a separate place for nudes?

I'm a family man with a teen-age daughter who also has an growing

interest in photography. Both of us wish we could look at the

excellent photography uploads on this site without having to scroll

through the thumbs of the nude work. This isn't a condemnation of

nude art (though I think on this site many of the uploaded nudes are

by photographers who play too loose or ineptly with the boundary

between art and pornography)--but a plea to make it possible for

those of us with no desire to view it all the time--for whatever

reason--to have that option.

 

Is it possible to separate the nude work from the other photos?

To separate the nudes of the remaining work is a censorship form. In this case, I think that the interest that your daughter has for photography and its age are two excellent pretexts for you to talk with her on what is the sexuality and help you to free of the fear of the influence of that this type of pictures on her education.

 

In my modest opinion, I think you should take advantage of this to show to your daughter that the sexuality is something positive in the human being life, and that value is worthy of an art form and that she should meet in all the artistic facets.

Of course, pornografia is not an art.

Bill -

 

I couldn't agree MORE!

 

As a public school teacher in upstate NY, I often want to encourage my students to look in the galleries at photo.net for inspiration, critique, and homework purposes. I talk with my students about nudes and art, but it remains an uncomfortable situation - we're in the library at one of our computer labs, with plenty of other students and teachers around, and all a casual passer-by might see is a nude and they immediately jump to conclusions, villifying me and causing lots of problems. On the whole, my students treat it all very maturely.

 

I am about as liberal as they come, but I'm also realistic - Photo.net is and can continue to be a WONDERFUL resource to teachers who are simply trying to educate the next generation of photographers, but it would be wonderful to know that students - some of whom *cannot* treat the situation with the maturity required - are somewhat buffered from the nudes presented in the galleries.

 

Face it, folks, not everyone will ascribe to the "but hey! It's fine art!" mindset.... Please - HELP us by considering a buffer/zone/gallery structure that would allow us to let our students have free reign in perusing the galleries....

 

 

 

thoughts?

 

-Mike Simons

Corning, NY

This issue comes up regularly. It isn't that the administrators have no sympathy with the desire to be able to recommend photo.net to young people. But there are two problems that always defeat any initiative in this direction.

 

First, there is the practical problem that there are hundreds of thousands of photos which are uploaded already with no indication as to whether the content is mature. It would be an enormous amount of work to categorize those images.

 

Second, without an administrator or some trusted person categorizing the photos that involve "mature" content, we would have to rely on the people uploading the photos to do it. If we created a supposedly "child-safe" area of photo.net based on these categorizations, there would still be the possibility that a "mature content" photo might appear in the safe area simply because some photographer didn't follow the rules. In fact some people might consider the creation of a safe area as an open invitation to post who-knows-what into it just for kicks.

 

We would then actually be in a more precarious moral and legal position than we are now. At present, our position is: "There is no telling what you might see, since you might be looking at an image before any moderator does. Browse at your own risk." This is the truth. But if we advertised an area as "safe", given the fact that nobody previews uploaded photos, that assurance would be false. I wouldn't want to be the person explaining to an angy parent or teacher why our "safe" area was only 99% safe.

Even if an average teen mag doesn't have any nudity, the pictures there are far more suggestive in average than a random sample from Photo.net galleries. Also, I've seen a lot of nude pictures with very little sexual content. It's just that some people can't stand to see a bare nipple without losing their mind, and unfortunately they are the ones most frequently looking over your shoulder at the library terminal. :)

 

(When was the last time I read something that you could count as "an average teen mag"? One and a half months ago. As you can easily tell, I didn't enjoy it much.)

I agree, I would like a nude-free TRP too for the same reasons that are listed here: to share photonet with younger members of my family.

 

The issue of images in the database being uncategorized is not so important, in my opinion, because most people use the default TRP, which only counts the last few days. Images coming onto photonet after today could be flagged and the amount on the TRP would go down, which is what some people are looking for. The argument about people doing it for kicks is legitimate, so don't advertise a nude-free zone. Instead, if you have to advertise anything, advertise a nude-abundant zone. Images flagged as mature can go there, a sort critera added to the TRP, etc. If an mature-themed image makes it to the regular TRP, a moderator can flag and move it when/if he catches it.

 

The bottom line: Nudes will diminish from the TRP and those wanting to find them will be able to sort by nudes within last three days, or whatever. The site can draw attention to the nude-abundant zone without mention of any safe zone, thereby circumventing any legal problems.

 

Whether or not any one of us believes one way or the other with regard to nude photography, there are some who are offended by it. The site loses those members and potential members on a regular basis. Doing nothing and they will continue to leave and the nudes will continue to populate the TRP. Adding flags and you will still have the occasional nude in the TRP, but not as many. Nude afficionados will be happy because they can search for all the nudes they want without having to suffer the flowers, sunsets, and clothed people.

I know many of you also browse photo.net while you're having lunch. Maybe even just a snack. I have fairly strong stomach but there are still some photos that make me want to toss my cookies. Can we restrict the showing of anything gross during the normal lunch hours +/- a few for a buffer. Things like blood and gore, macro shots of nasty bugs though some bugs are ok, people's feet, cows if I'm having a burger, cats if I'm having chinese, horses and other animals. This is just off the top of my head I'm sure other's might like to add their own.

 

In addition.... studies indicate that violent that images of violence and racing cause people to speed. If we could limit the number of violent images as well as images or cars, motorcycles, bycicles, speed boats, etc. around rush hour that would be great too.

 

On tuesdays and thursdays I would prefer not to see any images that have more than 3 or 4 7/7 ratings.

If you had categories, you could send your students to look at

street photos, for example, with the understanding that the

moderator of that category, who would be able to recategorize

anything s/he thinks belongs elsewhere, will never be able to

guarantee the suitability of every image 24 hours a day. A

disclaimer to that effect should satisfy those concerned with

liability issues.

 

I don't think that the photographers who upload nudes on this

site are trying to foist images on people who don't want to see

them. The ability to compare like kind images of all genres

would benefit students of all ages. Other sites have done this,

and I would be curious to know if members who have checked

out this feature have observed the problem that we're so

concerned about here.

Lovely idea tom, but whos lunch hour should we observe? EST, maybe Hong Kong, London? :)

To address Brian's 2 concerns.

 

<i>"First, there is the practical problem that there are hundreds of thousands of photos which are uploaded already with no indication as to whether the content is mature. It would be an enormous amount of work to categorize those images."</i> Noone is saying all the past images must be catagorized. Just makes a new "nude" forum and ask that new nudes be put into that forum. My guess is that images greater than 7 days old get 1% of the views of those who have been on the site less than 7 days. (Brian may have data to support or refute my speculation.)<br><br>

 

<i>"We would then actually be in a more precarious moral and legal position than we are now. At present, our position is: 'There is no telling what you might see, since you might be looking at an image before any moderator does. Browse at your own risk.' This is the truth. But if we advertised an area as "safe", given the fact that nobody previews uploaded photos, that assurance would be false. I wouldn't want to be the person explaining to an angy parent or teacher why our "safe" area was only 99% safe."</i> Noone is saying photo.net must create an area of the site photo.net guarantees as "safe." The sugggestion is that you create a "nude female" and "nude male" areas such as usefilm.com has done. Some nudes will appear in the "non-nude" areas, but most people are respectful and intelligent enough to properly categorize their photos. <br><br>

 

 

<u><b>Because we can't make a perfect system is no reason not to make a better system!</u></b>

In reply to the following from "a public school teacher"

...

"As a public school teacher in upstate NY, I often want to encourage my students to look in the galleries at photo.net for inspiration, critique, and homework purposes."

 

 

An alternate approach for utilizing the photo.net image resources for educational purposes would be for the teacher, having identified a set of images that he/she thinks would be particularly useful for purposes of class discussion, to then obtain permission from the photographers to repost the selected images to the school's local website and forum discussion system. The students could then create their own set of comments on what the images meant to them, uninfluenced by the typical photo.net "Wow, fantastic" type of image comment which, while undoubtedly flattering, is not of any particular value to students engaged in pictorial analysis.

"Because we can't make a perfect system is no reason not to make a better system!"

<p>

Just because YOU think this makes it a "better system" doesn't mean that's the case. Making changes without going back and reflecting those changes in previous contributions breaks the system in my opinion. Or at least breaks it more in my opinion.

<p>

Once you start drawing these lines you run into all sorts of problems. I don't want any of my images tagged as anything because of it's content. Reminds me of those star of david patches you see in wwII documentaries and movies.

<p>

Why seperate the nudes out? Why not seperate safe images out? When you upload the photo there's a check box you can check to mark it "Safe for stuck up people". By default it's unchecked. Then people can browse the site in "Safe Mode". Only viewing photos that have bene marked safe. Granted for a while there may only be a couple dozen images, most likely underexposed, badly composed, unflattering pictures of people's kids but that's the price to pay for safety.

<p>

If this sounds stupid to you, that's how stupid the suggestion to flag nude photos sounds to me.

<p>

If you want to be able to access photo.net in your classroom contact your local board of ed and have them fork up a 20-30k a year per district as a subscription so that photo.net can provide a "photo.net in the classroom" version. That doesn't work? Try to find a corporate sponsor. Too much work? Well it's a fraction of the amount of work that would probably be needed to do what you want. Posting a recommendation on a forum is easy, doing something about it is hard.

<p>

My main issues are censorship. Not so much censhorship... I'm not sure how to describe it. It's more of a moral superiority complex. Who should be allowed to determine what is acceptable and not acceptable? Because those markings are going to be considered as good and bad. Full frontal male nudity is such a bad thing in media in this country but you can walk into almost any museum and see it. Do people boycott those museums? I'm sure some do and they miss out on the other work in that museum. Others may just avoid those exhibits. That's fine with me. You don't like something don't look at it. If you unknowingly run across it, it's not going to harm you. So why put so much effort to prevent accidentally something you didn't want to see?

<p>

There are plenty of things I find offensive on this site. Nudes aren't one of them. Even the bad ones.

<p>

There are a lot of nudes in the top rated pages. I think that's a good indication that the community doesn't mind and likes what they see.

Bill,

 

I was thinking the same thing. US Copyright law permits the use of copyrighted material for educational purposes without the need to obtain permission or licensing. A photocredit for the photographer with contact info would be nice.

 

They can create a system to manuaally select images from photo.net (since spidering isn't allowed) and put them on their own system for the purpose of examiniation, critique, any thing else pertaining to a study of the work. The problem is people aren't going to do this. They would rather complain here and hope someone does it for them.

 

As much good stuff as there is on here there's also a greater amount of crap. Telling students to look through the galleries here without some sort of structure just seems lazy to me. That's like telling a person to go to the library so they can learn more.

haven't we dragged all of the life out of this subject already?

many, many times?

We have discussed this many times, but what happens in so many of

these debates is that people get a bee in their proverbial bonnet and

don't listen to what others are saying.

 

If you segregate nudes, and only nudes, photographers who focus on

this genre will feel persecuted. Several posters have made that clear.

But if you separate everything into natural categories, then everyone

benefits unless you really like all genres equally, in which case it

won't matter. When people say "oh, isn't that lovely" what are they

comparing it to? If education is what this site is really about, then

it should be in comparision to a dozen, or a hundred, other similar

shots where you can really learn to make a more objective comparision.

If you don't think people are judging genres when they rate images,

then you are not really paying attention. . .

I think the whole puritanical thing is far more dangerous than children seeing nudity. Come to think of it, children in lots of places grow up seeing plenty of nudity and it doesn't seem to make them go insane or grow hair on their hands.

 

There's more nudity on the beach in Brazil or the subway ads in Paris than in most of the US, but you don't find kids there being more sexually adventurous than here. People live naked in the jungle their whole lives and they seem well-balanced.

 

I took my eleven year-old son to a gallery opening recently in which a friend had some prints. There were also some fairly explicit fetish images which I didn't know would be there. His reaction was "gross" and looked at other things. I think the exposure is probably better, it makes him look at things in perspective rather than thinking there's some hidden magic in things he's not allowed to see. Interestingly enough, a family with a boy the same age has made every attempt possible to hide nudity and sexuality from their son, and he lives for internet pornography.

 

It's probably obvious I have little sympathy for the segregationist attitude about nudity, and I think it would result in more effort by kids to find them than if they just see them.

so its been beaten to death but I have one little itty bitty question. if nudes are seperated what would the guidelines be? abstracts? arms, legs? or just anything that might show a breast or backside, or genitals? why is the nude body such a big deal? we all have one for pete's sake. Do children not know what a naked body looks like. no blinders for me or my children, thank you. May my children grow and be wise because I did not hide from them, the real world...or at least the world as I see it ;)

 

Knicki

I have a suggestion which may be hard to implement and perhaps needs considerable

resources on the server but will solve problems which Bryan is talking about:<br>

We can have a voting system for category, I mean the photographer initially only

suggests a category (perhaps with a little more weight than others' vote) and

viewers will have a dropdown list of categories to suggest a category for the

photo along with their rating and commenting and the photo will be listed

in the category with more votes.<br><br>

 

I think it is very easy for the commenters and raters to suggest a category

too before clicking submit and photos will receive enough votes for category to

result in a fair decision about which category the photo belongs to.<br><br>

 

it takes time but older photos will find their category too without

need for manual editing, PNet can send a message to all photographers

to suggest their initial category for their older photos, if the photo has

many ratings and high impression in top pages people will see it and

suggest the correct category if they feel its not categorized correctly.<br><br>

 

what do you think ?

By the way I hope this doesn't result in new games of "mate-categorizing" and "revenge-categorizing" :))

I thought we are already in XXI century. We have incredibly fast development in technology, science, and space travel. But as far as sexuality we are getting behind Dark Ages from the past. Nudity should be a natural part of our humanity (that doesn�t mean we can expose ourselves in any place we want). You hide it (nudity) from the children and most of them will really want to see it � usually in the wrong way. Forbidden fruit taste much better. That can lead to pornography and perversion in the end. I just wonder how many more years we need as a human civilization to reach the point that we can look at ours nude bodies and don�t feel sick emotion. When are we going to be able to take responsibility to educate the new generation the right way to help them grow up as the emotionally healthy adults? They should to learn how to enjoy the beauty of their own body. Not to mention that all of the �bad words� to describe the forbidden parts won�t even have a place in their vocabulary � wouldn�t that be nice?

Growing up in the sixties with puritanical parents, attending a US Department of Defense high school in Germany where we were finally shown a VD film in our SENIOR YEAR amidst howling laughter, (one step removed from the firesign theater version) I found the more mature and realistic attitudes we now have toward sex far, far better. my real growing up was done on the streets of Munich and in a parallel culture which my parents STILL do not understand. (Rolling Stones music NOT allowed in my bedroom)

I personnally have nothing in particular against nude photogs on Photo.net, and agree with the teacher's remarks above, true, kids should receive education about sex as soon as they are able to understand what is going on, like early teens (Late twenties for Southern Baptists). However, that does not give folks who post pictures on pdotnet a blank check to post anything, or start rationalizing as an excuse.

It is a FACT that younger children DO use this netsite and post their pictures, part of the wonderful idea of photo.net. And with the Internet I'm sure that plenty of them are looking at Netsites that contain adult material. However photo.net is NOT one of those sites and has to draw the line when folks with personal problems or serious immaturity cannot check themselves. Today I made a direct and sharp remark on a person's netsite where he was posting pictures of himselves with an erect penis. For me, the line had been crossed. If he displayed himself like this in a public manner, police would show up and take him to a hospital for counseling AFTER appearing in court, because laws had been violated.

In this case, this might be required, but the party (now offended by my remarks) insists that it is a photograph and that he wants remarks on the quality of the photograph itself...

Ok, so what is sick. To ensure that a teenage daughter never comes across a picture with nudity, or to allow a growing child to be exposed to life as it truly is, so that she can learn to make her choices? I would imagine that most people that grow up to be deviate in some way or other were brought up by puritanical parents that supposedly protected their children from having normal feelings.

I'm looking at this from the point of view of the person who administrates the site -- not as a censorship issue or freedom of expression issue.

 

There would need to be a scheme of maturity levels and somebody would have to assign them following pretty objective standards. Even if the photographer was responsible for the initial assignment, this could not be definitive; that is, we could not display a photo in the "Kid's Gallery" on the say-so of the photographer before somebody else looked at the photo. I just cannot see a "Kid's Gallery" on photo.net where anybody on the Internet could decide whether his photo was suitable for it. I would want to personally look at every photo that was going to go into a Kid's Gallery, or else have people who I considered totally trustworthy doing it. I just can't see putting up a Kid's Gallery where the message was "well, these photos are probably OK for your kids, assuming you are not too uptight, and you don't mind if once in a while your 8 year old might see a little harmless bestiality."

 

We have 1200-1400 photos being uploaded per day, and while 99.9% of them are within the photo.net guidelines, there are at least several per week that are not. The guys showing off the effects of all those organ enhancement products we hear about aren't necessarily the worst of it. Even though I am constantly amazed by how few problems we have, actually, it is still the Internet, and there are some very sick people out there. Sexual perversions do not render people incompetent to use a Web browser and upload photos to photo.net -- where our servers will happily serve them at a few hundred hits per second until someone notices and gets a moderator to delete them.

 

The only way I could see practially doing a Kid's Gallery would be for it to show at most a few hundred "top" photos SELECTED by trusted people, not relying AT ALL on what the photographers say.

No one is asking for an anticeptic site. The original poster wanted

to "look at the excellent photography uploads on this site without

having to scroll through the thumbs of the nude work." He then said he

has "no desire to view it all the time". The issue is volume, not a

100% guarantee.

Carl,

 

Except possibly a plaintiff's lawyer. IMO, the practical issue Brian is worried about is the legal difference between giving NO assurances that kids won't see something that will freak them and their parents vs. stating some level of "safety" and inevitably failing at it.