedias) might be[, but are not guaranteed to be (e.g due to publication date),] relevant, but we don't slavishly follow them either [we don't want to get anywhere near near plagiarism/copyright issues].
The absence of an image in a source is not evidence of a rejection of that (type of) image.
Discussions about which images are used in which articles is for article talk pages, assisted by RfCs [and third opinions, etc] if needed
An image being offensive or not offensive is not a reason for that image's addition or removal to an article, regardless of who it offends or does not offend
An image that is relevant may be included in an article, regardless of whether it offends anyone or not
An image that is not relevant may be removed from an article, regardless of whether it offends anyone or not
Whether an image is relevant to an article or not is determined by a consensus of editors on the article talk page
Images that introduce facts, make assertions, give implications, etc, may be removed if these are not supported by referenced text in the article [unless the images are reliable verifications of the text they illustrate (e.g. the picture of the sign at the railway station verifies the first sentence of Llanfairpwllgwyngyll#Pronunciation)].

Is this a fair summary of where we are at? Thryduulf (talk) 11:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that is not an entirely fair summary of the problem. Issues:

If you agree that the "RfC on NOTCENSORED" establishes a clear consensus that incidental material can be removed regardless of offense, then that needs to be added to NOTCENSORED in clear and unambiguous terms, and as the rest of the page shows we are having a tremendously difficult time doing that. The PROBLEM here Is that on some article editors invoke NOTCENSORED to include excessive or irrelevant controversial material, and justify it by endlessly subjective assertions that the image has some almost mythical value. We need to establish some sort of concrete criteria for when an image is 'valuable enough' to be protected by NOTCENSORED, otherwise we solve nothing.
You have weighted the discussion of images very heavily towards the arguments of people who oppose changes, and missed most of the arguments of the original proposers. But I'll leave that for Jayen and Hans to to clarify, since it's more their thing. I'll point out, however, that the issue of offense needs to be addressed, if only because it's become such a desperate battle-cry for NOTCENSORED advocates; every debate on this issue boils down to a handful of editors stridently screaming that all opponents are acting out of offense (with the not infrequent assertion that they need to grow some balls). the offense rubric legitimizes personal attacks as a formal part of the decision process, and that needs to be fixed. --Ludwigs2 15:01, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I personally oppose yet another RfC and would view such as an abuse of process. We've done this twice in a month. We don't need #3. Let it drop for a while (3 months) and come back with a new proposal. Or ideally just drop it. Further, I don't think there is consensus about removing about removing "incidental material" other than it's level of offensiveness should not be one of the reasons to remove it. And I think NOTCENSORED already says that, though if someone has a wording change to more clearly get that idea across... Hobit (talk) 15:07, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, well… it's exactly that attitude why we need an RfC; no other way to deal with issues where editors are mired in their own convictions.

This whole discussion reminds me of an old Poli-Sci joke:

A reporter is out doing "Man On The Street' interviews. He walks up to a passerby and asks the question being aired on the night's broadcast: "Excuse me sir. Please tell me what you think about the problem of ignorance and apathy in the voting public." The passerby snaps back angrily "I don't know and I don't care!"

It is to laugh… --Ludwigs2 15:35, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The only part of the argument that is weighted is for offense reasons. As pointed out multiple times when other reasons are used to remove images they are discussed at length until a decision is made that most if not all editors can live with. An image does not need to be "valuable enough" it needs to have value to the subject in question. Attempting to indicate it is required for an image to do even more than it's own counterpart in other similar articles is arguing that offense trumps substance unless it is even more useful than standard images the community uses. As long as an image has use there is no reason for removal unless there is something else wrong with it (such as POV or copyright infringement.) Tivanir2 (talk) 16:02, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Also of note no one has tried to defend the idea that incidental material needs to stay in an article. The problem is things have been labeled incidental, and even when giving reasons as to why they aren't are dismissed. In order to prove something is incidental you would need consensus just like you do now. Tivanir2 (talk) 16:05, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Let's not get into debates about what was and wasn't addressed now.

To some extend I agree with Hobit that if we were to start another RFC, it would be not at least until after the new year; this would give time for us to prepare a stronger RFC to start instead of trying to jump on it now; it would also give time for attitudes to calm down. Again, right now, I don't know even know for sure what the right question is to ask for such an RFC; are we looking for clarification on policy, to change policy, to implement new rules for objectionable material, a process for resolving issues on objectionable materials, or the like? (Don't answer this question now, please). If everyone can agree a more central discussion (eg considered NOTCENSORED but possibly considering changes to other policy and guideline pages), then we can set up discussion as to what to address, and then have the RFC in full with a non-involved admin on board to close it. There's no need to rush if we're trying to make a general statement on how WP should handle objectionable images that will last for years. --MASEM (t) 16:19, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good to me personally. I would also suggest a period where people ask questions if they are confused by suggested changes. This way we ensure everyone gets exactly what each part of the RFC would mean. Tivanir2 (talk) 17:04, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I think this would involve also WP:Offensive material, WP:Lead (as there have been those who say certain images shouldn't nessasarily be lead images, but might still be okay in an article as a whole) and WP:NPOV (since its not clear how it applies to offensiveness in images). Those, plus this page, are the big 5 that could be involved. I think the biggest issues brought up are:

how NPOV deals with controversial images (its not clear as I mentioned before, I read NPOV and get entirely different perspective than some in this discussion)
whether RSes can and should have any impact on how we display content (again tied to NPOV)
whether there should be more emphasis on not shocking the reader and placing less controversial images in the lead of certain articles
whether NOTCENSORCED can be used to defend images from being replaced with another suitable image that may be less offensive (such as for a nude image in pregnancy one that focuses on the relevant portions discussed in the image rather than an image of an entirely nude woman).

I do not think we need an RfC for incidental images. I think we could go ahead and change that as it appears we have a consensus that NOTCENSORED does not grant protection to incidental images. What is incidental is not for this page to describe in detail, but we could say something like "adds little to no value to the article".∞陣内 Jinnai 17:13, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

After the New Year is fine with me as well - slow and deliberative is good. And yes, Jinnai, I agree that there's consensus ti edit in the point about incidental material. I'd do it myself, but I'm afraid that would be interpreted as partisan.

I'm going to make a potentially odd-sounding suggestion: should we open a MedCab mediation solely on the issue of crafting an RfC statement? It sounds a little odd to use one dispute resolution mechanism to settle differences about another dispute resolution mechanism, but the RfC question might actually be amenable to mediation in a way the deeper policy question likely isn't. If nothing else, informal mediation would give some structure to the discussion and an independent mediator to talk us through some of the sticking points. Just a thought…

@Medcab, not a bad idea.

Just throwing something out there. If there is a substantial percentage of the community who truly believe that offensiveness has no role to play in image choice how can we reach a compromise? Maybe Medcab can answer that question, but I can't think of a way beyond agreeing to disagree. In which case I would say a straw poll would seem to me to be the only way to do it. Thoughts? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:26, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

If MedCab can frame an RfC question or questions such that everyone understands what is being asked and can agree on what a result either way would mean, then that would be more useful than another round of this. Whether we really need yet another attempt to change policy, I'm not convinced of. It would need to be in at least 3 months time, and preferably six months or more, otherwise it will be seen as forum shopping and attempts at victory by attrition. Whether that is you intention or not, that's how it will be seen.

The possible outcomes are (1) there is consensus that offensiveness does not play any role in image choice. (2) there is consensus that it plays some limited role (e.g. when choosing image placement rather than selection), (3) there is consensus that offensiveness is a key criteria for image choice, or (4) there is no consensus.

If the outcome is 1 then no compromise is required. If the outcome is 2 there will need to be compromise about how big a role it plays and how we determine offensiveness. If outcome is 3 then only how offensiveness is determined needs to be agreed on. If the outcome is (4) then this defaults to the status quo, which is the same as option 1 - this is the least ideal though.

I think if there is an RfC a summary of the arguments for and against should be written by a neutral party.

For an example of a discussion where summarising the options done by a non-neutral party has not helped diffuse the situation at all see Talk:Yoghurt (warning, long and vitriolic). For an example where an unclear RfC produced no helpful result, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration. Thryduulf (talk) 18:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Thryduulf, two things:

Don't beat the 'forum shopping' drum just as a delaying tactic; that's a shitty thing to do. There's no forum shopping here, just a very contentious issue. A month or so is fine, if we can work up a decent proposal in that amount of time.
You've really made a poor assessment of possible outcomes: you've effectively excluded what I think is the most reasonable outcome. a proper breakdown (excluding the 'no consensus' option, which isn't a result, but a lack thereof) is:
1. that conventional social mores and well-established cultural beliefs play no role in image choice.
2. that conventional social mores and well-established cultural beliefs are respected where we can do so without lowering the informativeness of the article.
3. that conventional social mores and well-established cultural beliefs are a key criteria for image choice.
honestly, #3 is a red herring - no one sensible wants that as a rule (and I really wish you'd stop asserting that that's what we want, because it's insulting when you imply we're that stupid). The choice is between the first options. let's keep the issue straight. --Ludwigs2 19:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

"Conventional" and "well-established"? How would we know what those are? Why on earth would we treat them as privileged even if we could know? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:31, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I would have thought its fairly obvious - and something that we could figure out by looking at our sources. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Please stop discussing what the RFC should be doing; I am looking to see if there's support for running a fresh RFC at a centralized location sometime after the new year? We will worry about exactly what will go into it when we construct it. --MASEM (t) 19:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Can we ban all posts of the form "I am not personally offended by X, but we must make allowance for those who are"? It's an obvious fall-back, defensive position available to conservatives, and easily leads to suspicions of dishonesty. It's hard to argue against because those presenting that position can always say they are simply thinking of others, and not pushing a POV themselves. HiLo48 (talk) 19:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

You cannot ban any particular argument.

@Masem: I do think my last point is fine to work on now. I don't see anyone arguing that NOTCENSORED should be a stalwart defense against incidental maternal.∞陣内 Jinnai 19:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The trick there is defining "incidental". We've already had a bit of game-playing on this angle. Tarc (talk) 20:24, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. There is no consensus for such a change at the moment. Hobit (talk) 20:34, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

@Tarc & Hobit: We do not have to do no such thing if we can't come to an agreement about exactly what the difference is. WP:N does not clearly define "significant" - that is decided on a case-by-case basis. It will likely be hammered out based on what wikt:incidental actually means, but we don't have to be specific if there is agreement that incidental matieral shouldn't be protected, just not where to draw the line. Lack of saying this essentially says "NOTCENSORED does support incidental material" because there is no restrictions on material beyond vandalism or shock site.∞陣内 Jinnai 22:47, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

We do what best illustrates and explains the issue--no matter if the material is "incidental" by some definition or not. Period. It's a pretty easy model. We don't consider offensiveness when determining content. That doesn't mean NOTCENSORED should protect offensive material that would be removed on some other basis anyways (like not helping to illustrate the topic for example, or NFCC issues). But the addition of "incidental" implies that the standard to keep material that someone considers to be offensive is somehow higher. And that I disagree with. We don't go out of our way to offend, but we also don't go our of our way to not offend--it just shouldn't be an issue either way. Hobit (talk) 16:16, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

We also don't go out our way to include WP:TRIVIAl info in articles except here simply because its in the form of an image rather than text. We can include as many trivial images as wanted now assuming they do not fall afoul of NFCC. NOTCENSORED is used as a defense when these incidental images are attempted to be removed because they add little to know value. I am not talking here about offensiveness; I am talking about relevance, ie the same thing we apply to text. We do not apply those same standards to images because of the NOTCENSORED hammer used. There does seem to be consensus that in terms of relevance, images need to apply the same standards as text for whether they add something non-trivial to the article which is still fairly low benchmark.∞陣内 Jinnai 17:05, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I think we are saying the same thing. If an image doesn't add anything to an article, it's quite reasonable to remove it. But whether or not someone is offended by that image shouldn't be relevant, one way or the other, to the decision to remove it or keep the image. Do you agree with that? Hobit (talk) 20:48, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree, but NOTCENSORED has been used (at times with success) to defend those kind of images. That's why I believe adding a short statement that it doesn't protect removal of images there (or someplace else at NOT if you think it better) should be done.∞陣内 Jinnai 20:54, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

That some guideline or policy is used in a way that is contrary to what it actually says is pretty common. NOTNEWS and NOTPLOT both having had similar problems. I'd not object to a statement that clarifies that being offensive is neither a reason to delete nor to keep an image. But the incidental language is unacceptable to me due to me as that seems to say something quite different (if offensive the image must be at least this important otherwise we remove it). Hobit (talk) 11:43, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that's quite the point: it's more like "if the image contains something that's offensive, then the offensive part of the image has to actually be relevant to the article". So consider File:Reflexion-rr.jpg. This image shows (1) a car window and (2) most of a naked woman. This image is okay for Reflectoporn: both the nudity and the shiny surface of the car window are relevant to the subject of the article. This same image is not okay for Car window: the nudity—the "offensive" aspect of this two-subject photograph—is completely irrelevant. I believe that we will all agree (except possibly a few pro-nudism POV pushers or exhibitionists) that we are not "censoring" anything by requiring that the images in Car window contain no irrelevant or "incidental" offensive material. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:48, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

You're missing the point that the "offensiveness" of the reflection is irrelevant. If the reflection detracts from the subject the image is intended to illustrate, then it should only be used if there is no better photograph (which in this case there are plenty of). What the detracting thing is (or whether it is offensive or not) is irrelevant - in the example you give, a reflection of a clothed woman or a cute kitten would make the image equally as inappropriate. In short, we are censoring if we are demanding 'no irrelevant "offensive" material', but we are not if we are demanding 'no irrelevant material'. Thryduulf (talk) 15:44, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

This image, used as an illustration of car window, would violate the principle of least astonishment to a greater degree than if it contained a distracting reflection of the photographer himself, plus a cat sitting on the rock the woman sat on. The latter would just be interpreted as a bad photograph, while this would come across as intentional, and thus more astonishing. --J N 466 22:05, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

One thing we could do as part of such an RfC is make sure that we stop lying about Wikipedia not being censored. Of course it is censored. The policy that details how this censorship works in practice is WP:OFFICE. At WP:OFFICE#Currently under scrutiny you can find a table listing the articles that are currently subject to such censorship. In some cases {{pp-office}} is used to make readers and editors aware of the censorship.

That's just the most official form of censorship, of course. I recently got a number of perfectly reasonable, normal, harmless and relevant talk page posts censored under the pretext that BLP applies to talk page comments with full strength, as if something I say in our internal discussions had the same effect as a claim in someone's biography. I was surprised by the large number of editors who supported that instance of unnecessary censorship. As another example, per WP:BLPEL and WP:ELBLP we censor links to websites that incite hatred against a living person even if they are so notable that they are discussed in the person's biography. Hans Adler 20:32, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Yep. And I wish most of that didn't happen. But the NOTs are rarely absolute. We aren't paper, but we sometimes act like it (deleting sourced material for other reasons). We aren't a news source, but we certainly document news stories. The list goes on. It it a lie? I'd say it's more accurate to say that absolutes rarely work in reality. We have our goals, but sometimes reality intrudes. Hobit (talk) 20:45, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

That is a bit intellectually dishonest, on par with saying "we don't really have freedom of speech since we're not allowed to yell FIRE! in a crowded theatre". That the project actually practices a bit of editorial discretion and *gasp* ethics when dealing with biographies of living people, or that the WMF needs to step in when directly dealing with an outside complaint does not mean "we allow censorship". So please, stop the theatrics. Tarc (talk) 20:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

If you're arguing that strong ethics are appropriate for BLP's it hardly seems consistent to say we should have no ethics applied to any other topic.

Additionally if you blocked Wikipedia from being accessed in the UK you could have a much less strong BLP policy. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

That is perhaps the most ridiculous bullshit seen in near 2 months of discussion here. The desire to provide information free of puritanical censorship doesn't have a fucking thing to do with ridding the project of poorly-sourced or unsourced material on living people. Honestly. eraser, clue up. Tarc (talk) 21:21, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The BLP policy is definitely a limit on free speech as its as much stricter than the rules surrounding content in other articles. Its also almost certainly as strict as it is down to English libel law - source, source 2. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:31, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Again, we are getting off track. I'm pretty sure that we could close this entire discussion as "no consensus to change NOTCENSORED at this time.", and trying to argue what should be changed is beating the dead horse. I am suggesting a month downtime to come back at this fresh with an organized RFC to determine the right approach then and only then of how to structure it to make the most effective use of time. It is pointless to argue more on the matter as it stands until we know what we're actually aiming to achieve. It would be hoped that those involved in individual image discussions to take a similar breather until such a time that a more concrete policy/guideline change can be established. --MASEM (t) 21:06, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm certainly willing to listen to what people think needs to be changed. But it really shouldn't be a rehash of what has already been proposed. And I'm not seeing anything new being proposed (let alone anything I'd agree with). But perhaps something will show up. Hobit (talk) 21:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

If I may maybe make the discussion to start on the 8th instead of right after the new year since people tend to take vacations during the holiday season. Also is this the place it is going to be discussed at once the new RFC begins? Tivanir2 (talk) 21:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Tivanir2, don't sweat over the exact date. doubtless it will go on for a good long time after it begins, and if it's structured properly there won't be a lot of cross talk, so people will be able to enter their perspective a few days late without any negative impact. remember, this is a long-haul decision, so there's no need to respond to everything in real time. --Ludwigs2 03:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd also make certain this be placed on the notice ticker considering the issues with "not truth" being claimed to be not advertised enough for a core major policy change.∞陣内 Jinnai 17:10, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

If the discussion can be closed right now as being "no consensus" then it should be closed as being no consensus. This is unlikely to change in a month, nor is it likely that anything of sustenance will be debated, because this whole "RfC" is a red herring. NOTCENSORED does not protect incidental images, this is something that has been explained several times to Ludwig on the Pregnancy article, and I'm sure, on the Muhammad article. But in neither of these cases are the images he cites incidental. And this not the first time he's attempted to make a change to the NOTCENSORED policy over the offensiveness of the image. --Xomic_Talk 02:46, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

IMNSHO, calling this "no consensus to change" is charitable. Seriously. This won't pass. Please stop beating the dead horse and allow everyone to get back to doing something productive. These consistent attempts at wearing down opposition in the hopes that you can get a balance of numbers at a single moment in time has long since become wearisome. Reso lute 05:00, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I look at discussions like this similar to what goes on over at RFA... For years we've been saying that RfA is Broken and needs to be fixed. Probably 95% of the people who are familiar with RfA agree with that. Yet despite the fact that everybody agrees that RfA is broken, no meaningful (or even not so meaningful) change has occurred since I became an admin 3 or 4 years ago. If we can't affect meaningful change on a process that EVERYBODY agrees is broken, what hope do we have of affecting meaningful change on a section that not everybody agrees is broken?---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 16:26, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I think overall the project is moving in the right direction. I've seen a reasonable amount of stuff change. Probably the issue at RfA is that no-one has made a serious proposal to move forward. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:03, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

"no-one has mad a serious proposal to move forward"---obviously you haven't spent much time over there. The number of tasks forces and sup projects that have started up over the past 3 years to come up with a better way cannot be counted on your hands... the number of trial balloons with various ideas of how to change could not be counted on your hands and toes... Suffice it to say, I'm a little jaded when it comes to making meaningful change. Meaningful change here comes incrementally or not at all.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 20:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I am dropping a note here that the Muhammad images case has been proposed to ArbCom (Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Muhammad_Images). I don't know if they will take it but I have encouraged them that if they are going to be deciding on policy issues regarding NOT:CENSORED for the Muhammad images, it makes sense to consider the broader cast for any offensive image. If ArbCom denies taking the case, an RFC still makes sense, but not if they do. --MASEM (t) 16:50, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Timeline of controversial content

Relevant to this discussion is m:Controversial content/Timeline which includes a listing of most proposals related to image filtering and censorship on en, meta and some other wikis. It doesn't include this discussion though, so it cannot be regarded as completely comprehensive. Thryduulf (talk) 20:34, 16 December 2011 (UTC)