[WikiEN-l] Potentially offensive pictures

Sat Jan 10 20:17:51 UTC 2004

Christopher-
> What about pictures of:
>   Dead, bloody people (common on european TV)

Are they? It's been a while since I last watched TV, but my impression  
always was that US TV is more violent than Euro-TV. I may be wrong, of  
course.

Answer: Depends on context - we don't needlessly throw pictures of "dead,  
bloody" people into articles. Why would we?  An article about  
decompensation, rigor mortis etc. might include an image, but obviously,  
the more generally offensive such a picture would be, the more likely we  
would want to link to it instead of displaying it inline.

>   Drug paraphenalia

Sure, no problem.

>   Step by step bomb making

Could be legally problematic.

>   Deformed lifeforms from genetic experiments

Sure, if they warrant an article.

>   Injured people from combat (limbs tangled, guts spilled, heads
> disfigured)

Definitely, but only in an article that is explicitly about the effects of  
war; in a main article about war they should be linked to.

>   Medical pictures of diseased bodypart

Definitely useful, but preferably link instead of displaying inline.

>   War crimes (remember the photo of the US officer executing a
> vietnamese during the vietnam war?)

Definitely, see above re: combat.

>   Sexual acts, such as penetration, arousal, nipple clamps, bondage,
> etc.

Legally problematic. Nipple clamps no problem.

>   Domestic violence

Link to.

>   Aborted Foetuses

Link to.

Regards,

Erik