On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 01:32:29PM +0000, 'lesleyb' wrote: > I'm taking it you mean the images will be withdrawn from the package and > whoever downloads it will have to get them from elsewhere but they will not > be able to download them within the package. Yes. They will not be in the source package, and obviously also not in the binary package. > Will the package contain any > information about that or will it simply contain the ability to download > individual requirements by posing the question to the player. I would expect to handle it just like any other file removal from a source package: indicate in the version that it is not upstream's source, and document what was removed and why (in this case, including a note that it may be illegal in your country to download upstream's source). People who want to get the files will know to go look at upstream's page, which is linked from debian/copyright. When playing the game from the Debian package, it will not be possible to show those images, even if you separately download them. The only way to see them is to download the game from upstream and ignore the Debian package. And once again, if images of adults having sex are a problem as well (which I don't have an opinion on, but I can imagine ftpmasters to think so), then it is no problem at all to remove those, too. So for those opposing: I'm proposing to include a visual novel with no sexual images, but a story about child abuse. Depending on player choices, the story may be told from an abuser's perspective. That's all. There's only words. Is this a problem for Debian, and if so, why? Regarding Jo Shields analysis: since the game is mostly text, there aren't that many backgrounds and the people don't have many different poses. They talk a lot, though, and the game is all about this. For sex scenes, there are a lot more images. I understand that when looking at the images without the text, it seems that this game is all about sex and the rest of the game is just a thin shell around it, but that is not at all how the game is while it is played. > Do you think the images are purely an artistic rendition or have they been > processed from real images? (I don't want to download the game to > check it myself.) Yes, I'm quite sure there have not been any real models or photographs involved here. > I think they're illegal in the UK regardless. Yes, as in several other countries, which is why I don't think there's any question that we will certainly not ship a package with these images included. > > > It has been mentioned here already and I find it likely that the > > > game may trigger some people sick of paedophilia and more harm may > > > be done. > > > > I wrote that. However, I was corrected: > > http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/1961to1999/1999-effects-of-pornography.html > > While not specifically about child abuse, it shows that if (regular) > > porn is more easily available, there is a lower rate of sexual crimes > > such as rape. > > > > From this we cannot conclude that having such games would lower the rate > > of child abuse, but it is certainly possible. It is very unlikely that > > it will increase it. > I haven't read that paper to determine how they built their data from what > sample sets they used but I'd like to know if the experiment has been repeated > elsewhere and what the results were for those trials. That page starts with an analysis of other similar research, and why much of it is not scientifically valuable (mostly due to the selected groups, or the measuring method). Then they explain (convincingly, IMO) why their method is better. They have been looking at several countries where there was a change in the availability of porn, and looked at sex related crimes before and after this change. They describe it as: > one can compare how pornography has effected total societies when the > material has gone from being illegal and relatively scarce to being > legal and plentiful. Or vice versa; one can investigate what happens > when a community goes from having relatively large amounts of sexually > explicit materials to relatively small amounts. Researchers using this > technique question: "What happens over the years to sex crimes and > other anti-social activities?" > Results may be completely different in different parts of the world or > using different samples in the same parts of the world. Yes, they specifically mention this, and tried to avoid this problem. It looks to me like they are very good scientists. > > This game does not make the player think that child abuse is acceptable. > > Quite the contrary, it does an excellent job of making the player very > > uncomfortable when they play the role of the abuser. > > > I feel you're saying the game could be using aversion therapy - see the film > Clockwork Orange[1] for a cinematic comment on the effectiveness of that. No, this is not a therapy; it's a game. A medical doctor might want to try to use it for therapy, but that's up to them. This is meant for entertainment. It's called a visual novel for a reason: the experience of playing the game is very similar to the experience of reading a paper novel. So the question really is: do we want to forbid a novel entering the archive based on its subject? On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 12:06:14PM +0100, Miriam Ruiz wrote: > What underlays is whether we should limit ourselves to distribute what > would be acceptable to every culture, at least the common ones, and > thus limiting ourselves only to politically correct packages. I agree. And I quite strongly feel that we should not include only things that eveyone on the planet agrees with, if only because that is exactly nothing. I also agree that we shouldn't include absolutely everything. Photographs of actual child abuse are an obvious example of something I don't want in the archive, and I don't think anybody would disagree. I don't want drawn images, as are part of this game, in the archive either. But things being uncomfortable for some people isn't a reason for me to keep them out; it's probably a reason to add a warning to the description, but that's it. Thanks, Bas
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