Commons:Featured picture candidates/RFC: Censoring NSFW photographs

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The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
This RfC never got anywhere; people spent as much time commenting about Fae's wording as they did the issue at hand. After several months stale, I am closing this as no consensus. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:11, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Past photographs being raised for Featured Picture review have been suppressed from being displayed in the review due to perceptions of the photograph being not safe for work (NSFW). Does the community support the suppression of the display of images that may become Featured Pictures on the main page of Commons on the basis of a NSFW definition, were it to be agreed?

Past examples of censored images include:

  1. Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Kelvin and Aren.jpg

Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:02, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A parallel local discussion was also created at Commons talk:Featured picture candidates#The Feature Picture Candidate forum should be "Safe for Work".
  • This RFC is biased worded. The issue here is absolutely not censorship of NSFW photos. Any policy-abiding image is welcome at FPC and can be featured. All that was requested was a "NSFW" link to problematic images rather than full inclusion of the image at 5"x5" on the candidate list. This is done elsewhere on Commons as a courtesy. Is it too much to ask that this list be suitable for perusal at one's lunch break without genitals or breasts scrolling up in front of your manager's face? Really, a little editorial restraint doesn't mean the whole of commons policy will come crumbling down. What an overreaction. And to make this a LGBT issue is frankly insulting to me. Anyway, the real discussion is at Commons talk:Featured picture candidates#The Feature Picture Candidate forum should be "Safe for Work". Please discuss there rather than having the discussion split. -- Colin (talk) 12:23, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • The RFC states "suppressed from being displayed in the review" which is an alternative way of explaining that images were turned into links to avoid them being displayed. As for being an LGBT issue, the first mention of that in this RFC is in your comment. The point of having a community wide RFC is to have viewpoints from the community rather than limit access to a consensus to a small club of people that frequent FPC. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • The first mention of the LGBT issue is by you here on the candidate itself. And further comments on your user page. Please don't try to suggest I brought it up, because I most view the LGBT aspect not only a diversion from the real issue but an attempt to make out that there is a homophobic agenda here. Colin (talk) 12:48, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • I did not make any reference to LGBT as I did not think it was relevant to this RFC. To be absolutely and completely clear, the first mention of homophobia with regard to handling this photograph on Commons is yours, here. --Fæ (talk) 12:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • In the above link (dated 08:12, 4 November 2013) Fæ wrote "I would be interested to know if alternative gay related photographs published on Commons under Category:Files from Sasha Kargaltsev Flickr stream that feature nude or semi-nude gay men would also be subject to censorship if I nominate them here". On his talk page (dated 08:02, 4 November 2013) Fæ worte " There are past examples of artworks featuring (non-gay) nudity which were not censored, so this should be discussed by the community to ensure consistent practices for censorship that can be seen to be fairly applied. Yes, the LGBT community does routinely suffer discrimination in many forms, both overt and covert censorship of gay artwork has a very long history and continues to happen today in ways that would not apply to "normal" artworks. One of the things I love about volunteering my time to support Commons is that artists like Kargaltsev are not suppressed here. If we are in the position that explicit homoerotic artworks such as the Warren Cup can be put on public display by the British Museum, in full view of children (more than that, the display was even lowered to make it wheel-chair friendly, without worrying that children could then see the detail of the homoerotic artwork), yet on Commons any gay related nudity would be censored, then the Commons starts to look more oppressive than most governments." My comments above are dated 12:23, 4 November 2013. Perhaps Fæ needs a new watch. I'm pretty sure the LGBT discrimination issue was raised by him. -- Colin (talk) 13:08, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • I made no allegation of homophobia as a reason for your suppression of this image, this is why you are unable to produce a quote. You may wish to add links to the discussion rather than cherry-picking my words out of context which loses the comments from other editors that I was responding to, as some of this was general discussion that had little to do with how this specific image had been censored in FPC. You may not be aware that "homophobia" should not be automatically considered the same thing as "censorship" even when the action of censorship relates to gay artworks as has occurred in this case. Polarising questions and discussion about your censorship of a gay related artwork by calling discussion an allegation of homophobia, is inflammatory and unhelpful. If you would like to see a community consensus on this, I suggest you avoid this sort of argumentative rhetoric. --Fæ (talk) 13:16, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
              • Em, there's a link to the discussion at the end of all of your posts. Let's give people some credit for being able to track it down. People can follow the link to your talk page and read the whole discussion if they want. You brought up suppression/censorship of gay images, not me. There is absolutely nothing LGBT about this issue at all. You could have phrased your comments in neutral terms about nudity in general, but you didn't. You didn't. You have deliberately made this out to be a gay issue and attacked me for picking on a gay picture posted by a gay user: From your talk page (my bold): "you might have been better off not suppressing an obviously gay artistic image proposed by someone as openly gay as me". I would love a reasonable community discussion on this. So why have you made it personal? What has Fæ's sexuality and the sexuality of this image got to do with anything? Nothing at all. And it has nothing to do with censorship either. That's another distraction. This is all about courtesy -- something that appears to be lacking. Colin (talk) 13:33, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
                • The first mention of LGBT in this RFC is in your comment, I did not mention this in creating the RFC. If the gay context of this image is a big problem for you, the only reason I can imagine why you are insisting on continuing to turn this RFC into one entirely about LGBT censorship is that you wish to marginalise this RFC and polarize discussion. I'll not be continuing to reply to these types of comments as my interest in creating this RFC was to establish the community consensus for suppression of images rather than these decisions being made solely based on your personal viewpoint as to what might count as NSFW and what does not. --Fæ (talk) 13:42, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
                  • The gay context of this image is of no problem to me. It is clear from the text I quote above that it is a big problem for you. I apparently should have steered clear from "suppressing" a gay image nominated by a gay user. Would you have less of problem if I "suppressed" a heterosexual image from a heterosexual user? Why would that be? Colin (talk) 14:11, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This RFC title contains the word "Censoring". It shouldn't. I suspect the lack of discussion here is because there is no discussion to be had on censorship. That's a dead issue. What we should have had instead is a discussion on providing links out of courtesy on general discussion forums such as FPC. But that discussion Commons talk:Featured picture candidates#The Feature Picture Candidate forum should be "Safe for Work" has now been trashed by someone pointedly adding images of nudity to the discussion. How grown up is that. -- Colin (talk) 14:11, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It would help this RFC if other cases of suppression/censorship/whatever-you-call-it of the image were listed. At the moment the only example I can find of images being suppressed during FPC discussion on Commons (rather than the English Wikipedia) is Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Kelvin and Aren.jpg, if you know of other cases please add them to the list in the RFC proposal statement. --Fæ (talk) 14:16, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Images requiring careful presentation are rare at Commons FPC. My experience with using a link rather than embedding the image in a discussion is a general one. I'm sure you've seen it done too and thought nothing more about it. I've seen it on Commons and Wikipedia. It would be quite hard for me to find an example: I've been here for years and I wouldn't know how to track down such an example. Why it should raise hackles and cries of censorship/suppression is beyond me. The image is not censored at all, and the terminology we use is quite important.
Careful pragmatic (rather than dogmatic) handling of such images might actually encourage more nominations. I do understand that not having the full image on the FPC list could be a bit of a disadvantage. I think that rather than a text link on FPC, we could have some other placeholder image/icon. That might be eye-catching enough to tempt people to click (appropriately warned of course). A big [NSFW] box might actually be a rather attractive click-temptation for many, when browsing in a private situation :-). If handled well, showing some editorial courtesy at FPC while also promoting more such images to FP status could be a great result. Colin (talk) 14:47, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This RFC is specific to the issue created at FPC. If the only example we can find of a candidate image being suppressed/censored as NSFW is File:Kelvin and Aren.jpg, which has since been unsuppressed, then I do not see why FPC discussions should be considered a special exception to our general guidelines, or why this RFC would be a suitable launchpad to propose a generic guideline for NSFW photographs on Commons (however NSFW is to be defined in the future). When raising this RFC I had been led to believe that there were other past examples of this as a local community "norm", I am disappointed to see that there appears to be no evidence when this is challenged. --Fæ (talk) 15:34, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It was "unsuppressed" by you. Links rather than images are a common courtesy throughout Wikimedia projects. Please point to the part of policy that says all discussion forums are required to contain images of genitalia in full view and that using links rather than embedded images is disallowed or even discouraged? COM:CENSOR makes itself quite clear that this is a file-hosting policy: "The policy of "Commons is not censored" means that a lawfully-hosted file, which falls within Commons' definitions of scope, will not be deleted solely on the grounds that it may not be "child-friendly" or that it may cause offence to you or others, for moral, personal, religious, social, or other reasons." It goes on to say "A balance has to be struck" This is a good point. We can find a balance that allows us to host, review and promote-as-featured images are problematic, while also being sensitive to the wishes of users to be able to read certain Commons forums in their leisure time at work or home without fear of disciplinary action or embarrassment.
I shall try to find previous examples of FPCs with nudity later tonight. I suspect they are rather few so don't really set any kind of example -- the FP "community" churns every few years anyway and "consensus can change", of course. I know Russavia had a NSFW video nomination recently and the frame displayed on the FPC nomination was pretty safe. -- Colin (talk) 16:20, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Please keep in mind that the Commons Community has no agreed definition of NSFW, there is only your opinions as to what might be NSFW, so neither the Karlgaltsev photograph, nor Russavia's nominated video have a consensus that considers them "NSFW". Thanks --Fæ (talk) 16:33, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The framing of this RFC as censorship is borderline bad faith and certainly poisoned the well when it comes to having a mellow discussion. The image, or any image displaying genitals, should be constrained by some kind of NSFW caveat. There are other subjects where this could be applied without much controversy, such as female breasts or images of horrific violence /death. The link, or some kind of reveal spoiler script, seems more than reasonable in these situations. Not as a measure of censorship but of courtesy. 131.137.245.207 18:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
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