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Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/08/Category:People performing sexual activity

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Category:People performing sexual activity

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I don't think this topic requires the normal diffusion by age/gender that is used in most topics, since as far as I am aware, any images of children here would violate legal limitations. Of course, since we don't have those images, it is not controversial to not have the children categories, but I bring it up here because it seems to also obviate the need for the adult categories as there is no need to diffuse by child/adult here. There are two ways to do this so I'm wondering which of the two (or something else) is a better implementation of the Hierarchic Principle and Universality Principle:

A B
Eliminate diffusion by child/adult via upmerge to non-diffused parent Eliminate diffusion by child/adult via deletion of parent categories
resulting in: resulting in:
A B

This would of course percolate down through subs and apply to other genders as well.

I would propose (B) for starters as its seems more compliant with the Simplicity Principle and makes it more obvious that images should be limited to adults. Josh (talk) 22:04, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

B this is clearly more sensible and the W:WP:COMMONNAME of the subject, but it should just be People performing sexual activity also per simplicity principle. If you think uploading images of children performing sexual activity is acceptable in the first place then I think that’s covered by the “wtf is wrong with you” principle. Dronebogus (talk) 00:06, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • commons is NOT wikipedia. the policy you cited at wikipedia, DOES NOT apply @ wmc. "best practices" @ commons' categorisation favours precision, accuracy, disambiguation, etc. i.e.; we DO NOT file species under "most common name". Lx 121 (talk) 07:26, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Joshbaumgartner:  Support per Dronebogus. Currently most people categories have children, men, women as subcats. Since child sex is a crime in almost all countries of the world (AFAIK), men and women can be used for "male humans" and "female humans" respectively. So I support the following option:
C
Result
C
This still follows the Hierarchic Principle, as men and women are subtypes of people. The Universality Principle may not hold since "men" and "male humans" are treated as synonyms for this category structure. However, the global criminalization of child sex is a valid reason for the contrary, and follows the spirit of meta:IAR, which is applicable for all Wikimedia wikis, not just Wikipedia. --Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 04:39, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Support Sbb1413's proposal C. Describing people as "humans" sounds markedly unnatural ("Hello, how are you, fellow humans?"); if we can avoid doing so, we should. Omphalographer (talk) 08:25, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Describing people as "humans" sounds markedly unnatural ("Hello, how are you, fellow humans?"); if we can avoid doing so, we should.

That's a different matter altogether. My proposal is not to replace "humans" with "people" but to eliminate the adult/child distinction in the subcats of Category:People performing sexual activity. The elimination is necessary, since we don't have Category:Children performing sexual activity due to the worldwide criminalization of child sex. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 08:29, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Right - I mean that your proposal differs from proposals A and B above in that it avoids the stilted "[adjective] humans" phrasing for all three categories. Omphalographer (talk) 10:01, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Omphalographer, there is a discussion underway to change 'humans' to 'people'. If that is adopted, these categories will be renamed as a result. This proposal is really about the structure of these categories, not whether they should use 'humans' or 'people'. Josh (talk) 19:25, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • the primary purposes of most of these categories relate to human biology, human anatomy (as do most of the contents). "PEOPLE/PERSONS" is an imprecise, ambiguous term that ALSO APPLIES to a variety of "non-human" subjects; even WITHIN commons' scope. such as: fiction, mythology, hypothetical extraterrestrials, a.i., animal rights, legal entities, etc. NONE OF WHICH belong in categories for human biology, anatomy, etc. Lx 121 (talk)
 Oppose Option C, as it is disjointed, in that it mixes age-specific and non-age-specific categorization. "People" is not diffused by age, but "Men" and "Women" are. If the argument is that 'adults' is too specific and 'people' will do, then it would stand to reason that 'men' and 'women' are too specific and simply 'male' and 'female' are sufficient to diffuse by gender. If on the other hand, we want to be clear that only adult contents are permitted, and thus use 'men' and 'women', then the parent should likewise be 'adults'. Mixing the two leads to a disjointed hierarchy and doing so just because this or that category name might sound more 'natural' is not a strong argument. If a particular category's name is a problem, let's discuss an improvement, but breaking the logical hierarchy to avoid using a category with a name you don't like isn't a good answer. Josh (talk) 19:35, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
in terms of biology (& anthropology for that matter), which is the main purpose of most of these categories, "male" & "female" are FAR more precise (& more neutral language). the arguement about eliminating by-age cats is frankly STUPID: 1. because NOT ALL FILES on a topic would be visual images. 2. there are MORE STAGES OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT than just "child" & "adult", & 3. for purposes of human biology, anthropology, etc. there is OBVIOUS usefulness for categories of human - by age/stage of development. Lx 121 (talk) 07:41, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I generalize my proposal to all activities limited to specific age groups, the generalized proposal will be as follows:
  • If the activity is restricted to children, the main category should be called "children <activity>" with boys and girls as subcats.
  • If the activity is restricted to adults, the main category should be called "people <activity>" with men and women as subcats.
Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 09:07, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment I no longer support my proposal. Instead, I support Joshbaumgartner's options 1 and 2. See also: Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/08/Category:Male humans. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 08:05, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I put the cart before the horse by proposing outcomes, and it is best to first answer the basic question that prompted me to create this CfD in the first place:

When dealing with a topic for which no contents of children are expected/permitted, should we:

  • A: Simply use the basic 'people' categories without diffusion by adult/child, which is the best implementation of the Simplicity Principle, but may give the false impression that depictions of children are permitted.
  • B: Specifically use 'adult' categories, despite the lack of analogous 'child' categories, which is the best implementation of the Selectivity Principle, in that it is clear that depictions of children are not permitted.

@Sbb1413 and Omphalographer: perhaps we can start with answering this and circle back to the detail level once we have a clear overall picture? Josh (talk) 19:47, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Joshbaumgartner: Option B seems to be a good choice considering pedophilia is a crime worldwide. But we shouldn't be the authority to determine if pedophilic media are allowed or not. If we have such media, we can recreate Category:People performing sexual activity to categorize them. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 03:05, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sbb1413 If by we you mean CfD participants, I agree. My proposal was not made to create such a prohibition, but instead to create an appropriate structure for topics within which such a prohibition is already policy. "We" as the Commons community certainly do need to have a clear policy on this. WMF is a US-based organization and must comply with US law regarding content, and content which violates US law is automatically out of scope and in fact uploading such files is a basic terms of use violation. Since the project is international in scope, we should be clear about those few areas where US law may force us to prohibit content which may otherwise not have violated our policies, especially since US and international law and custom often diverge. Of course, you are correct that if it is deemed permissible, then of course the normal people structure including adult/child diffusion can be implemented, though in this specific case, I would not lend a hand to curating such content. Josh (talk) 17:01, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Sbb1413 and Omphalographer: : I am seeing no opposition to B, which would result in the following structure for this topic:

If at some point we have media of other age groups that belong here (change of law/policy in the future), they can be implemented at that time, but for now this will do the job. Any objections? Josh (talk) 02:57, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Joshbaumgartner: Agreed to this proposal, as only adults are legally allowed to perform sexual activities worldwide. Pre-marital sexuality is criminalized in some countries, but that's a different matter. But pre-adulthood sexuality is often labelled as "pedophilia" or "child sexual abuse" and is considered crime. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 05:05, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sbb1413: As an aside, your claim that only adults are legally allowed to perform sexual activities worldwide is very much an exaggeration; many jurisdictions (including the one I live in) allow certain minors to perform sexual activities and some jurisdictions even allow those activities to be recorded under certain conditions (generally when everyone involved is of a similar age).
The real point is that the Wikimedia Foundation Combating Online Child Exploitation Policy pretty much prohibits anything that would be in this category when it involves minors. Brianjd (talk) 09:59, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The situation with this category is clear: if a file would belong in this category and involves a minor, then the file itself is prohibited.
Commons:Categories for discussion/2025/02/Category:Nude teenagers mentions subcategories like Nude adolescent boys with flaccid penis and Nude standing adolescent boys with unshaved genitalia, where the situation is slightly less clear: there seems to be strong support for prohibiting such categories, but not necessarily the files that would otherwise belong in them.
As already mentioned there, it is important to set up the categorization system as a whole to avoid any suggestion that such categories should be re-created. Applying that principle here, categories such as People performing sexual activity must be deleted or renamed (maybe with a redirect, as suggested at the other discussion by Sbb1413) accordingly, leading to proposal B.
(On a related note, the category tree should also include a category like Adult humans performing sexual activity by gender.) Brianjd (talk) 10:21, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, at the other discussion, Sbb1413 suggested another option: redirect the ‘people’ category to the corresponding ‘adult human’ category. Brianjd (talk) 10:25, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
 Support Option B, moving away from my notional option C. I see why "adult humans" should be used instead of "people" in the main category of sexual activity performance, as the use of "adult humans" can better indicate our policy that minors (i.e. "children") are prohibited here. I'm pinging other users regarding this.​​​ Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs • uploads) 15:34, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Continuing with the idea that we need to make the ‘adults-only’ rule clear at every level, can we change the infobox so that the ‘Human stages of development’ section displays only the adult stages in adults-only categories? Brianjd (talk) 04:52, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As another aside, this category tree seems to mix up ‘people’ and ‘humans’ a lot, with no obvious solution. Brianjd (talk) 04:38, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

STRONGLY OPPOSE - on multiple grounds.

1. - these categories are primarily about HUMAN BIOLOGY & anthropology in general. renaming them to "people" not only "dumbs it down" (which is NOT a wmc policy), it ALSO fails as ambiguous & impreciseterminology. WMC POLICY on categorisation clearly states that clarity & disambiguation are the priorities. viz. - Commons:Categories#Selectivity_principle (AND we literally debated & settled these issues YEARS AGO, mostly when these basic categories were created).

even within commons scope there are ENDLESS possibilities for ""NON-HUMAN PERSONS"; from anime/manga, (furies?,) fiction, hypothetical extraterrestrials, legal entities, animal rights, etc..... from anime/manga, (furries?,) fiction, hypothetical extraterrestrials, legal entities, animal rights, etc....

NONE OF WHICH belong in human biology/anthropology categories.

2. - WMC already has VERY clear policies on child porn, etc. ALL OF WHICH were debated discussed & agreed on long ago. this is a "moral panic" over an issue that was settled before most of the users in this discussion even started on wmc.

& in fact there are historic images of naked humans under the age of 18, which ARE both LEGAL & permitted for use by wwmc & the wmf. (although for "sexual activity involving minors" it would be mostly limited to things like mythology, history, & fiction. ganymede comes to mind as a very obvious example...) AS WELL AS other types of media files that would conceivably fall into these categories; graphs, text, records of conversations, etc.

tl,dr - IF you feel the need to re-organise the category schema for this area of commons then: 1. - it MUST SPECIFY as "human" to DISAMBIGUATE from the many other conceptions of "people/persons" real & fictional. & 2. - there are in fact SOME legitimate materials & subjects/topics that would fall into categories of "humans under 18 engaged in sexual activities" (like mythology, fiction, history, & real world human interactions, adolescent sexuality, criminal sexual activities, etc.) NOT ALL OF WHICH would be "in situ" visual imagery; i.e.: graphs, texts, records of conversations, crime reports, assorted medical records, etc.

AND we need to keep the age categorisations; & NOT JUST "child/adult"; but by stages of human development. i.e.: youth, adult, senior (then subdivisions of same).

Lx 121 (talk) 07:16, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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