Talk:SuicideGirls

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This article was nominated for deletion on March 14, 2005. The result of the discussion was keep.

This article was nominated for deletion on August 1, 2005. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents 1 from Vfd 2 Yigaelspatio comments 3 Article useful 4 83.226.121.83 comments 5 154.20.161.143 comments 6 Bleached 7 External Links 8 Resale of pictures to other sites confirmed by media source. 9 GodsGirls 10 Is Olivia Ball still an owner? 11 Articles 12 SteampunkGirls 13 reverted 14 Comment 15 Altporn article nominated for deletion 16 more lawsuits by SG

[edit] from Vfd

On 14 Mar 2005, this article was nominated for deletion. The result was keep. See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/SuicideGirls for a record of the discussion. —Korath (Talk) 01:00, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

So is Wikipedia going to have a page now for every porn site out there? It looks pathetic if Wikipedia is trying to be taken seriously as an encyclopedia. Is every website and web community now going to get their own advert and ego stroking here too? What a waste of Wikipedia's potential. It cheapens the whole ideal. It's a shame that trash like this has to be in with the amazing work that others have put in with the rest of the site. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.202.238.192 (talk • contribs) 22:21, 27 July 2005.

[edit] Yigaelspatio comments

Suicidegirls isn't just "any" porn site.

Not only did it pioneer a genre, it also helped make porn "acceptable" for a lot of people who would be repulsed by conventional material.

I don't think of any earlier porn sites built up a community around sexual content - with full participation by the models (many of whom were members of the site before becoming models.

I don't think that all porn should have an entry in wikipedia - certainly Playboy, Betty Paige, Russ Meyer, Larry Flint and - for its own unique contribution - SG

- albion —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Yigaelspatio (talk • contribs) 03:55, 30 August 2005.

Bzzt. Even within the context of alt porn, subjectively, NakkidNerds can lay claim to that, as per AltPorn, by about four years. SG just happens to be the most famous. Achromatic 14:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for noting that – I wrote most of the "Altporn" article, in part to clear up the misconception that Suicidegirls "started" altporn. That, of course, completely ignores Stephen Sayadian, Richard Kern, Blue Blood, NakkidNerds, EroticBPM, etc. Suicidegirls just popularized the genre. Saying Suicidegirls started altporn a bit like saying Green Day started punk rock. Iamcuriousblue 17:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article useful

I came across this SG from a Google search and wanted to know what it was all about. I am thankful Wikipedia had an answer. I think Vfd is just a hypocritical, Puritanical prude. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Michael D. Wolok (talk • contribs) 14:26, 22 May 2006.

Note that VfD stands for "vote for deletion", not the name of a user. And hardly anybody is saying this article doesn't belong on Wikipedia, especially with as much press as SuicideGirls has gotten. The only complaints have come from John Gohde, who first proposed the VfD (which was resoundingly rejected) and anonymous user 172.202.238.192 (who as far as I know might be John Gohde). Iamcuriousblue 21:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 83.226.121.83 comments

What does the girls earn? // ix —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.226.121.83 (talk • contribs) 20:01, 4 August 2005.

$300 per set last I heard (I unfortunately can't remember the source); I don't know if that figure is still current. Iamcuriousblue 17:58, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Its just been raised to $500/set according to this discussion. SuicideGirls still maintains its controversial "exclusive" rights (which prevent models from working from any site that SG considers competition) and buries it in the fine print of their modeling contract. Iamcuriousblue 05:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Opinion only, from experience: one of the things that raises models ire has been that, especially in the genre of 'adult' modelling, keeping models under contract, and then a two year non-compete clause following cessation, for the paltry sum of $300/$500 is oppressive and unusual. Of course, no-one made said models sign, either. Achromatic 05:01, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

As of Oct. 2006 they are offering $300/set and the models also sign away rights to pictures and how they will be posted contrary to what the article claims about their control. Moving pics to an archive is hardly removing them, they are still available to any paying member and the models have no control over this. This is all included on the websites T&C for applicants. It may also be interesting to note that since SG owns all images, these girls will never get royalties for SG posting their pics in any form of media. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.189.109.133 (talk • contribs) 05:26, 4 November 2006.

This is incorrect. Payment per set is now $500.00. It has been for months.

[edit] 154.20.161.143 comments

Rock musician Courtney Love is a member of the site, and frequently leaves "rambling, stream-of-consciousness posts on the site."

what is being cited? there is no link to source. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 154.20.161.143 (talk • contribs) 00:50, 3 September 2005.

• It was from one of the stories in the external links section; I've made it a direct cite. 66.108.112.133 03:43, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bleached

Is it worth noting somewhere that, out of the 700 models claimed in the article, only a handful are non-aryan? Granted, the site relies upon the models submitting themselves, but still. It's pan-global and has models from all corners of the developed, internetted world. The owners are presumably aware of this issue, because they have one of the few non-white girls on the site's inventory page. [1] That didn't just happen by itself. -Ashley Pomeroy 17:40, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

If you can find media sources noting or criticizing that aspect of the site's content, by all means, add a reference to it. Otherwise, I question how appropriate it would be, because it would probably violate our policies against original research or POV to make your own original observations in such a way. It may not even be relevant to this specific subject, because the racial balance of the site's models may have absolutely nothing to do with their own editorial practices, but perhaps more with the demographics of who has internet access, or the culture of what women take interest in such a thing. In that sense, it would be a comment more about race and the internet, or race and American erotica (how many minority Playboy Playmates have there been?), or probably most significantly, race and subculture (goth, punk, etc.), than about race and SuicideGirls specifically. Bringing the issue up yourself without the context of a cited source would make it impossible to understand the issue or its relevance in this manner, or to separate the facts from your views about it. Postdlf 16:57, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

This is a regular subject on our bulletin boards. Try here, here, and here for accusations and responses.

Cigarette 22:58, 24 October 2005 (UTC) (SuicideGirls member Clov)

[edit] External Links

Since this is turning into an editing war I've removed all of the links. The current links are to the company and that is it. If there's additional links that source info provided in the article then please source them directly in the article rather than in the external links section. That will prove relevance. Having articles, be they good or bad press, sourced in the story and then repeated in the external links is redundant and if they are not sourced in the story then there's no reason to include them. Sean Bonner 07:07, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I have reverted again. Please do not do continue this edit war. The purpose of external links is to show a balanced spectrum of opinion about the subject, thereby enhancing NPOV, and to provide sourcing for the facts in the article. SG is currently involved in a major controversy, as noted in the media and blogosphere. Much of the coverage of that is, necessarily, going to be critical. And as a matter of style and format, the broader context articles belong in the external links section, while specific source references are cited inline. Many persons or businesses which have WP articles are controversial, and there is ample precedent and policy to permit the inclusion of links which cover the controversy, from all sides. Go look at a couple hundred articles of that type. MCB 19:14, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

(A good example is the article Plame affair, which features both inline/footnote citations for specific references, and a broad spectrum of opinion and background in the External Links section. MCB 19:32, 7 November 2005 (UTC))

I agree with MCB. That wasn't a proper solution. And in fact, at least a couple of the links at the enand it has been confirmed that these images are from "archived models" most of which were part of the model backlash noted in this entry, it seems prudent to add this information to that section.--Conceptualpete 00:33, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Resale of pictures to other sites confirmed by media source.

http://altporn.net/2006/06/05/blueblood-responds-to-rumors-regarding-suicidegirls-content-sale http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/05016155.asp —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Petewa77 (talk • contribs) 20:55, 9 June 2006.

1) Sign your Talk page posts.

2) Almost - except your first link is not from an actual, citable news source, and the second link does not even seem to mention (nevermind confirm) image resale.

Please revisit Wikipedia's guidelines and consider writing from a neutral point-of-view. And check out a dictionary, for the definition of the word "confirm". --relaxathon 06:22, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GodsGirls

Minor I know, but saying GodsGirls is an "offshoot" of SuicideGirls is laying credit for the birth of a genre or even of the idea of a porn site at SG's door - inaccurate. The presence of people involved in both sites is not causation for the later's creation. Achromatic 13:58, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. Obviously SG should not be credited with the origination of the genre, but the chronology and comments from people involved seem to indicate that GG was started specifically as a response to the management treatment of models at SG. I believe that to be true, but I'm not sure if it is verifiable for Wikipedia purposes. --MCB 16:48, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

GodsGirls did not start as a "response to management treatment of models at SG". GG is its own business and not owned by any of the models. (I had added some material to the GodsGirls article on the ownership of GG, but it was removed due to disagreement over the credibility of the source of the information.) However, many of the models who had problems with the way they were treated by Sean and Selena at SG ended up going over to GG and also DeviantNation. One thing that I will say about GodsGirls and DeviantNation is, although SG hardly deserves credit for starting altporn, GG and DN definitely started well after the success of SG and in many way model themselves after SG. GodsGirls is even alleged to have copied source code from the SuicideGirls site (the GodsGirls article has more details on this). Iamcuriousblue 17:52, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, the GodsGirls article itself says, "GodsGirls partially arose from a highly-publicized dispute between former SuicideGirls models and that site's owners", which is what I was referring to. If that's not correct, it should not be in the article; if it is correct, then characterizing GG as an "offshoot" of SG is fundamentally accurate. --MCB 19:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, you're right to say that the two articles are inconsistent. I will go over the source articles and make sure the language in both the SG and GG articles are accurate and consistent. However, I'll reiterate the fact that the owners/designers of GG were never affiliated in any way with SG (though many of the models were), therefore, I think the word "offshoot" is inaccurate. Iamcuriousblue 21:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps "reaction" or "response" might be a better term; you're right that "offshoot" (like "spin-off") tends to imply affiliation or association or a parent-child company relationship. But there is undoubtedly a conceptual connection. --MCB 22:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good – as I said, I'll read over some of the source material again to clarify what the relationship is. Iamcuriousblue 23:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

All looks good - some good changes I like the way the article is shaping up. Achromatic 05:03, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is Olivia Ball still an owner?

A minor detail, but I came across this when doing research for some of the rewrites I've been doing. For the ownership of SuicideGirls, we have the following info:

The site is privately co-owned; in addition to Suhl and Mooney, co-owners include Steve Simitzis (server admin and SG user, "s5") and his wife Olivia Ball (site programmer and SuicideGirl). [2]

However, Olivia has been missing from SG since April 2006 and all of her photosets and her userpage have been taken down, something that's been noted in several places. [3] [4] [5] On the SuicideGirls staff page, there's a picture stating "i am a suicidegirls robot" where Olivia used to be listed. [6] The only semi-official statement is one from Missy Suicide/Selena Mooney stating:

Sometimes people just need their privacy. I think everyone has felt that way on occassion. It is hard to be in the public eye and for personal reasons she is taking a bit of a break from it. Please respect her wishes.

I get the feeling there was a falling out, and Olivia may or may not be still a co-owner. There's not enough to go on to change anything on the Wikipedia page, but keep an eye out for anything official on the subject and revise the ownership info accordingly should such info come out. Peter G Werner 06:17, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

According to court documents (testimony under trial), SaturnV (Olivia and Steve's company), neither were owners is the legal sense of SG. They had a contracted retainer fee, were paid for additional services, and a 15% profit sharing agreement. Some people, thinking of public companies, confuse profit sharing with ownership. Of course, many businesses offer profit sharing without ownership. There was a contractual agreement with SaturnV, not an ownership. (trial transcripts available on PDF from suicidegirlx.com) --Conceptualpete 02:24, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm just going by what was stated on this SG page, which states that the owners are Sean, Missy, s5, and Olivia, except that Olivia appears to have left subsequent to when that was written. Iamcuriousblue 06:30, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Articles

I deleted the majority of links to articles. After all, Wikipedia is not a Repository of Links. I kept one of the stories that gives background (I picked that one pretty arbitrarily), the video, what appeared to be the most in-depth article about the "defection" and the one about selling images to other sites. Cigarette 23:35, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Some of those were originally references for the article that were originally under the section header "references" ("Cynical, Bitter, Jaded as Hell. Also Naked" is one of a few sources that I used to create this article). I don't see any harm in links to on-topic articles in notable media outlets being included, and I don't think that's the type of link that the WP:NOT statement was trying to avoid. Postdlf 23:57, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm the one who added about half of the links, and I think several of them were quite important. Several, such as the one Postdlf mentioned, were used as references in writing the article, even if not properly cited, while others were good sources of information that might have been used in expanding the article. Cigarette gutted the list of links in a pretty arbitrary and capricious way based on an arbitrary interpretation of Wikipedia guidelines. I'm therefore reverting his edit. Iamcuriousblue 10:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

If the external links are included as references in the article itself, there's no need to cite them in the External Links section. External Links to news articles are not appropriate in an article in which the pertinent information from the sites has already been paraphrased and cited. So eventually, everything there except for the links to suicidegirls.com, SuicideGirlX, sgirls, and the Press clippings page should be deleted. Cigarette 23:07, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

When the original article was written, many of the articles that were used as sources were not cited as inline citations, but were rather given as a reference list at the end of the article. That was later incorporated into the external links list. This is not, Wikipedia best practices, I understand, but appropriate incorporation of these references into the article takes time, since I'm not sure if the original author is still around. Plus, I have added links to very early articles that provide information that could well be incorporated into future versions of the article. Your slash-and-burn approach to link deletion and too-literal reading of minor Wikipedia link rules is rather unhelpful here, quite frankly. Iamcuriousblue 02:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Which is why I did not continue pressing for immediate deletion. However, this article has more external links than any of the first two weeks of featured articles this month. Is there any doubt that almost all of those links should become inline references and not be in the External Links? And I don't understand how that can be "too literal". The links I mentioned above are news articles, which do not belong in External Links. It's pretty cut and dry. Cigarette 15:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SteampunkGirls

I deleted the external link to SteampunkGirls on the grounds that there is no evidence that the site is intended as a parody of SuicideGirls (as opposed to any number of similar sites, or softcore/pinup sites in general); plus, the site (1 page) is pretty trivially minor. I don't think it would meet the criteria in WP:EL. --MCB 23:33, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] reverted

Recent edit had removed factual information about the site (i.e. the existence of the archives), added misplaced "information" (i.e. supposed getting kicked of BME with vague link under "Site Features"), some basic typos, and removed language referring to the "pin-up" style of the site. The random interjection of "howevers" and such are obviously biased and could send the article back toward the road to deletion --Conceptualpete 04:27, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

As an adult looking out for the wellfare of teenagers, I am thankful that Wikipedia has the information (and that I did not have to go to the site, which is obviously and necessarily biased). When I read that one of the teenagers with whom I work is interested in being a "future Suicide Girl," a term with which I am unfamiliar, I am grateful that modern encyclopedias such as Wikipedia allow people such as me to update my knowledge in order to address these teenagers' "goals" (and the reasons behind such goals). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.56.66.84 (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Altporn article nominated for deletion

The wikipedia article on Altporn has been nominated for deletion. Discussion here: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Altporn. Iamcuriousblue 06:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] more lawsuits by SG

According to [7], SG has served papers to GodsGirls, amongst others. This is hearsay so far, but might be worth noting. --moof 06:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC)