Jimmy Wales plans Wikipedia porn purge

"Images that are of little or no educational value" to be excised


7 May 2010 16:14 GMT / By Duncan Geere

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has waded into a minor row brewing on the site over whether pornographic content should be hosted on Wikimedia Commons - the place where all Wikipedia images are hosted.

Wales said in a post on his usertalk page: "Wikimedia Commons admins who wish to remove from the project all images that are of little or no educational value but which appeal solely to prurient interests have my full support. This includes immediate deletion of all pornographic images. We should keep educational images about sexuality - mere nudity is not pornography - but as with all our projects, editorial quality judgements must be made and will be made - appropriately and in good taste".

While there's been no official word from the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs both websites, Wales said to expect a statement on the matter soon. He also restarted the Commons: Sexual Content page, which keeps watch for images of a pornographic nature and keeps track of discussions about how encyclopaedic they are.

It's likely the Wales' statement is a knee-jerk reaction to allegations of hosting child pornography from co-founder Larry Sanger, who went to Fox News and the FBI with the details. A storm's brewing, and we'll keep an eye on it. 

Via: news.slashdot.org

Full tags
Software, Websites, Wikipedia, Porn, Jimmy Wales, Online

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