Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 05:25, 24 February 2006

This article was nominated for deletion on February 4 2006. The result of the discussion was Keep.

It is not true that no overt sexuality was seen in the videotapes. Many contain simulated masturbation, sexual kissing and simulated oral sex.

Bacci40: Simulated masturbation is not overt sexuality. Neither is kissing or simulated oral sex. Those are suggested sexuality, agreed. But the fact still stands: No LS content contains overt sexual acts. Zebruh 16:08, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Zebruh, the acts that appear on the tapes are a sight more graphic than just girls "licking bannanas". I am just pointing that out.

Well yes. Of course I agree. But they are not overt sexual acts. :) Zebruh 18:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Zebruh, I'm not sure I agree with you about that.

(By the way, I am not the person who left the unsigned messages above, but I wanted to comment anyway.) Joey Q. McCartney 07:56, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Please contribute if you have additional information. I plan on adding more in time. Zebruh 05:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay. I've been working on making this neutral. It should be much better now. Zebruh 15:36, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Can you provide sources for this information? For example, how do we know that the girls always appeared cheerfulor that the scenes were well-lit? The one source provided doens't seem to cover these assertions. -Willmcw 20:22, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your edits to this article. Also, your question is a great one: How can we objectively assert that the scenes were well-lit and the girls were cheerful? I wish I knew how to answer that, as I suppose it would be a subjective observation. If no sources can be found, does that mean that such statements should not be included here? Zebruh 20:55, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Everything we include should have verifiable sources. Also, we should not make critical judgements of our own because Misplaced Pages has another firm rule, no original research. Thus, if I were to watch several of the films it would be inappropriate for me to write: "they are well-done" or "they are horrible" because those would be my personal opinions. If a notable critic had seen them and written those same comments then I could properly use them. See Misplaced Pages:Five pillars for a rundown of our core policies. Cheers, -Willmcw 21:22, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I have been reading about no original research and verifiable sources... very informative and helpful. I'll edit this article to follow those guidelines. Zebruh 21:24, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Further refinements

For those who wish to download the material from p2p networks, beware...while it is being suggested that these were all "artistic" shoots many of the girls are both photographed and videotaped in sexual situations. To the point where it could be considered soft core pornography. To list the entirety of the collection is to aide and abet those who initially molested these girls. To say that no harm was done because the studios were well lit and the girls apeared cheerful is not the issue. Child abuse is child abuse. And this operation was shut down because they were abusing children.

Bacci40: Neither photography nor videotaping is molestation. How is listing LS productions aiding and abetting? The "issue" at Misplaced Pages is documenting all human knowledge. Zebruh 16:08, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the label "child pornography" because it implies depictions of sexual acts, which are not present in LS content.

Also, the potential value judgments about content (professionally lit and happy girls) have been removed, until some way to verify them can be found.

You're welcome to download the material in question off your favorite p2p network and confirm for yourself. --timecop 00:22, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Here is my dilemma: I believe it would be "easily verifiable by any reasonable adult without specialist knowledge" that LS photography is high quality and that the girls are always very happy. But who would dare say that they had verified such claims by looking at LS content?

... just some thoughts ...

How would "any reasonable adult" view all of the LS Studio output in order to verify the assertion that the images "always" have certain characteristics ? As for calling it a "child pornography" site, I see from this forum that they apparently had nude photos. (note: that site would not be a proper source for the article because it's a forum). Weren't they raided and shut down for that? -Willmcw 21:03, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

• Good point. "Always" isn't verifiable.
• Regarding using the forum as a source: agreed. I need to link directly to those news sources
• Why was LS raided? Because of nude photos? Hard to say definitively. But regardless, there is not currently agreement between individuals or countries on the definition of child pornography. Some have felt that any depiction of a child without clothing is child pornography, while some may also define it as overt depictions of sexual acts involving children. LS did not sell depictions of sexual acts via its websites.

Zebruh 23:21, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

New Section: Productions

I added all the sites created by LS Studio of which I am aware. This was primarily from links in the LS-Forum archived in the Wayback Machine ..... Zebruh 17:57, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Unsolicited commentary from a news reader

This entire article reads like it was compiled from chatter in the preteen girl newsgroups of a year ago. The ukrainian news sources cited are not themselves objective and may be considered propoganda of the ruling elite.

There were hundreds of models involved with this "project" but it was not limited to LS studio. The photographic studio itself remains in business, the principals free, in large part because cultural norms in that part of the world vary so dramatically from the west. And it was the west which pressured the closin of this particular "project," under threat of trade sanctions. None were overtly linked this way in public, but one need only look back two years at the trade environment between ukraine and the us and the accusations that were flying back and forth to see ample evidence of this.

I can verify this content was, in fact, hosted on US servers. I once did an discussion article about these sites and I traced them, at the time, to a hosting company in Detroit, MI. They hosted not just the LS sites but other, harder sites, one called "working girls" or something like that, with a theme of children dressed as adult street prostitutes. I contacted them for comment but they refused. Within a month the content disappeared (temporarily, of course).

The money trail is what ultimately led to this project's demise and at least two of the organizers are in US prison after being extradited from france and prosecuted under US money laundering laws (if they can't get you any other way, they'll always find a way to drag out the money laundering charges). However, the content from this project has been archived and is still offered online in its entirety via multiple commercial outlets. Many other sites, like "BD series" were also using the same billing source. And while LS was, in some ways, the Penthouse of the preteen market, some of the sites this billing agency was handling really were little more than online video brothels where customers could request the girls do pretty much anything - and they would, for a fee. Though the original billing structure was destroyed, much of that "darker" content also remains online via commercial outlets that accept trade of egold, etc. for payment.

Really, the only thing the article gets right is the girls wore beautiful costumes and were photographed in and out of these clothes. From a culturally pertinent POV there was nothing indecent about the photos, and the only girls who simulated kissing and fondling were older and the behavior was entirely age appropriate (no matter how this might offend some, the fact remains 12, 13 and 14 year olds know about sex and are curious about it - and a great many are also quite sexually active).

Some of the young models can be found in online portfolios at other agencies and a scant few of the older models are now appearing in "legal" adult pornography. Many of the photos from the LS sites have, in fact, appeared in these young model's commercial online portfolios right alongside work they have done for such well recognized names as DKNY. I will also point out that you could, at the time, find work in such publications as vogue bambina and xuxa's online children's clothing catalog that was pretty obviously influenced stylistically by these works.

My bet: once (or if) the west gets over this feminist driven obsession with "child predators" these works will be looked back upon in the same way we now look back upon french postcards of the 1930s which also often featured children in "racy" poses and attire. In twenty years people will have many of these photos bound in books and displayed proudly on their coffee tables.

Good points. Thanks for adding a refreshing perspective to our discussion. If you have verifiable sources for some of this information, it would be great to add it to the actual article if it ever becomes unprotected again. Zebruh 16:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Legal links?

Do the external links contain illegal images? // paroxysm (n) 02:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know whether they are legal (besides, legality is not consistent across the globe), but there are pictures of very beautiful young girls who are obviously content and happy. Many are nude, but I haven't seen any images in the The LS-Forum or the The LS-Models links that I would call lascivious. Zebruh 20:52, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• We are not a guide for child pornography which this has been judged to be. I am removing any such links and removing the catalogue items. The article will be page protected as well. Capitalistroadster 23:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

  Your censorship fails, as does your unsound moral justification for it. Misplaced Pages isn't a catelogue for kiddie porn? Says who? The information is highly relevant and patently encyclopedic: it deserves to be catalogued. And since when was "Preteen Buzz" child porn? // paroxysm (n) 00:16, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Sources needed?

Seems like we'd need a source for the following info:

• "...based in the Ukraine..."
• "... and had thousands of members worldwide..."
• "Approximately 1500 children, ages 8 to 16 were recruited as models in Kiev, Kharkov and Simferopol in Ukraine. Various nude photos were taken and uploaded to servers in United States and Canada. Quality and quantity of material on the site was unmatched, and soon it became the most popular child pornography website in the world. The site brought in several hundred thousand dollars in profit during the 3 years it was in service. The entire operation was ran by an Ukraininian man in mid-20s."

I assume the source for the following information is the sites themselves, but no citation is given in the article:

• "...was an online subscription service and photography studio that created hundreds of thousands of photographic images (and hundreds of videos) of young teen and prepubescent girls, and sold them via the Internet from 2001 to August 2004. During that time, they produced approximately 80 issues or collections, such as LS-Land, LS-Stars, LS-Barbie, LS-Flash, LS-Girls and LS-Fantasy..."
• "Subscription was done entirely online, and members paid for the service with credit cards...."
• "While early collections often featured nude girls in natural poses, later collections also contained many images of girls in sexually suggestive poses. No actual sexual acts were portrayed but there were implied sexual acts such as the models sucking on bananas. Many later collections also featured the girls wearing custom-tailored costumes. The backgrounds appeared to be custom-built, similar to stage-play sets."

As far as giving the actual links as citations, I'm not sure whether or not that's appropriate. (The article itself says that the girls were in sexually suggestive poses, which indicates that some countries might consider them illegal. Not sure what Misplaced Pages's policy is on linking to sites with arguably illegal content.) But if the citation can't be included for whatever reason, then I assume the information can't be either.

Joey Q. McCartney 06:20, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Joey, for pointing those out. Some of those points are covered in the linked articles, and I'll make it more clear asap.

As for the links, we had some that led to the sites' public pages (in the Wayback Machine) but they were removed for fear of illegality. However, the images at those public links are legal, as there is no lascivious exhibition of the genitals, and they are certainly not lewd or obscene. Rather, every image is of a very beautiful, very happy girl who sometimes happens to show some innocent nudity. One would not be able to find, from the links that I previously provided, any of the sexually suggestive images to which members would have had access.

Zebruh 08:49, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I may have overemphasized the importance of citing sources. It's important, I guess, but not an emergency. That said, there are a couple statements that look like they might be hard to verify:

"No actual sexual acts were portrayed..." (should probably be more specific or probably just deleted.)

"Quality and quantity of material on the site was unmatched" and "soon it became the most popular child pornography website in the world." (maybe POV-ish)

This particular sentence was my translation from ja:LS Magazine. But it is a fairly accurate representation of the site's status. --timecop 00:25, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm definitely not questioning the statement's accuracy. Just raising WP:V. Unfortunately I've been having trouble getting japanese characters to display on any of my browsers :-( so I don't know if the japanese 'pedia gave a source or not. Joey Q. McCartney 05:04, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Joey Q. McCartney 03:30, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

ok, now i see the japan LS-magazine article. Joey Q. McCartney 07:25, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

See also CP article?

Should "child pornography" maybe be added under "See also", and "LS Studio" be added under the CP article's "See also"? Joey Q. McCartney 08:04, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Catalogue

The catalogue was removed as

• unverifiable
• unencyclopedic.

Please do not reinsert it. Ah, the Wikimedia Foundation is also getting a lot of complaints about it. David.Monniaux 07:34, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your attention to this article. Some observations:

• Verifiability: The list of sites created by LS Studio is certainly verifiable, through legal (albeit controvercial) websites. All of the information provided can be verified via LS Studio's own forum which can be (removed link...) This is stated in the opening paragraph of the section that was removed.
• Unencyclopedic: I do not see anything at Misplaced Pages:What_Wikipedia_is_not which supports the claim that a list of productions is unencyclopedic.

The Wikimedia Foundation receives many complaints about controvercial articles. That is not an acceptable reason to delete the information. See Misplaced Pages:Content disclaimer

LS Studio had an undeniable influence, and was hugely controvercial. Listing the many sites that they created gives a solid example of their daring endeavors, and is just as legitimate as the lists on these pages:

• Recreational_drug_use
• The_Beatles_record_sales,_worldwide_charts
• List_of_assassinated_persons
• List_of_wars_2003–current

Zebruh 09:07, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

It is original research and it is pointless to include in the article. "daring endeavors"? Give me a break. Stop trolling.--Jimbo Wales 16:29, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Please understand: I definitely do not intend to troll. I have tried to keep my responses here level-headed, nonjudgmental, and as fact-based as possible.

How about we remove the "File prefix" column, which is probably not appropriate here, so that the list becomes like this? Zebruh 19:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

No. And do NOT repost the wayback link, or any other link that takes one to the content discribed in the article - not only is the content controversial (as you delicately put it), but potentially illegal in some places, and we cannot have our users stumbling into that (like I just did). --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 05:33, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I do not understand one point being (inconsistently) made here: the work of LS was indeed both controversial and influencial to the greater child model industry. How is allowing a catalog of, say, Vivid video productions allowable and within the guidelines while the same sort of list relevant to the LS works, not? All great art is both controversial and influencial - that's the entire point: great art stiumlates discussion. Links to nazi memorabilia and nazi propganda could be illegal in some jurisdictions; likewise would liks to propoganda regarding liberty and democracy. But propaganda itself is both influencial and art (see: Karl Orff) Should wikipedia likewise refuse to allow links to that content?

Good point about the inconsistency. I think the bottom line is: Those in power just really really do not want it here. So what can be done? I've run out of steam. Polite, logical reasoning has proven to be an ineffective approach. Zebruh 18:04, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Trolling?

I've been thinking very much for the last 32 hours about these discussions and how best to respond.

Ever since discovering Misplaced Pages in November, I've been very excited. I think this place is absolutely awesome. I visit multiple times a day, and for many subjects which intrigue me, Misplaced Pages has become my first source, replacing my long-time favorite, Google. Often I'll have a moment of curiosity, rush to the computer and click the "wikipedia" shortcut now permanently on my browser's shortcut bar.

I have been especially impressed by Misplaced Pages's core values and guidelines of conduct. Respect is extremely important to me.

But then something happened yesterday, which has cast a shadow on my Misplaced Pages experience: Jimbo Wales, founder, asked me to stop trolling. I have been dumbfounded. My stomach has literally been in knots. I've been thinking to myself: "Have I been trolling?" "Maybe I don't really know what trolling is."

Jimbo's comment has also deeply confused me, as of all people, I would never expect him to respond in such direct opposition to so many of Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. But those things can be disputed, and when it comes to such a controversial subject as this, I will respect Jimbo's opinion. Besides, he is founder.

However, I am even more deeply concerned with his accusation of trolling.

• I have made a very deliberate effort on this page to be impartial, civil, logical, and respectful. I have, however, been a bit more persistent lately. Has that been perceived as trolling?
• I would like to continue to contribute to Misplaced Pages, and to get along with the current community. Can someone explain to me what part of my entries above are trolling? I need to know so I won't do it again.

Zebruh 07:17, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:POINT. You gave a list of material that were very probably illegal to possess in several countries, based on an archived version of some forum postings (what an authoritative source!). It's basically unverifiable. In addition, it has no encyclopedic content: the only use I can see of this list is to help people who trade such contents, not people who want to inform themselves on LS Studio's activities. David.Monniaux 11:46, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Even if your allegation is true, Jimbo should assume good faith allthesame. It should be clear to anyone that Zebruh is not intentionally trying to aggravate anyone, but instead only very _politely_ debating with Jimbo about the merits of the list. Wouldn't it be nice if Jimbo could do the same? Ineloquent 23:24, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Ineloquent. I was wondering if anyone would notice. Zebruh 03:54, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

totem judgment

LS site collections varied greatly in quality and content. This article understates the obvious in several instances. The handmade backdrops, props and costums are in incredibly intricate in some instances. The time and effort that went into creating the thematic studio scenes is worth noting. Often times each set was used for only a few shoots, some for only one. The style is conservative artistically, and it is artistic as there were common elements, threads that could be traced through the studios work that enhanced the shot. The models costumes were classy and tailored to the scene. More tasteful than any folly to date, never rich or pretentious; the threat poses is that it is unparalleled -- the threat leveled at the art, entertainment and porn industries.

The models never display a notion of coercion. Their expressions are comfortable and relaxed. While clearly staged modeling, the striking aspect is the self esteem and natural desire to be attractive. To tell one of these girls that they were doing something wrong would be quite new information to them. And as perfectly as they are crowned, the proposition would be difficult to persuade them of.

Unaltered nature on beaches of rock, the shade of tree and vast landscapes, perfect weather sets the scene and the models natural beauty shines through. More mundane atmosphere is achieved when fantastic sets are traded for various rooms of a mansion. Realism is in achieved in a conventional TV room. Fully thematic sites incorporate costumes and sets that could be described as cute, creative, childish, dumb or goofy. The thematic approach steers the focus away from the stigma of sexual exploitation that just plain pictures of naked girls attracts. The mission statement might read something for everyone. While some girls like to feel pretty and attractive other girls are naughty and down right raunchy. After seeing photos of girls so unassuming it is suprising to hear them speak in a foreign language. Videos capture immaturity as two girl poke at each others crotches and smack each other on the backside as they imitate adult sexuality and gesture mockingly at sodomy and nakedness.

LS-Studios not only produced something for everyone but enough as well. The impact this has can be seen as porn site kings and .com gurus seek the same search engine results in attempts to steer potential customers to their sites although not providing the same content. Child porn marketability all but disappeared with this legal alternative that provided high quality content that wasn't overpriced or a potential credit disaster.

It is ridiculous to compare the work of LS-Studios that of the pornography industry. So called soft-core porn is classified as such based upon the parts of the body visible and what those body parts are doing. The premise how ever is the same throughout. They pit females in degrading roles subject to phallic fornications. Its end is a restrained prostitution. If it is something other than this it is traditionally classified as art. LS captures the sexuality of young girls professionally and tastefully. The attention to the entertainment value does not detract from it as an artistic work. Familiarity with art or smut does not factor into the premise of objections only arguments of objectors. Threat is perceived from girls sexuality, from the fact that they can be and are naked without embarrassment, from an approach to presenting sexuality that is based on beauty rather than vulgarity, and fear of a denuded inadequacy in the American justice system namely the FBI and its prior standing errors. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by But wash your hands (talk • contribs) .

Interwiki

Could an Admin add de:LA Studio an new Interwiki-Link? Thanks Kenwilliams 18:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)