Talk:Ariel Sharon

Maintenance

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Could somebody with sysop rights add Category:Living people to the gallery Ariel Sharon. -- Túrelio 13:05, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

 Done -- Yuval Y § Chat § 15:38, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Túrelio 13:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Please reinstate the cartoons per talk. Or even better, remove the protection. // Liftarn

I feel like I should, but I better leave that up to someone else. Even though I didn't touch the page itself, I was pretty involved discussing it. The protection expires 19:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC) Rocket000 11:42, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

OK. // Liftarn

Uh-oh ;) Rocket000 22:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I see it's been reverted already. I strongly urge everyone to discuss any reverts like that here first. We had a long discussion here and I hope it wasn't in vain. Please let's not have to protect it again. The version with the cartoons will be the locked version as it should have been the first time. Rocket000 00:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Cartoons

Please do not delete the gallery of political cartoons. // Liftarn

en:Wikipedia:Neutral point of view Yuval Y § Chat § 19:56, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

And? a) this isn't Wikipedia and b) in what way is it more neutral to only have pro-Sharon images? c) your missuse of adminship is noted // Liftarn

It's lucky for you this isn't the Wikipedia - otherwise you'd be marked as a troll, and your edits would be considered as vandalism (or maybe even trollism?). One way or another I preffered to not to play the game. As for the Ariel Sharon's page - if you're had paid attention, you'd see none of the pictures are pro-Sharon. They're just regular pictures. Yuval Y § Chat § 19:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh... Personal attacks now as well. I see you are not interested in a constructive debate here. // Liftarn

It is clear to me the racist cartoons are not what the Wikimedia Foundation had in mind when they created Commons. I see no problem with Yuval Y's actions and see no personal attacks. Liftarn, open a blog and stick your racist cartoons there, away from the Wikimedia projects. Yonidebest Ω Talk 00:01, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure you can find facist cartoons somewhere in Commons, but not around here. I certainly have no intention of publishing racist cartoons anywhere. // Liftarn

These cartoons are racist because they are pointed at a representetive of the jewish people, Ariel Sharon. You can call these picture many things, but they are infact - also - racist. Yonidebest Ω Talk 11:41, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

That is so utterly silly you ought to be ashamed of yourself. It's like calling cartoong criticizing Robert Mugabe racist because he's black. // Liftarn

The images have been removed from this page. They will not come back here. End of the discussion. Rama 12:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

And why is that? // Liftarn

• I too have no interest in promoting racism, but declaring cartoons of a political leader as racist is inappropriate. Technically he was a democratically elected representative of the people of Israel, not Jewish people. As Liftarn points out the same logic could be used to prevent political cartoons of anyone or any nation state. The removal of such sections is simply censorship. --Tony Wills 20:21, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Technically speaking, he was elected by the Jews of Israel to represent them. Arabs did not vote for him. These aren't ordinary political cartoons, they are obnoxious and horrible political cartoons. I agree with you on one thing: Similar political cartoons of anyone or any nation state should also be removed and deleted. Yonidebest Ω Talk 23:44, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Commons isn't censored and I don't see why ordinary political/editorial cartoons should be removed just becuase they may be critical (well, suprise!) of the politician in question. // Liftarn

No, they shouldn't be deleted. Political cartoons are definitly within the scope of Commons and we don't censor things just because some people (ok, a lot of people in this case) find them offensive. Rocket000 08:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• NPOV is a fundamental and highly valued principle on all Wikimedia projects, not just Wikipedia. It's the number one Foundation issue. However, this doesn't mean all content (e.g. images) has to be neutral, just the way we present it. I wouldn't have removed the images from the gallery myself, but i support the decision to remove them. Why? They were no positive or alternate POV cartoons; it gave the negative side undue weight (see w:Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial#Space and balance). I know this isn't Wikipedia, but it seems most of us agree with their guidelines in general and apply them here. Adopting these, serving as de facto rules, saves us the time of forming our own (most likely extremely similar) guidelines that normally we have little need for because of the scope of Commons. When issues like this (including POV image descriptions) come up, it's good to have at least some consensus-driven guidance. Rocket000 08:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • As it is all the images in the gallery are positive (yes, they are since they show Sharon as a statesman, an image he obviously wants to promote). How neutral is that? What has been done is the removal of all critical images from the gallery. // Liftarn
    • Well, they're not positive in the way those cartoons are negative. There's no political commentary/statement in simple photographs of him. Rocket000 10:40, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
      • But they are positive and part of a propaganda effort (check the source of the images) so not including any negative images is pushing a POV. // Liftarn

The cartoons will not be removed from Commons. They will simply not be displayed on the main gallery about Ariel Sharon. The decision was taken by the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation, so it is futile to discuss further. Rama 08:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Got a source for that? // Liftarn

The last user that removed the cartoons, Anthere, is the chair of the Foundation. If this censorship is supported by the Foundation, then they may want to look at some other politician galleries, like George W. Bush. If those are ok, and this isn't, that totally goes against NPOV. Rocket000 10:30, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

But did Anthere remove them as a user or as a chair? // Liftarn

Do feel free to remove the images from George W. Bush. Rama 11:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's appropiate to respond to censorship attempts with more censorship. // Liftarn

What you think is irrelevant. A decision was taken by the Chair, period.

If you cannot think of your contribution to Commons in other terms than petty politics, you should definitely consider opening a blog. Wikimedia projects are not to be instrumentalised. Rama 12:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

And I ask again, do you have a source for that? I know Anthere removed the cartoons, but it looks like he did it as a user rather than as a chair. // Liftarn

I agree thet Wikimedia projects are not to be instrumentalised, but draw very different conclusions from it, i.e. that Commons should not be censored in order to promote a certain view. // Liftarn

Like I said, I personally wouldn't remove these images from any appropriate gallery, but if this is a Foundation issue than they should remove or state that we should remove all of these types of images since NPOV is one of their "issues". Double standards are no good.

Rama (and anyone else), if you're interested this discussion is being centralized here. This issue goes beyond this page, so please continue any discussion there. Thanks, Rocket000 12:45, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I think Anthere needs to make a statement about her actions (even if it is just to state they were removed pending further secret discussions) --Tony Wills 13:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I think this approach misses the point of commons, it is a file repository, a media bank. The categories, galleries, and search facilities are here to help you find images to be used elsewhere. Galleries are to collect together images on a topic and group them, with a short informative description, to make finding material easier. These are not show cases, articles, promotional windows or anything else. And remember political cartoons are about the big kids who can look after themselves, whose eyes are we trying to spare here? Either define a policy that bans the material altogether, or let it sit where it fits naturally in our structures, do not corrupt the structures to placate those offended. Should we equally excise all the depictions of Muhammad from Muhammad as they are very offensive to a particular group, or do we pick and choose who can be offended? --Tony Wills 13:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

These speculations are sterile. When people above you take decisions, you are free to either accept them, or leave. Whining about them in circle is not productive.

Wikimedia Commons is a repository, which it does very well. The images are still hosted. Crying wolf about "censorship" or "bans the material" completely misses the point. Rama 14:47, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

No, censorship and banning is exactly the point here. Should Commons bend over to please some eaily offender persons or not? // Liftarn

Should Commons users bend when the Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation takes a decision ? Certainly.

Now stop your petty politics and either get to work, or express your indignation at the miseries of the world to a blog, where it belongs. Rama 15:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Should Commons bend over when a singe admin abuses his privs to promote his personal views? No. If you don't like the cartoons you can complain on a blog or something, but keep Commons uncensored. // Liftarn

It's not "a singe admin". You are making a real fool of yourself. Rama 15:47, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry Rama, your attitude is somewhat baffling. Describing discussion as 'petty politics' is just a put down. This may not be a democracy, but it is a community, we don't "work" here, we volunteer our time, our energy, our good will and even our money. The project relies on the community, it would be nothing without it. We want to know how decisions are made, so we can judge whether we want be part of this project. Transparency is the best defence against rumours, assumptions and accusations of behind the scenes pressure. Yes, we know there are big issues here and that discussions and negotiations may go on behind the scenes, pragmatic decisions may need to be made. But don't expect the community to accept decisions are being made for 'the good of the project' without the courtesy of an explanation, if the decision can't stand the light of day then maybe it shouldn't be made :-). --Tony Wills 01:54, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Well said, Tony. Without a statement by the Foundation, let alone even a reason for removing the content, I do not see Anthere's edit as a Foundation action. I respect her decision, but I think we should treat it the same as anyone else's. This is not to say I think the images should be in this gallery. I think for now their absence is best, as they seem to cause more trouble than they do helping users find images. But this did raise an important issue about NPOV and censorship. This is something that they community has to work though. The need is shown by all these fragmented discussions going on. (And so much for my efforts to centralize them :) Rocket000 05:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

In order to form a consensus, we need to stay focused on the issue. I like to suggest, specifically to Rama, to leave personal comments out of this (e.g. "express your indignation at the miseries of the world to a blog, where it belongs.", "Whining about them in circle", "You are making a real fool of yourself", etc.) and not view this as a political/racist thing which only amounts to a POV anyway [1]. I don't believe we should make judgments on what is or isn't the right view. Nor do I believe it's even relevant. It's one thing to classify something as racist (subjective?), another thing to say racism is bad (there are racists, for example, who might disagree), and still another thing to say if they belong in this gallery or not. I think it would be best if we leave the latter two out of this. By the way this discussion is going, we won't solve anything (and no, the cartoons' removal is not definite).

If I saw the gallery with the cartoons intact before having this discussion I wouldn't think much of it. I would leave them because the main subject is Ariel Sharon and it's his gallery. It makes sense to me. I would have never thought about the unbalanced POV thing since I never viewed galleries as I would Wikipedia articles. I'm starting to now, but that doesn't mean we need to adapt a policy created for encyclopedic articles and apply it to a simple collection of images. These are obviously very different and that's why Commons needs it's own NPOV policy. Something we need to create together, and not leave decisions like this up to a few editors with conflicting views because this method, as shown, doesn't work too well. Rocket000 05:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

"we don't "work" here, we volunteer our time, our energy, our good will and even our money". Indeed. And by the standard that the people who work harder, are the most efficient for the project, solve the most unpleasant issues for the benefits of the community and expose themselves the most should have the more consideration, Anthere wins big time.

As for the NPOV policy, I really don't think that creating it as an offspin of the fine spectacle that's given here will be a good idea either. Rama 08:27, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not questioning her contribution to the project, in fact given her contributions (best look at her meta page) I was even more perlexed at her 'hand of god' intervention without explanation (insert Monty Python visions of a hand coming down from above and plucking the offensive material from the gallery :-) --Tony Wills 10:12, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

As per this[2] it seems Anthere was not acting as a chair, but as a normal user. Perhaps Ant missed that the page was protected. Anyway, I did find Commons:FAQ#Questions about Commons community where it says about galleries "Galleries (on article pages) are useful as showcasing the best, most illustrative, informative and interesting images of a category. They are also useful for presenting material in a logical order, something categories have a limited ability to do.". So per that the gallery should include the best, most illustrative, informative and interesting images (regardless of they are photos or drawings). // Liftarn

Yes, that too settles the issue, doesn't it ? Rama 09:32, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, it settles the issue that of whether or not this was a Foundation action or not. Anthere's actions were clearly in the wrong - editing a protected page because of her own POV (which she said herself). I'm of course willing to assume good faith and not make this any more of an issue. I support leaving the page as it is, but anyone else is welcome to revert as it shouldn't have been changed while protected. Rocket000 10:18, 7 December 2007 (UTC) (edit-conflict)

Yes it makes more sense if we take it she was just responding on her own, it's only Rama's statements that led us to think otherwise. It would seem appropriate to continue sorting out a solution (back to a normal day at the office :-) --Tony Wills 10:12, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

We should investigate alternative structures that avoid continuous contention and waste our time fighting about. So how would we accomodate placing these sorts of images in galleries that would not introduce distortions to the system (ie having special cases where images won't be where you expect, and therefore you may not find them). We could divide all 'notable people' galleries into two galleries - "Photos and portraits of Joe XYZ" and "Caricatures and cartoons of Joe XYZ" and there are many that fit this structure. We do away with gallery page "Joe XYZ" or make it into a disambig page pointing to the two options. This avoids having to make judgements about what is in good taste, what is appropriate etc. :This doesn't solve the general case of whether 'disturbing', 'pornographic' or 'offensive' photos, for instance, are acceptable in the photo gallery division.

I don't think an alternative of dividing into 'offensive' and 'in-offensive' pages would help as these are rather subject to one's POV.

Other constructive possibilities? --Tony Wills 10:12, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't like the idea of restructuring our whole system here because a few people got offended. That's almost up there with censorship. As long as we try to maintain NPOV (including balanced galleries) I think we'll do alright. Rocket000 10:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Show us a balanced NPOV version of this gallery as an example :-) --Tony Wills 12:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. What we should do is as reccomended and a) sort the images in the gallery (done) and only display the best images (regardless of medium). // Liftarn

Sounds good, but there's that wonderfully subjective word "best". I guess, we can vote like they do with FACs, but that's a little impractical. It also doesn't address the issue of who defines a gallery. For example, should political cartoons (assuming they're our best) be included on the subject's main gallery or in a separate gallery? Rocket000 10:50, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Galleries don't seem to have subgalleries. Here we don't have that many images so we could include all images (altough some seems to dislike that idea). Another idea would be to not have a gallery at all and just redirect the page to the category. That way we avoid the problem. // Liftarn

Not sub-galleries, per say, but altogether different galleries. It would be how you define them. For example, if there were 200 political cartoons of Ariel Sharon (positive/negative/whatever as long as they portray him) I would make a gallery called Ariel Sharon in political cartoons, instead of dumping them all on this page. To me this is common sense, and I have faith every other editor would do the same, at least the ones familiar with Commons. 200 may be common sense, but 20 isn't. So, the issue is when do you branch off and create a whole new gallery. My personal opinion is when you have some images you wish to include in a gallery because you consider them gallery-worthy, you should create a new gallery if the images all share a similar objective characteristic (e.g. they're all illustrated instead of photos) and if added to an already existing gallery would make it unbalanced.

Since Tony asked, I consider this gallery balanced as it is. One or two negative cartoons could also be added. Just like with many other politicians, the controversy that surrounds them is notable enough for at least a mention (in fact, it requires mentioning, using the Wikipedia guideline). After including the two best cartoons, someone may come along and add one or two positive cartoons (unlikely, as political cartoons are hardly ever positive). Still balanced. Galleries are always a work in progress, we got to give them a little slack. No need to remove images someone else feels are gallery-worthy. (If they're truly that bad, deletion will remove them from the gallery) If one person thinks they might be useful, someone else may too. If one type of images start overwhelming the gallery, make a new one. Simple as that. But... I'm not the one were trying to please here. I think the gallery's fine with or without the cartoons. I have no personal interest with the subject matter, I'm just trying help solve a conflict that involves NPOV policy, which I do have an interest in. I see it as a good thing, but maybe it means I don't fully get why this is even a issue. Rocket000 13:45, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

• Have a look at the page I have created. Don't reject it out of hand as 'censorship', this is in the spirit of warnings at the start of movies, or broadcasts, I can even foresee (the possibility of) having a user profile option to set the default to show/hide: User:Tony_Wills/Hide_galleries. --Tony Wills 00:28, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Looks reasonable. The question is when it should be used? Just here (because some people seem to think Sharon never may be criticized) or in all galleries with political/editorial cartoons? // Liftarn

Well, I wouldn't use it to warn about all the cartoons, but just any that would widely be accepted to be offensive or poor taste in the context. For instance on Bush's page the cartoon of Bush committing sodomy with a truncheon and Blair displaying his normally private parts while pissing on a prisoner would seem to be a bit beyond what people might expect on that page. But on a page devoted completely to political cartoons I wouldn't think any warning was needed. In Ariel's case I think cartoons like Image:Stopfundingterror.gif should be displayed openly, Image:ArielSharon.gif and Image:Arielsharonsecretlove.gif (associating a Jewish leader with the SS and Hitler) are, I expect, at an extreme end of offensiveness and should come with a warning? --Tony Wills 11:34, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't like comment on how images may be perceived, but I think I could live with that. To answer the question "when?", whenever common sense tells us to. To preemptively respond to "but common sense is relative": If you honestly don't think a large enough group of may be offended, then don't use it. If someone comes along and uses it, don't revert it, because that shows people are offended. If huge organizations and governing bodies can rate content (things like movies/TV shows/videogames), I think we can too. Morality in general is not as relative as it appears to be. It's just the borderline issues that become controversial. Using something like this to "hide images", wouldn't be a problem, but I don't think it's needed.

Like I said in my response to Anthere below, we should use our judgment when using potentially offensive images. I don't think something like this "shit", should be in Bush's or Blair's gallery. People looking for images of these guys are not likely to find this useful. And as Tony said, a more appropriate place would be a page devoted to political cartoons where people are more likely to look for and expect to find images like that. Likewise, people looking for images of dogs, probably won't find pics of dead dogs very useful. I know it was an exaggerated example, but would you use this on a Wikipedia article about dogs? Or this on a page about cats? I would hope not. However, if looking for an image to use on necrophilia, this image would be useful[3] to find in a gallery on necrophilia, not a gallery about rodents (or dogs :). No reason to hide these things if people are looking for them. Rocket000 15:30, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes the dog example was just to get us thinking about the general case, you go looking for nice photos of cute puppies for your article and additionally find a bunch of disturbing (to some, shocking) photos - enough to put you off finishing your article (of course the other non dog hidden examples were because I didn't find enough dead-dog photos to illustrate the point!). But isn't it logical to have them indexed along with other doggy material? I can certainly see using this in a wikipage about mans relationship with dogs, they are treated as pets (even as part of the family), but then we also have very utilitarian uses for them as working dogs and even food - certainly a subject worthy of a wikipedia article (though probably not on the main doggy page :-), and certainly illustrations would be appropriate. Again I say galleries and categories are to help us find material, they are keywords and indexes, a gallery is sorted and divided into sections to help us find material, not to highlight the subject, this is the store room, the archives, not the shop window. (I think we are basically agreeing :-) --Tony Wills 21:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we are agreeing, but we can still keep discussion going :) I see categories as more of a indexing than galleries, though. In a way, I do see galleries as the "shop window" and the categories are the "store room". That's the reason we have both. Galleries should show off our best stuff or at be a good representation of what we have. You what I mean? Rocket000 22:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes I know what you mean. I may be wrong ^tm, but I see their true purpose is to cut through the jumble found in categories to say, "here, this is probably what you are looking for, we think these are the best illustrations relating to the subject". The category structure is to help us navigate to the images we're looking for. We may leave lots of images out of the gallery because they are poorer quality or just essentially duplicate what we've already got there (but we keep those other images in case they prove useful to illustrate other aspects we hadn't thought of, or we lose something due to copyright violations etc). Perhaps we should make more use of 'see also' type links to direct people to further images on subtopics (eg cartoons :-) --Tony Wills 23:54, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Clarification

My removal of the cartoons from the page was not an "act" from the board, but a fully personal decision. Don't blame the board in any fashion, the board did not even discuss the issue. You may consider it an abuse if you like. That will be fine by me :-)

If it were only me deciding, many of these images will not be there at all. When I am thinking we host such things as shit,...[continues below]...

Sidebar: This is too long to wait to respond at the end! Oh my! Anthere, I not only like the image you call "shit" but I think it could be further polished to show Saddam Hussein doing the nasties to the Iraqi people, and from one side, Bush et al running to take his place, and from the other side, the Shiite/Sunni/Taliban/alQaeda Militias running to take his place. Regardless, this all has turned into a discussion of CONTENT, and as such is inappropriate HERE. Commons has no content criteria for acceptance, only for classification. "Galleries" should be "Categories" only. Any Commons resource that maintains an "Ariel Sharon" tag should be displayed under an "Ariel Sharon" search, and so on, otherwise, how do we find anything?!? I do not want Commons to become someone's seriously compromised personal scrapbook, and in doing so, fail to support all the Foundation projects, and the world's community. As suggested above, ALL this content analysis belongs externally, perhaps in a blog, and those who wish to censor for anyone else should SELF censor, and close windows or scroll on past anything they don't like, and please don't prevent me from full use of the Commons resource. -- Peter Blaise Peterblaise 14:31, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

...[continued from above]...I suddenly doubt why I am participating. I fail to see why I am giving free energy to host this. It is not educational. It is not even informative. It is just dirt. Nothing else. I am a bit amazed to discover that Commons role is to host such things. I am currently struggling to understand why I should even be involved here. If there is NO limit to what we host, beyond it being under a free license or public domain, we could very well imagine that in the future, a lot of commons website could simply host freely-licensed porn, or violent thriller, or video of rapes, or of nude children. All things which actually exist and which existence should not be denied. However, it is all our choice to decide what we want to spend our free time on. And should half of commons resources be from such content, I will not want to spend my energy on this. So, I am looking at interest at the discussion of what Commons should become in the future. I am horribly conservative :-)
Now, regarding the removal of the images from the Sharon gallery, yeah, it was bold. I followed the concept of Template:Be bold or Ignore all rules. No, it was not board ruling. It was being bold. My deep feeling is that it is not okay (from MY view) to have on the page of a major political figures half of the images being such cartoons. I think it is ground for legal complaints. I think it is ground for a lot of hurting of feelings. I think it is not "neutral". I think it is not a good reflect of what we are trying to build together. I agree some of the cartoons actually are important and should be kept. Just not that they should have such a wide visibility to the point of shunning other type of content. Cheers Anthere 11:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for making that clear, Anthere. Now if you could just self revert that matter could be dropped. // Liftarn

Thank you for your comment, Anthere. There's nothing wrong with editing a gallery if you think you're improving it, that's how we work. The issue here was the gallery was edit-protected while you made the changes. Making controversial changes (especially ones relating to the reason for protection) while still protected is considered a misuse of admin powers. I think we were hesitant to say this because of you're position with the Foundation. As you can tell by your links, we don't have things like w:WP:BOLD or w:WP:IAR, but I think they apply anyway so there are always exceptions.

I understand your concern with hosting images like this. However, I can't see how having political cartoons opens the floodgates to hosting child porn, snuff films, or other illegal material. Mainly because it's illegal. I wouldn't say not wanting these things makes you "horribly conservative". I would say that makes you normal :) Things like (legal) porn does get routinely deleted here because it's out of our scope, but previously published political cartoons that deal with a notable subject matter are clearly in our project's scope. Examples like the one you gave are suppose to offend so I agree with limiting it's use out of respect. This is more of a moral/ethical issue, so others may not agree, but that's why we're trying to reach a compromise here.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond. Cheers, Rocket000 13:51, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for your response Anthere, your personal reaction is probably a good guide to general public (at least for Western nations) feelings on this matter. I think it must be remembered that 'commons' is a resource, a media bank. The galleries and categories are means for finding material, they are not articles in the wikipedia sense. So the "Ariel Sharon" page is to display some good examples of all the material we have relating to that person, not a display page about him. Out of the millions of images here, there are only a handful that are this crude, and they also serve to remind every one of us that other cultures may find images, that we personally think are acceptable, just as offensive. But I think a good case can be made for documenting political reaction to events like the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, that I presume the Bush/Blair cartoon relates to - this one uses shock tactics to emphasise where the commentator believes the responsibility lies. It may well fail as a cartoon though, because people may not get beyond the shock to the underlying point the cartoon is making - I think the criteria for inclusion of such material here has to be notability, random offensive works are not useful, but works by a cartoonist who commentates on a wide range of issues and is notable enough to be documented in en:Carlos_Latuff, obviously have a place here. So how do we catalog and present them without being offensive? --Tony Wills 21:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

And of course this discussion is the next step after the one about whether we should host these images, it is about the images that we keep after going through the usual questions of rights to use them and legal concerns. Our question is now: Given that these images are here, where should they be filed and how should they be presented? --Tony Wills 22:16, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

What is next to impossible for me is to estimate the "notability" of this author, and as such, to estimate the degree of documentation he should get. Surely, if he is in Wikipedia, he is notable :-))) But even for most cartoonists famous enough to be on Wikipedia, I suppose we do not display dozen of cartoons, only perhaps (license issue being left aside) a couple of the most significant for work. With a link to an external gallery where more artworks of the artist may be visible. I do think that if we host many of the images of such an artist, the images should be hosted in a clearly identified gallery associated with the artist himself. Not necessarily on the gallery of the people being represented in the cartoons. In short, here. If we host many cartoons of a political figure, I guess we could also have a special gallery hosting xxx by cartoonists or xxx cartoons by critics Anthere 23:33, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Again I still say 'Commons' is not for documenting or making display pages on a subject, we are the common storage resource of the other projects. I see the role of galleries here as a way for people to find images relating to a subject or topic, the "Ariel Sharon" page is not defined as a page of promotional images of Sharon (yet they are the majority of freely available images), it is a page with an assortment of the 'best' images we have relating to the topic of "Ariel Sharon". Yes there is no need to have every cartoon about him on that page, just as there is no need to have every one of this air-brushed promotional images there - a selection of 'good' images is sufficient. (PS I think it is great that this issue has brought the role of 'Commons' to the forefront of your mind, 'Commons' is often an ignored backwater ;-) --Tony Wills 00:25, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, the images displayed in the gallery should be the best images, not neutral, not unshocking, not balanced, but the best. // Liftarn

Yes and no. They should be the best, but depending on the gallery, we need to make decisions on what and how much to include of each type of images. If I made the gallery Sovereign-state flags, would it make sense to include ten American flags while leave some countries out just because of the quality of the images? With galleries, unlike categories, we need to keep in mind what will be the most useful. I think "choosing the best" deals with the best of each type of image, not the best in general. Some of our "best" might be pretty crappy, it's just all we have. For this gallery, let's say we all agree on what are the best cartoons and it just so happens all of the "best", are negative (very likely). I still think we should include at least one positive one no matter how bad the quality is (within reason). Not to simply balance it, but to help those that are looking for a positive one. Also, they should be the "best", not just in quality, but in relevance, significance, accuracy, etc.

We had a lot of good discussion so far. I wonder what would happen if this gallery was unprotected right now. Rocket000 02:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Revert to last good version the discuss what cartoons (and photos!) that should be excluded from the gallery. As for "not censored" warning I think the standard Commons warning works, but the one at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2007-December/003275.html was kind of nice

Caution, we have found that some people seem to be immature and unable to manage themselves when they feel surprised, provoked, or offended. If you are one of those, then enjoy your own personal rage in response to some of the pictures inside, but please do not ask us over and over to take the images down - such requests to remove legitimate

contributions that fulfill the purpose of commons will get the same "NO" response as previous requests. Thank you for visiting, and try to enjoy your day and yourself anyway. We are.

. The discussion is interesting. Should perhaps images of temple garment be removed from LDS galleries? (the images have been nominated, see Commons:Deletion_requests/Image:Garment.jpg) What about Muhammad (almost all images would have to go if galleries would be censored), the horse meat image from Equus caballus, the evolution diagram from the same and so on. // Liftarn

Idea

What if we put the political cartoons in a separate page Political cartoons of Ariel Sharon. And then we link that gallery in a "see also" section at the bottom of page. The cartoons are not censored because they are clearly available, but at the same time this can reduce the shock for people who expected to see a more representative set of images here. Is this an acceptable compromise? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 13:25, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of making decisions because some may be offended. Maybe I'm just en.WP-NPOV-brainwashed. However, there are enough of them to justify a sub-gallery. All this time edit-warring can really be better spent, so I'm all for it. - Rocket000 18:13, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

BTW, the category was already compromised: Category:Caricatures of Ariel Sharon. None of the other politicians have a special gallery. We are giving him special treatment. I'm not comfortable with that but I'm also getting tired of these edit-wars. We might as well give in. - Rocket000 19:20, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not because some may be offended, it's because of trying to find a consensus, something that is acceptable (enough) to (almost) everyone.

I will say it is quite frankly strange and unbalanced that he has so many political cartoons on his page. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

No, it is because some may be are offended. If they weren't there would be no problem, right? (I'm not saying being offended is a bad thing.) It's not like the gallery has gotten to big or something. Let me just say, I completely support removing most of the cartoons, it's just I oppose doing it for the apparent reasons. As I said in the last discussion, that the gallery is unbalanced (however, one argued that the rest showed the subject in a positive light, so it still would be unbalanced). My idea was just to include 1 or 2 of the cartoons and link to Carlos Latuff#Ariel Sharon related gallery if people are looking for more. Right now, it's completely disproportional. There are too many cartoons (good or bad) for a gallery about a human. However, the views expressed in the cartoons are an important part of the controversy relating to the subject so they shouldn't be completely left out, just like with Adolf Hitler, George W. Bush, or Muhammad. - Rocket000 16:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The Hebrew Wikipedia community

The Hebrew Wikipedia community expressed furious feelings about those cartoons, that are manifestly anti-semitic and form incitement and harsh offensive propoganda. There were calls to remove the link to this page until the cartoons will be removed (or concentrated under appropiate label of antisemitic cartoons). Also note that lawyers of the Sharon familiy could sue for libel and incitement. Also consider they violate NPOV policy. I hereby call you to remove these antisemitic cartoons from this page. MathKnight 12:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

As it says above

Caution, we have found that some people seem to be immature and unable to manage themselves when they feel surprised, provoked, or offended. If you are one of those, then enjoy your own personal rage in response to some of the pictures inside, but please do not ask us over and over to take the images down - such requests to remove legitimate contributions that fulfill the purpose of commons will get the same "NO" response as previous requests. Thank you for visiting, and try to enjoy your day and yourself anyway. We are.

Also see EN:WP:LEGAL. // Liftarn

(ec) Let me rephrase that: As our response is to numerous demands for us to remove images of nudity or Muhammad: we're sorry, but this project is not censored. We also have something called freedom of speech; critical commentary of a well-known political figure is not really grounds for libel charges. On the other hand, we understand your concern and are working towards a solution that will hopefully satisfy the parties involved. Removing links to the gallery may be a temporary solution. We have entire countries that block our site (along with the English Wikipedia). Sometimes, a compromise just isn't possible. - Rocket000 16:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Those cartoons represent just the imagination of Carlos Latuff, so they should belong to Category:Carlos Latuff only. They have nothing to do with Ariel Sharon (Yes, I know that Latuff believes that there is some connection).

The inclusion of the cartoons in Category:Ariel Sharon begins a slippery slope, that will turn Wikimedia Commons into a hatred site. You know, everybody, not only Sharon, has enemies, and many people may use Wikimedia Commons to display their hatred also to your president, to your country, or to yourself. Everybody is entitled to the Freedom of Speech, not only Latuff. David Shay 17:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I do not consider myself (nor David Shay) a person who is easily provoked, and I think people in the Wikimedia community can vouch for me, but I am provoked by the images in question, and I am deeply concerned about this attempt to turn the Commons into a channel for spreading propoganda of hatred. The images in question have no historical, educational, informative or aesthetic value. They are here because someone decided the Commons was an easy way to spread his extremist views. Drork 18:28, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you proposing that we remove all offensive content or just what offends you? The author's a notable artist illustrating major world views. How can you say the images are without educational value? You can't. These are real issues in real life, like it or not. - Rocket000 23:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you say no political leader can be criticized or is it a case of double standards? As the cartoon portray Sharon they are relevant both to the category and the gallery. Removing them would begin a slippery slope. For instance that would for instance require that you remove Image:Ww2 poster oct0404.jpg from category:Adolf Hitler or Image:VictoryIsACoolBreeze.jpg from Category:George W. Bush . Those images could also be called "offensive propoganda". // Liftarn

I wonder - why aren't we creating a side-gallery that will show these cartoons. I gather that Commons community will not remove them - O.K. - but why should they be here, in this page? When a person search for pictures of Ariel Sharon - that's exactly what he is looking for, wether or not he clicked the link form one of the wikipedias of searched the image on Commons. I rather think that a side gallery, such as "Caricatures of Ariel Sharon", with a link in the top of this gallery, could make up a sort of answer to this debate. Well, not a full answer - but something most could live with. Havelock 21:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds reasonable. I wonder if that will be accepted by those who wants to erase all criticism of their beloved leader. // Liftarn

The subject of the cartoons is Ariel Sharon. The subject of the gallery is Ariel Sharon. This isn't that hard. Try and see the images without bringing your personal views into it. Don't dwell on the content, just view them as any other images. Or is that an unreasonable request? - Rocket000 23:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Anti-Semitism is not a viewpoint; this is something that is against the law in most of the liberalize countries over that world. We don't call to delete the cartoons, we are also believe that the have an education value, but this is not the place, and not under the "cartoons" labels. There are not just "cartoons", part of them are Anti-Semitism cartoons, which are against the law also in USA. For the education value you can link them from the page of Ariel Sharon, but the way the showed now, there give a good view and sensitivity for the other. --Itzike 23:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Being pro or anti anything is a viewpoint. And I don't know where thinking is against the law. At least there's no "thought crimes" in the U.S. We're not there yet. :) - Rocket000 23:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Why do you bring up the strawman argument of antisemitism? // Liftarn

I believe that the best consensus would be to put the images in a sub-gallery, as they are not really very illustrative of the person in question, but rather of one artist's vision of him. RonenAK 00:27, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I would say they are probably more illustrative than the staged, photoshopped official photos. // Liftarn

I see here few puzzling points:

1. Why should the caricatures be not only on the category, but also on the gallery? The gallery is a selection of the best and most important pictures. Do these caricatures fit these criteria? I doubt it.
2. why all those caricatures are of the same cartoonist? It gives the impression that this place is used by someone as a tool to express his own personal idea rather than to share information, as it should.
3. Are there such categories and parts of galleries for other world leaders? I Haven't seen any. Even not for George W. Bush who appears on some of the caricatures that we discuss here!

Eman 11:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Unprotected now

I now moved the cartoons to a separate gallery and put a 'see also' link here.

• Please don't add the cartoons back on this gallery.
• Please don't remove the link from this gallery. it is relevant.
• Please don't remove the cartoons from their new gallery.

If people edit war again it will have to be protected again. thanks, pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:52, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The name of the "Caricatures of Ariel Sharon" gallery dosen't fit it's content. The gallery includes only pictures made by one person, and they are all "anti-Sharon". A correct name for this gallery, which content is unlikely to change, would be "Offensive caricatures of Ariel Sharon by Carlos Latuff". Yonidebest Ω Talk 12:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Yonidebest, I think you know as well as I do that's not going to happen. Please consider that this solution does meet your request that these images are not shown on Ariel Sharon. thanks, pfctdayelise (说什么?) 12:19, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The word "offensive" of course should not be included, btu I do think that "Caricatures of Ariel Sharon by Carlos Latuff" is a more exact description of this gallery/category and should be considered as its name. Eman 14:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

That's too specific, IMO. It would make it a lot harder to expand. We should keep the possibilities open so non-Carlos Latuff cartoons can be included as well. Besides, there's already Carlos Latuff#Ariel Sharon related gallery. - Rocket000 16:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess I should have posted my response here instead. But to sum it up, I feel pfctdayelise's decision was appropriate. There's no clear consensus here, but the action seems to be inline with most of the comments and I think a simple majority is the best we can achieve with a subject like this. - Rocket000 13:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

A year later

To anyone watching this page, specifically those edit-warring, I will protect this page like it was done before. There was relative peace for over a year (see my comment right above this). The nonsense with the categories was enough, leave this page alone. Please stop disrupting Commons. Rocket000(talk) 00:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

There is a problem of undue weight here. This is a page, and like any page it should be in line with the NPOV policy. Uploading many cartoons drawn by a single cartoonist who wishes to defame Mr. Sharon, and placing them in this page under the title "caricatures of Ariel Sharon" is misleading and giving undue weight to the opinion of a single person. The Commons are not an ex-territorial ground. It should adhere to the policy adhered by all other Wikimedia projects. Drork (talk) 02:10, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

If that really is your problem then find some in scope, free license pro-Sharon cartoons and upload them. Why not build instead of destroy? // Liftarn (talk) 11:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

If you're so interested in political caricatures, and this interest is genuine and not merely to promote your political views, shouldn't you be the one who locate these caricatures, convince their owners to release them and upload them here? Is yout interest limited at one Brazilian cartoonist? Are you here to enrich us and the rest of the world, or to promote your opinions? Drork (talk) 14:42, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see you complaining that I have uploaded too many images by Brian "exfordy" Snelson or dave_7. If I find a source of good, usable and free images I keep coming back to it. I'm not here to do your homework. // Liftarn (talk) 19:31, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Quit bickering you two. Adambro (talk) 19:46, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Sneaky redirects

The link to Caricatures of Ariel Sharon by Carlos Latuff at the bottom should be to Caricatures of Ariel Sharon, but both are now redirects to Carlos Latuff. Very sneaky. // Liftarn (talk) 12:56, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

That was partly my idea. I don't see the justification for a Caricatures of Ariel Sharon by Carlos Latuff gallery, or a Caricatures of Ariel Sharon gallery either whilst there is only caricatures by Latuff and whilst both simply replicate Category:Caricatures of Ariel Sharon by Carlos Latuff. There is no point. As such, the idea was, partly influenced by some of Drork's recent changes, to simply link to appropriate section of the Carlos Latuff gallery from this page.

I don't think the Latuff images need to be on this page either since galleries aren't meant to include all images related to the subject, that is what categories are for, they are meant to highlight a select few that are the most significant. It seems reasonable to suggest that Latuff's caricatures of Ariel Sharon aren't a particularly important part of the subject of Ariel Sharon so don't need to be included in the gallery. Obviously the are related to this subject though so including a link to the appropriate section of the Latuff gallery seems appropriate.

I would therefore like to see Caricatures of Ariel Sharon by Carlos Latuff just changed back to a redirect to Carlos Latuff. Adambro (talk) 13:45, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you just rocked the boat. Earlier the agreement was to have the caricatures on a separate page instead of on this page (as it is this page contains no caricatures at all and that is not really hightlighting the subject). // Liftarn (talk) 18:12, 19 March 2009 (UTC)