User talk:FeralOink

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Wikimedia Image Deletion 2010

This Q&A regarding several dozen images deleted from Wikimedia Commons should be migrated to Meta.

The Signpost 20 Feb 2023 Editorial

My larger concern is how the events of May 2010 were represented in The Signpost of 20 February 2023, in the section, Editorial: The loss of the moral high ground. It is kind of confusing. The Feb 2023 Signpost post quotes Jimmy Wales, commenting in 2006 about Wikimedia's stance against censorship:

"... our image host, Wikimedia Commons, is not censored. That it could cause offense was not sufficient to remove an image. Amongst those advocating for this view was Jimbo Wales. He cited his free speech advocacy, and stated that "we can not deviate from our goals in order to accommodate governments who would force censorship of Wikipedia.""

Lookback to May 2010 by The Signpost

The 2023 post continues with this excerpt from a never-published Signpost entry of May 2010:

"However, the current petition comes after we have lost some of the moral authority we once had. Jimbo Wales, out of fear of a media attack, led by Fox News, about allegations of pornography on Wikipedia, instituted a massive deletion of content from Commons, including many examples of artwork by notable artists. On being challenged about this deletion. Wales wrote:

He also deleted several works by major artists... and numerous line art illustrations used to illustrate articles on sexual content. Only long after these deletions were done did he state his reasons:

It wasn't even effective: Fox News shortly thereafter posted an article attacking Wikipedia. If Wikipedia is going to sacrifice its moral high ground and neutrality – for saying that things offensive to Fox News are worth mass deletion sprees including historic artwork, but that the complaints of Muslims are not, is highly non-neutral – we should not sell ourselves cheap. We recently did, and only the effective loss of all Jimbo Wales' powers over his actions leaves us any moral high ground at all. This petition is much harder to deal with, as we have shown that, yes, we will give into pressure – but only if it comes from our mainstream Western culture."

This is FeralOink again. Stay with me please. The current, 20 Feb 2023 Signpost then assesses Jimbo's actions and the events of May 2010:

"Looking back at this from 2023, it's hard to say what was learned: after Jimbo gave up most of his founder privileges, the matter kind of just... died out. Most of the images deleted were restored, though, unfortunately, deleting images means they get removed from articles, so whether all the article usages ever got dealt with is very unclear.

I guess everyone just decided we should pretend all of this never happened?

I honestly think these events were important to Wikipedia's history, though: This was when WP:NOTCENSORED got tested. He even edit-warred to try and keep images deleted. Had Jimbo won out, years of saying that images of Muhammad shouldn't be censored would have blown up in our faces. Because Jimbo made us lose the high ground, but the hundreds of people who fought against him regained it."

The truth about Larry Sanger, Jimbo, and Fox News in 2010

I reviewed the content and the 2006 and 2010 era links in Feb 2023 article in The Signpost as excerpted above. I then commented myself, as follows:

"This account of Jimmy Wales so called mass deletion of legitimate art works (due to his supposed fear of potential Fox News criticism) lacks important details. Why was Jimbo concerned? Well, he had good reason to be concerned! On 27April2010, Fox reported that Larry Sanger told the FBI that Wikipedia was distributing porn via WMF servers. Fox next reported on 7May2010 that WMF had initiated mass deletions of pornographic materials of children on its sites, Commons and otherwise. Yet in the February 2023 Signpost article, only this Fox News report of 10May2010 is mentioned and linked, Larry Sanger said he reported a Category “Nude Children” and PHOTOS of naked children to the FBI."

Despite the popular representation of Fox News by Wikipedians as FAUX News, Fox reported that there were NOT graphic photos of children, only drawings. The drawings included, via Fox 10May2010:

"...original illustrations of children engaged in sexual acts... Sanger referred to an early 20th century colored illustration of a young girl performing oral sex on a much older man. Its caption reads: “If Mom returns? She'll tell you that it's very rude to talk with your mouth full." The image is accessible via Wikipedia's article on "Pedophilia," at the bottom of which is an image with a link directing readers: "Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pedophilia.” The link takes you to a page that contains 25 to 30 explicit and detailed drawings of children performing sexual acts. In a May 6, 2010 discussion, Wales spoke specifically about the above image and others in the “pedophilia” and “zoophilia” categories (the latter includes illustrations of children engaged in sex acts with animals)."

Jimmy waffled a bit which, given circumstances and short time frame, doesn't seem to detract from him GENUINELY taking the moral high ground. First, Jimmy said he would delete the Nude Children Commons category, then he reversed his opinion to keep, after extensive discussions with the community. 4 hours later, after pleas from German Wikipedia editors stating that it was NOT legal in Germany to depict 14 year old girls having intercourse (English Wikipedians had claimed that it was, and that Americans were prudish provincial fools) Jimmy decided to delete about 100 images "for lack of educational value". Amongst them were several versions of the same two artworks, both in the medium of line drawings, not photos or color paintings, with provenances in the late 1800s. They were not the work of "major artists". One seemed pleasant and totally innocuous to me. Another depicted what appeared to be an intentionally caricaturized depiction of a middle-aged working-class woman, sitting on the ground, inebriated and disheveled, with her mouth opened wide around a large dildo. I do not know why Jimmy wanted to delete these artworks. I do know that he was questioned by the editor community just as stridently or more so for his deletions of Commons images titled as for those 2 artworks.

Expunging porn and the moral high ground

I don't understand the reason for the vitriol toward Jimmy over this particular matter, NOR do I understand the omissions of fact. Jimmy Wales did not "surrender the moral high ground" to the imagined, or rumored, wrath of Fox News regarding adult sexual content for education encyclopedia-relevant purposes! Rather, this is what happened:

1. Sometime in March or April 2010, Larry Sanger made a formal complaint to the FBI, about child porn on Wikimedia servers that was then included in Wikipedia articles.
2. On 27 April 2010, Fox News published a news report about it.
3. On 7 May 2010, Fox reported that Jimmy Wales and Wikimedia officials were assessing and deleting pornographic images of children from WMF servers. I found evidence of Jimmy Wales deleting lots of porn photos, brief videos, and a few drawings of adolescent males masturbating, as well as some photos of adult females being physically beaten that were Wikipedia-editor contributed, and a few naked images of possibly 14 year old to 21 year old women posing on beaches etc. Fox didn't report at that level of detail.
4. On 10 May 2010, Fox wrote the last of its three part series on the subject. A law professor consulted by Fox said, "With respect to child pornography, the real harm is in the production of it -- not the fact that it's also socially irredeemable." A lawyer who prosecutes child abuse cases disagreed. That is not consistent with The Signpost's description of a single Fox News article on 10 May 2010, "attacking Wikimedia".

Unanswered questions

I am not being an OCD autiste! The Signpost chose to unearth this episode of nearly 13 years ago, and used it denigrate Jimbo's anti-censorship aspirations of even longer ago, in 2006. Given the choice to do that, which was entirely the decision of the author (I presume?) it is necessary to include all the relevant details, e.g. Larry Sanger's complaint to the FBI, links to all three of the Fox News reports, the motivation for Jimmy's deletions, an accurate depiction of what content was deleted.

To me, the more interesting and legally relevant matters that remain unanswered by The Signpost Feb 2023 article, which are:

• Did the FBI pursue a case against WMF?
• Were the child bestiality and pederasty drawings deleted from Commons or just from Wiki articles? Were they deleted at all? From the link provided by The Signpost author, it seems that a fair number of the images that Jimmy Wales deleted were restored, so I don't feel confident of anything related to this matter now!
• Why did The Signpost omit Jimbo's focus on the removal of child porn and child bestiality content from WMF servers? He wasn't merely expunging artworks depicting nude adults or naked youth in non-sexual contexts.

Editors fought Jimmy tooth and nail about deleting all that porn from Commons. There is still a huge trove of porn on Commons, e.g. multiple photos and videos of young adult males performing auto-fellatio. Almost none of it is included in any article. When I am not editing Wikipedia, I view Internet porn sometimes. I have never seen so much auto-fellatio on any free or pay-to-view dedicated porn website as on Commons! The Signpost also states that Jimmy Wales' actions over those 3 days directly resulted in his loss of "founder privileges", and portrays editors who wanted to keep the auto-fellatio et al. as brave restorers of moral high ground!?

What's up with The Signpost editorial author?

This was the response to my comment by the 20 Feb 2023 Signpost author:

":There is a very good reason: As far as I can tell None of the works Jimbo deleted in 2010 had anything to do with children or animals.. Here is a list of every file Jimbo deleted. If you can spot a single child or bestiality image in there...

FeralOink, Basically, there's literally zero evidence he deleted a single image on grounds that it was illegal. I don't think we have the works Sanger commented on anymore - but that has nothing to do with Wales' deletion spree. It's hard to check now - and I'm not sure I'd want to - but I believe all such images were deleted long before Wales began his attack on adult sexuality."

I'm confused. There was vigorous discussion about whether some images Jimbo wanted to delete were of children.

I acknowledge that The Signpost author is totally correct about this: I found no child bestiality images among those deleted by Jimmy in 2010. I didn't look beyond what The Signpost provided though. Given that the Signpost author brought up this whole historical mess, it now leads me to question whether

1. Larry Sanger was lying to the FBI, or
2. someone other than Jimmy deleted the child bestiality and child-adult porn images sometime between 2010 and now (I hope!) or
3. the images are STILL hosted somewhere on Commons now!

No Fear of Fox

It is NOT true that "Jimmy Wales began his attack on adult sexuality" out of fear of Fox News! The catalysts were clearly Larry Sanger and possibly the FBI, a few days earlier! The 50 or so images and two artworks that the Signposts links and suggests is evidentiary were in fact deleted by Jimmy Wales from Commons on 10 May 2010, based on valid concerns and accompanied by extensive discussions with the community. Logs of those discussions remain extant. Fox News did not "attack Wikipedia", nor is it fair to suggest that Jimmy was in cowardly fear of Fox.

Why bother dredging this up from the past, yet not omitting so much relevant detail? --FeralOink (talk) 13:37, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Addendum 1

I just recalled, primarily thanks to nice editor Risker, that totally vile images such as child pornography would be completely deleted from Wikimedia servers and even admins or other powers that be would not be able to verify whether Jimmy Wales's deletion "spree" included any or not.

Secondly, it might be misleading to suggest that Jimmy Wales "gave up most of his founder privileges". It is possible that The Signpost only meant that Jimmy Wales could no longer delete content or make other changes as though Wikipedia were his personal Wordpress blog, whereas he had those super-super-user privileges prior to May 2010. I say this because there is an example of Jimmy Wales having what I can only describe as "founder privileges" regarding Wikimedia Foundation grantmaking that circumvents all extant procedures for disbursing millions of dollars of WMF funds to non-Wikimedia related organizations, specifically, the fact that Jimmy Wales is designated as the sole "Founder Community Director of the Wikimedia Endowment Board", see here for the official Wikimedia Endowment website from which the prior link is provided.

Again, I believe that it is better not to include content in The Signpost that would be considered WP:UNDUE in mainspace because of omitting context and specificity. I have provided examples of context that was omitted (e.g. the surrounding motivation for Jimmy's actions given the Larry Sanger report to the FBI, the 3 Fox News articles that were reactions rather than attacks on Wikipedia, and the depiction of the artistic content that was removed) and of the lack of specificity (i.e. the extent to which Jimmy Wales's founder privileges have been curtailed).--FeralOink (talk) 06:49, 26 February 2023 (UTC)