I now I'm home I checked the article and noticed a free image was put in its place. Forget what I said in that last mail. I should've checked first. Mgm On 4/3/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic(a)gmail.com> wrote:

G'day Katefan0, I haven't checked (I saw the Lolicon article once and it quite cured my curiosity), but I'd bet that the set of people complaining about "censorship" includes more than just rock spiders. It's kinda sweet that there's people out there so concerned about basic American freedoms (on an international project, but never mind) that they'll stand up and fight for the right of sickos to look at kiddie porn. Actually, "sweet" probably isn't the word I'm looking for ... -- Mark Gallagher "What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!" - Danger Mouse -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.3.5/300 - Release Date: 3/04/2006

I'll repeat what I said at WP:AN/I, well done Sam. Brave move, and you have my support. On 4/3/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Looks to be potential edit warring arguing for the free image's removal because some of the magazines appear to be hentai instead of lolicon. Being a fan of neither, I have no idea what the difference is between the two, but some of the editors seem to be quite knowledgeable (and opinionated) about this matter. On 4/3/06, David Alexander Russell <webmaster(a)davidarussell.co.uk> wrote:

The deleted image has been added as an external link. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lolicon&curid=419038&diff… <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lolicon&curid=419038&diff=46804578&oldid=46796391> Sydney aka FloNight Katefan0 wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Pictures of hentai magazines are not illegal in every country from which people contribute to Wikipedia, depictions of child pornography are. Cynical Death Phoenix wrote: _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Child porn features images of people who are unquestionably underage in sexual situations. The montage picture (haven't seen it, being from Scotland I have the same legal problems with viewing these as Sam Korn) of a rack of hentai magazines would more than likely not do that, and would therefore be legal (or, at least, [remembering I'm not a lawyer] less illegal than the 'teddy bear' image) Cynical Death Phoenix wrote: _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On 4/3/06, Mark Wagner &lt;carnildo(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: If that's the case, if there is an image of stack of comics featuring both hentai and lolicon, I don't think it needs to be removed simply because it contains hentai (though to be fair, some of the folks arguing for its removal are also saying that the image is too small, etc.)

Quite possibly. [[Lolicon]] has been the subject of multiple edit wars for at least 5 months. It won't go away.

On 4/3/06, Tony Sidaway &lt;f.crdfa(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Ha. Ah-hahaha. HAHAAHAAAHAHAH. *wipes tear from eye* Okay, everyone pile on Sam's statement now, if you please. Ryan

On 4/4/06, Jimmy Wales &lt;jwales(a)wikia.com&gt; wrote: I don't agree with their arguments (I am glad the image is gone), but I don't think the ones wanting to keep the picture were pedophiles. They had other reasons for wanting to keep the image. Garion96

Now that we're on this topic... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Missionary_Sex_Position.png Doesn't the teddy bear in that picture look a bit odd and out of place? :) (I'm not suggesting deletion, just maybe getting the bear out of the picture.) -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

It's not a matter of being a "pedophile". I find the image interesting and appealing (even humorous). However I am well aware that it is not wise to share this perspective with a 12 year old girl. It is fundamental reality that a substantial part of our readership is in the junior high school range. I know from my own experience that I seldom consulted an encyclopedia after I was about 13. There is a saying, "You take your victim as you find them" We need to be aware and responsible. Fred On Apr 4, 2006, at 12:24 PM, Ben McIlwain wrote:

Beyond this image, there are lots of problems with pedophilia-related articles. I don't think that most of the censorship stalwarts in the Lolicon debate were pedophiles, but it's certain that there are pedophiles fighting for certain things to be included in articles like [[NAMBLA]], [[Childlove movement]], [[Curley v. NAMBLA]], etc. An infusion of experienced, neutral editors into fights over articles like these would be appreciated. k On 4/4/06, Ryan Delaney &lt;ryan.delaney(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

I feel like we're repeating the McCarthy era, only instead of Communists, this time it's pedophiles. Where exactly are these alleged pedophiles? I've heard a lot of accusations of pedophilia being thrown about (even by Jimbo, which is most unfortunate), but I haven't really seen any actual evidence of pedophilia, just people pointing at the anti-censorship types and yelling "PEDOPHILES!!" Do you have any specific evidence of pedophiles trying to co-opt Wikipedia for "mass grooming" or whatever? I never said anybody is trying to coopt Wikipedia for mass grooming; that was someone else. What I said is that there are people with agendas on Wikipedia. By that I mean painting the "childlove movement" in the most flattering, least-critical light possible. And neutral editors would be most welcome to participate in the current wars on these types of articles. k On 4/4/06, Ben McIlwain &lt;cydeweys(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

I'd rather not name any names over an open listserv; no need to needlessly antagonize. But if you'd like to have a private conversation, I'd be glad to. k On 4/4/06, Ben McIlwain &lt;cydeweys(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On Apr 4, 2006, at 4:48 PM, Mark Gallagher wrote: I wasn't aware that Americans were unique in thinking pedophiles were morally comparable to communists, although to be perfectly fair, pedophiles have never committed acts of genocide. -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

Drini drini wrote: Why should you have to duck when someone else has made such an extraordinarily stupid straw man statement. Ec

On Apr 5, 2006, at 10:42 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote: Not to belabor this meta-debate, but it's a simple matter of historical fact that communists have committed large-scale mass murder. Tacit implications that communism is "okay" is as offensive to many people as implying that fascism is "okay". Since neither question is of direct relevance here, let's just agree, for the sake of avoiding conflict, not to say nice things about controversial political ideologies. -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

Ray Saintonge wrote: <snip flamewar> Can we kindly bring discussion back on topic? The image has been deleted. If you have anything to say about it, do so. Otherwise, can we *please* close this thread? -- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

Philip Welch wrote: Yes, I can drop it. I'm not interested in pursuing this ad nauseam. Yes, we could say the same thing about some fascist regimes, and someone thus interested would have been perfectly justified in raising such a defence once that term was secondarily introduced. It's perfectly obvious to absolutely everyone that no-one was being an apologist in this thread by setting the record straight. Ec

On Apr 4, 2006, at 6:28 PM, Justin Cormack wrote: Right. I guess a more meaningful response is to say that we're not comparing the pedophiles directly to communists, but rather the remarks about pedophiles to similar anti-communist activity in the 1950's. Long story made short, in the 1950's, certain Congressmen decided that communists had infiltrated American government, the American entertainment industry, and other important parts of American society. At the time this was considered a bad thing, as the United States was in the midst of the Cold War against all the communist countries, most notably Soviet Russia. You might remember Soviet Russia from those stupid Yakov Smirnoff jokes everyone keeps repeating on Slashdot... Long story made short, no vast conspiracy was ever uncovered, and a lot of people were harassed and had their lives ruined for, most believe, no good reason. So McCarthyism (named after McCarthy, one of the guys who started this whole hunt for communists) has gone down in history as a bad thing. (1) At the time, McCarthyism was compared to the old witch hunts that used to take place in old Europe and early colonial America, because witch hunts similarly disrupted society in order to chase after an imaginary threat. This point was perhaps best made by Arthur Miller, whose play "The Crucible" portrayed the witch hunts during the McCarthy era, leading many to draw the comparison. I think the argument is that in worrying about pedophiles, we're disrupting Wikipedia's operations just to chase down some imaginary threat. There's a fear that suspected pedophiles (or even actual pedophiles (2)) will be harassed needlessly for no useful end, severely damaging Wikipedia's social fabric. 1. Some people are apologists for McCarthyism, believing that communist infiltration was enough of a threat to justify this. Since the fall of Soviet Russia, declassified information proves that the Soviets did try to infiltrate American society in order to subvert it towards communism. Needless to say, they failed for reasons largely unrelated to the congressional hearings. 2. Similarly, some of the victims of McCarthyism were, in fact, communists. This does not justify, in many people's eyes, the harassment and disruption of their lives that occurred. It is a matter of record that there are some self-declared pedophiles who contribute to Wikipedia. -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Mark Gallagher stated for the record: Got that right. There's at least six orders of magnitude difference in the number of murders committed by those two forms of evil. - -- Sean Barrett | Honk if you hate peace and quiet. sean(a)epoptic.org |

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I agree that 'pedophile' might have been a bit strong. Perhaps 'people who believe that Wikipedia has a duty to provide pedophiles with child porn regardless of the law' would be a more accurate, objective description. Cynical Ben McIlwain wrote: _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On 4/5/06, Matt R &lt;matt_crypto(a)yahoo.co.uk&gt; wrote: I think this meta-debate is not doing anything constructive. It's pretty clear that the image is staying deleted at this point. Arguing about who said what to whom isn't going to accomplish anything for us besides toxifying the evironment even further. I think it's time we walked away from this one. Ryan

On 4/7/06, BJörn Lindqvist &lt;bjourne(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Some of us feel that even if the image had been free, it still should never have been included in Wikipedia. Concentrating on its copyright status is ignoring the real debate, rather than deciding once and for all how to deal with images that would be perceived by the public to be child porn. Steve

The most common argument against your point - child pornography is illegal because real child are harmed while making it. Most Western nations allow drawings of child porn but disallow photographs for this reason. I think all drawing that depict adults having sex with children or children engaged in age inappropriate sex acts should be banned from Wikipedia. My reasoning is that it depicts and condones the sexual exploitation of children. These drawing shock the consciousness of people that are otherwise strong free speech advocates. Sydney Ryan Delaney wrote:

On Apr 7, 2006, at 5:40 AM, Steve Bennett wrote: We're not just trying to replace Britannica; we're trying to replace specialized encyclopedias as well. I'm sure that an encyclopedia of sexual behavior would include sketches of varying sexual positions much like our own. -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

On Apr 7, 2006, at 2:46 PM, David Alexander Russell wrote: Or, on a pragmatic level, child porn images incur legal and reputation-related risks to the project whilse ordinary sexual images do not incur these same risks. -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

That's ridiculous. Ten minutes of research, even, will clarify to anyone who viewed the image that it is _not_ legally child pornography, no matter how you interpret the PROTECT Act's constitutionality. There's no legal reason to remove a completely legal image. And morality is entirely subjective. Arguing that a certain image is "immoral" is *not* a valid argument in the context of Wikipedia, because we have to adhere to WP:NPOV. You, personally, see this drawing as morally wrong. I do not. I *do* think censorship is morally wrong, though... Jay On 4/7/06, David Alexander Russell &lt;webmaster(a)davidarussell.co.uk&gt; wrote:

Mark Gallagher wrote: For that matter, what the flying fuck *is* the PROTECT act? Morally wrong or not, the image was a copyright violation. BTW, would you like to have goatse/tubgirl/autofellatio/(insert random Last Measure image here) on the servers? -- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

On 4/7/06, Jay Whetherspoon &lt;polynomialjay(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Expect that it was a "fair use" image used without permission from its author, who might be very pissed his or her "art" is hosted on Wikipedia... -- mvh Björn

On Apr 7, 2006, at 4:33 AM, Ryan Delaney wrote: So it's not whether the *public* would perceive it to be child porn-- it's whether *Ryan Delaney* would perceive it to be child porn. "Imagine a world in which Ryan Delaney has free access to the sum of human knowledge..." -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

On Apr 7, 2006, at 2:36 PM, Sam Korn wrote: Easily: child pornography is visual material that depicts explicit sexual activity involving children. My understanding (albeit unclear, as I've never seen the image in question) is that the image did not portray sexual activity. You could also define child pornography as visual material that documents actually-occurring explicit sexual activity involving children. Since it's a fantasy sketch, not a photograph, there's no clear evidence that the image documents any actually-occurring activity either. Under US law, as well as the laws of several nations, erotic materials depicting children are perfectly legal so long as no children were harmed in their production--i.e., so long as they do not depict any actually-occurring activity. I find absolutely no *moral* problem with the deleted image (although, needless to say, I do find it disgusting on other levels). However, I still support its deletion on *pragmatic* grounds--that the image itself was of net negative value to the encyclopedia. -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

On Apr 7, 2006, at 2:54 PM, Sam Korn wrote: You asked for "a definition", not "Wikipedia's definition". The image in question was completely inappropriate for a serious encyclopedia. Whether it was really child pornography or not is an academic question of little interest to us now. -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

On Apr 8, 2006, at 2:40 AM, Sam Korn wrote: The standard in that case is not "child pornography", but rather "likely to bring disrepute to the project". -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

On 4/8/06, SPUI &lt;drspui(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Yes, in terms of laws. This image might not fall under child pornography rules in some country or another, but that doesn't actually stop it being child pornography. -- Sam

On Apr 7, 2006, at 2:43 PM, David Alexander Russell wrote: But many child porn laws *do* make the distinction, so *objectively* these images *are not* child porn. As we can both see, it's useless to argue about whether the images themselves are, objectively, child pornography. That's not what matters, though. It's an irrelevant question. The real question is: was the image of net positive value to the encyclopedia? Due to the legal liabilities, PR risks, and general disrepute attached to the image, I argue that it was of net *negative* value, and ought to have been deleted on those grounds. -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

On 4/7/06, Philip Welch &lt;wikipedia(a)philwelch.net&gt; wrote: If that's the standard it takes to get that image deleted, I will accept it. Smug jabs aside, here's the point; you and I might disagree about whether we should call that image "pornography", but that's a subjective disagreement about word meanings. I wouldn't like to have the rule be "No pornography allowed in Wikipedia", because although I agree with the proposition, what would happen is that people would go around calling random stuff "pornography" and demanding that it be deleted. That's what's going on here -- word meanings are fluid, vague, and different people interpret them differently. When I say "That image is pornography", I express a true proposition. When you say "That image is not pornography", you also express a true proposition; because what we mean by "pornography" is evidentally different. The real issue here is whether we want that image in Wikipedia, given the legal and moral lines we would be walking by including it. I don't think a reasonable argument could be made in favor, either legally, morally, or in terms of benefit to the encyclopedia. At best, we've saved the WMF foundation and many thousands of readers from legal liability for copyright infringement and posession of child pornography. At worst, we've lost an image that was slightly more illustrative of the subject matter than the free, legal one we have now. Is it really worth all this argument? Let's get back to work on the encyclopedia. Ryan

Are you debating for the debates sake or are you contributing to an encyclopedia? -- mvh Björn

G'day BJörn, I just had this amazing flash of insight! Like many amazing flashes of insight, it may be off-target, so feel free to correct me. Let's step back in time, and give Sam his time over again. (SK = "smoddy", LT = "Lolicon Trolls" because I couldn't think of anything better on the spur of the moment, SP = "FloNight", FL = "freedom lovers") SK: Hi, I'm smoddy. I think you should delete this image because it's an unnecessary fair use image and there's a better free image available. LT: Actually, in the free image you don't quite get the same close up of sickeningly inappropriate child porn. Also, some of the magazines in the free image print drawings of adults, which is clearly wrong. SP: I agree with Sam! LT: FloNight agrees? That proves this is all about censorship! FL: AAARGH! WIKIPEDIA IS NOT CENSORED! I haven't even seen this image, but we *cannot* delete it! You monsters! You're just like the Communists! Or was it Fascists?! The moral of the story and, incidentally, the only part of this email that's serious, is that certain images will attract a crowd of anti-censorship Wikipedians regardless of what reasons we have for deletion. -- Mark Gallagher "What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!" - Danger Mouse -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.4.0/304 - Release Date: 7/04/2006

On Apr 5, 2006, at 6:57 AM, Matt R wrote: I agree with Matt. This is not a profitable direction for discussion. -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

Jimmy Wales wrote: Another clever way to troll is to accuse your opponents of being pedophiles. The alternative is to assume good faith.

Mikkerpikker wrote: Arguments over whether to keep a picture should be based on the picture itself rather than on who is making the arguments. Ec

Why is it a bad thing that detractors have an easy way to rubbish Wikipedia? Doesn't detractors already have about one million other things about Wikipedai that they can complain about? Quality not popularity. You lost when you started to apply denigrating labels on people. I don't think it is strange that you thougth that "the process was demonstrably broken" when you belittled those you were supposed to work with. -- mvh Björn

On 4/7/06, BJörn Lindqvist &lt;bjourne(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Please explain how this image that was *child pornography" furthered our encyclopaedic mission. I've "lost"? I didn't know I was competing. The IfD process did not work because *some* (forgive my shouting, NOT ALL) the users voting keep were POV-pushing trolls. -- Sam

On 4/7/06, BJörn Lindqvist &lt;bjourne(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I suspect that the attitude demonstrated by that question is pretty much the reason why the image deletion process is broken in this instance, and why someone had to work up the guts to delete it in the end. The picture showed a child being sexually abused, presented in a manner intended to sexually titillate the viewer, and you ask how this could have the potential to harm Wikipedia.