Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
Hello Elias, Welcome to the mailing list. On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 1:25 AM, Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva tolkiend...@gmail.com wrote: 2010/5/9 Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com: (..) board to do things is to give guidance to the communities. But, this topic is already pending for years. Looking back into the archives of foundation-l or village pump of Commons there were enough discussions. If the problem cannot be solved inside of the community, it is my believe it is the duty of the board and every board member to solve the problem. Ting I see no indication so far that the community *is* able to solve the problem. Sorry, I have never posted here, but I feel so sad reading such words... and other words spoken here at foundation-l.. the projects under the umbrella of WMF are so beautiful, so precious, to be treated this way... = Thank you for your kind words for the projects. But well, so that's the reason Jimmy Wales must be so authoritarian? Because the Community of Commons can't solve this issue through consensus? Is solving this particular issue really more important than reaching consensus? Why? It seems to me the only way a project can work through this sort of complex issue is through careful consensus and decision-making. I do not think solving it somehow is more important than reaching consensus, or a decision that everyone can live with. Questions of how to deal with highly controversial content -- from images of Muhammad to private personal information to explicit images of sex -- are often difficult to solve. This may be the sort of complex decision that would benefit from a community-run advisory or policy group, with representatives from many projects. Such decision making can take many months, and needs slow but persistent attention and progress towards a balanced resolution. [often our current practices of wiki-based decision making simply lose steam after an initial burst of interest, and future iterations on the theme have to start over from scratch.] Are you a member of the Board of Trustees or something? Could you inform me if the whole board has this kind of position? No, the whole Board does not have this position. (not to speak for others -- I am on it, and I am opposed to the idea.) This is out of scope for the Board, which like the Foundation itself generally stays out of content creation, policy-making, and governance of the individual Projects. BTW, I also have a broader question. Who entrusted power to the Board of Trustees? They are serving the interests of who? And who can revoke the trust upon a specific trustee, or the entire board, in the event it was misused? The Board governs the Foundation to support the interests of the mission and the needs of the Projects. In an emergency, the Board itself could remove a Trustee; in practice there are elections and appointments each year. Of our ten trustees, there are six 'community trustees': three elected by the editing community every two years, two selected by the national Chapters every [other] two years, and Jimmy as founding trustee, reappointed each year. The other four trustees are appointed each year by the community trustees. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_board_manual http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_member PS: I may look inquisitive, but I see this anti-porn campaign contrasting to the complete lack of action when it was found that wiki-en was grossly offending Islam for no better reason. I agree that the issue of images of Muhammad is similar to that of explicit sexual content -- both are highly controversial, considered by some to be educational or important; and by others to be useless and offensive. We must find a way to deal evenly with all controversial material, and to understand the perspectives of different audiences. SJ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: Let me know if I'm missing anything important. Actually, yes. In spite of multicultural nature of Wikimedia, this process shouldn't be formulated as purely related to sexual content, but as related to cultural taboos or to offensive imagery if we want to use euphemism. Under the same category are: * sexual content; * images Muhammad; * images of sacral places of many tribes; * etc. Although it is not the same medium, under the same category are all texts which some culture may treat as offensive. So, censorship categorization below assumes categorization of media *and texts*. Important note is that we have to put some principles before going into the process: 1) We don't want to censor ourselves (out of illegal material under the US and Florida laws). 2) We want to allow voluntary auto-censorship on personal basis. (Anyone can decide which categories he or she doesn't want to see.) 3) We should allow voluntary/default censorship on cultural basis, as the most of our readers are not registered. (Based on IP address of reader. Thus, pictures of Muhammad should be shown by default for someone from Germany, but shouldn't be shown by default to someone from Saudi Arabia. In all cases there has to be possibility to overrule such censorship by simple click or by preferences.) 4) We shouldn't help any kind of organized censorship by any organization. For example, if looking at the naked body is prohibited in some [Western] school even for educational purposes of teaching anatomy, it is not our responsibility to censor it. Contrary, as naked body is much deeper taboo in Muslim world, it should be censored on cultural basis (3). Speaking about default censorship on cultural basis and in the context of the Western cultural standards, this should be contextual. Commons gallery of penises should be censored by default, but that exemplary image shouldn't be censored inside of the Wikipedia article about penis. We should have a voting system for registered users at site like censor.wikimedia.org can be. At that site *registered* users would be able to vote [anonymously] should they or not have censored images of any category in their region (again, this is about Google-like cultural based censorship which can be overruled by personal wish). Users from Germany will definitely put different categories for censorship than users from Texas. And it should be respected. Rights of more permissive cultures shouldn't be endangered because of rights of less permissive cultures. That kind of voting system would remove the most of responsibility from WMF. If majority of users in one culture expressed their wish, it is not about us to argue with anyone why is it so. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Commons:Sexual content
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:23 AM, Kim Bruning k...@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote: On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 12:23:28AM +0200, Andre Engels wrote: Being educational should be just another word for being in scope, and in scope are, in my opinion, in the first place those files that are usable for the projects. That is the first thing that we should be judging things by. I've already emphasized that a bit already on the page, but more from the WARNING angle. That only says that pictures that are _used_ should not be deleted indiscriminately. Used and usable are not the same. Could you edit or comment on the page in a way that reflects what you just stated? :-) Hardly. The page as it is now seems to go from the point of view that we should not host any pornography, then restricts itself by trying to get a narrow definition of 'pornography'. For me, whether or not something is pornographic is at best a secondary issue. -- André Engels, andreeng...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
2010/5/10 Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com snip 3) We should allow voluntary/default censorship on cultural basis, as the most of our readers are not registered. (Based on IP address of reader. Thus, pictures of Muhammad should be shown by default for someone from Germany, but shouldn't be shown by default to someone from Saudi Arabia. In all cases there has to be possibility to overrule such censorship by simple click or by preferences.) /snip I have a problem with basing it on IP addresses. As a non Muslim in a Muslim country, why should Wikimedia decide that *I* cannot see Muhammad pictures but that it is perfectly OK to show it to a Muslim in Germany / France wherever. I think the world has moved on a bit from the one country, one religion / set of values / morals. AD ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 11:17 AM, J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov alexandrdmitriroma...@gmail.com wrote: I have a problem with basing it on IP addresses. As a non Muslim in a Muslim country, why should Wikimedia decide that *I* cannot see Muhammad pictures but that it is perfectly OK to show it to a Muslim in Germany / France wherever. I think the world has moved on a bit from the one country, one religion / set of values / morals. You didn't read it well or I didn't explain it well. I should be just default, like Google image search. You would be able to override it by: * logging into your account; or * by simply clicking somewhere that you don't want to be censored. The only level of censorship which should be imposed on cultural basis is default censorship. That means that just defaults should be in accordance to the majority's taboos. However, everyone should be able to switch from censored version to not censored version. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
On 10/05/10 15:25, Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva wrote: BTW, I also have a broader question. Who entrusted power to the Board of Trustees? Jimmy Wales determined the structure of the Wikimedia Foundation when he created it. He and Bomis donated the relevant assets, such as the domain names, to the Foundation at the time it was formed. We should remember, when we criticise his use of whatever remnant of power that he has left, that he could have easily structured Wikimedia as a for-profit entity, with him retaining majority control. We have Jimmy to thank for Wikimedia's non-profit status, its open-source software stack and its free content license. They are serving the interests of who? And who can revoke the trust upon a specific trustee, or the entire board, in the event it was misused? As a non-membership non-profit corporation, federal law dictates that it must have a Board and that the Board has final responsibility. The Articles of Incorporation could have specified means for oversight of the Board, say by the community, but this was not done. They simply say that the Board will make its own rules for how its members are replaced. The law gives us some protection, in that it prevents Board members from running the Foundation for their own personal gain (aside from reasonable salaries and expenses). However, it's still very important that we pick Board members carefully when we have community elections, and that we encourage the existing Board to make good choices for appointments. -- Tim Starling ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov hett schreven: I have a problem with basing it on IP addresses. As a non Muslim in a Muslim country, why should Wikimedia decide that *I* cannot see Muhammad pictures but that it is perfectly OK to show it to a Muslim in Germany / France wherever. I think the world has moved on a bit from the one country, one religion / set of values / morals. You are of course right. But what is the alternative? The only alternative is not basing it on location so everybody sees the same. That's like one world, one set of values. Marcus Buck User:Slomox ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
Tim Starling hett schreven: On 10/05/10 15:25, Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva wrote: BTW, I also have a broader question. Who entrusted power to the Board of Trustees? Jimmy Wales determined the structure of the Wikimedia Foundation when he created it. He and Bomis donated the relevant assets, such as the domain names, to the Foundation at the time it was formed. We should remember, when we criticise his use of whatever remnant of power that he has left, that he could have easily structured Wikimedia as a for-profit entity, with him retaining majority control. We have Jimmy to thank for Wikimedia's non-profit status, its open-source software stack and its free content license. If Wikipedia wouldn't have been so free today it would stand where Citizendium stands and another free encyclopedia project would have evolved in place. Wikipedia wasn't the only community-driven encyclopedia project. But it made the race and beat all its competitors cause no other project was as free and easily accessible as Wikipedia. Marcus Buck User:Slomox ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
On 05/10/2010 03:11 AM, Tim Starling wrote: On 10/05/10 15:25, Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva wrote: BTW, I also have a broader question. Who entrusted power to the Board of Trustees? Jimmy Wales determined the structure of the Wikimedia Foundation when he created it. He and Bomis donated the relevant assets, such as the domain names, to the Foundation at the time it was formed. We should remember, when we criticise his use of whatever remnant of power that he has left, that he could have easily structured Wikimedia as a for-profit entity, with him retaining majority control. We have Jimmy to thank for Wikimedia's non-profit status, its open-source software stack and its free content license. That isn't really true, though. He recruited volunteers with the promise of the free-content license for sure, and with a sort of implicit promise of a generally free-culture / volunteer-run encyclopedia. If he had *not* promised anything, he would have had many more troubles recruiting volunteers. You do remember that GNUpedia was gearing up to serve as a competitor, and only backed down because Jimmy gave them enough assurances that Wikipedia was such a free-culture encyclopedia that their efforts would be redundant? In short, Jimmy could not have gone the for-profit or non-free-culture route, because he would have been left more pitiful than Citizendium: a project with no contributors. -Mark ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
2010/5/10 Marcus Buck m...@marcusbuck.org: J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov hett schreven: I have a problem with basing it on IP addresses. As a non Muslim in a Muslim country, why should Wikimedia decide that *I* cannot see Muhammad pictures but that it is perfectly OK to show it to a Muslim in Germany / France wherever. I think the world has moved on a bit from the one country, one religion / set of values / morals. You are of course right. But what is the alternative? The only alternative is not basing it on location so everybody sees the same. That's like one world, one set of values. The alternative is to not censor, in any circumstance, to any kind of audience whatsoever. I must confess I find this particular alternative brilliant. It is imperfect, as any other form of freedom of thought and expression. But other options are more imperfect, not less, in my opinion. I think some projects (like the English Wikipedia) already reached consensus on this issue. -- Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva tolkiend...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
2010/5/10 Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com: Hello Elias, Welcome to the mailing list. Hi! ^^ Are you a member of the Board of Trustees or something? Could you inform me if the whole board has this kind of position? No, the whole Board does not have this position. (not to speak for others -- I am on it, and I am opposed to the idea.) Yours response, as well as Florence's, was refreshing. I am actually embarrassed, since most of my comment wasn't very constructive. (My comments on commons were even less balanced, but I was really upset) PS: I may look inquisitive, but I see this anti-porn campaign contrasting to the complete lack of action when it was found that wiki-en was grossly offending Islam for no better reason. I agree that the issue of images of Muhammad is similar to that of explicit sexual content -- both are highly controversial, considered by some to be educational or important; and by others to be useless and offensive. We must find a way to deal evenly with all controversial material, and to understand the perspectives of different audiences. I have no idea on how to deal with so many different expectations. I myself always praised the position of some WMF projects regarding showing human body, nudity in general and even and pornography. I don't know much encyclopedias that show specific parts of human body as they are, and as well as Wikipedia. (I remember a single biology book of my high school with photos of nude people - but it was mostly drawings. Plus, hmm, a really nice History book with a nude painting on the cover, and that's it) Looking at http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Logoffset=20100507131846type=deleteuser=Jimbo+Walesmonth=5year=2010 I see that Jimmy deleted this image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amy_with_dildo.jpg With the rationale 'Out of project scope' But it was restored, because it was being actually used on dutch Wikipedia, on the article Amateur porn http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateurpornografie So my conclusion is: amateur porn might be on topic on commons. And currently unused amateur porn might find some use later.z This state of affairs makes me feel really well. Wikipedia is a unique encyclopedia in many ways. One of them is that it has illustrated articles on amateur porn. No, people don't care, that's fine - but this really means a lot for me. In my country, 100 years ago, there were a revolt, called vaccine revolt, where people rebelled against compulsory vaccination. It was the greatest urban revolt of the old republic[1]. A particular argument used by the rebels was that doctors was entering to woman's houses, and had to see the naked arm of them, even the naked arm of girls, so that they could handle vaccination. I don't support compulsory vaccination, but this kind of reasoning really shocks me. It is now a distant past. Brazil is not like that anymore, and fortunately we now have schoolbooks with naked people on the cover (as I remembered). I sincerely don't personally care much about Muhammad pictures, for example. If people decided to delete them, I would simply think they are too afraid of offending, but I wouldn't care that much. (I know that being very notable and encyclopedic, the pictures themselves might have their own article, so it's not like they are going to be deleted anyway) But some people (Like Ayaan Hirsi Ali) would be harshly offended by deletion of those pictures. It might sound funny, but not accepting Islam rules on non-muslim contexts is very important to her (being a vocal ex-muslim, she received multiple death threats, and the director of a short documentary her wrote was killed). I would show opposition to this kind of deletion, but just because I'm a lot influenced by her (and dislike deletionism in general) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_Revolt -- Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva tolkiend...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Announcing the 3rd Free Culture Research Conference, October 8-9, in Berlin
Dear all, It is with great pleasure that we announce the third in a series of events exploring academic research perspectives on Free Culture. After Sapporo and Boston, the event moves this year to Berlin and expands to a 2-day conference! Please see below for the details and click on the links for more information. Of course it goes without saying that we’d love to receive some contributions from you and would appreciate your help in spreading the word. Please bookmark this page: http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/display/fcrc/Home *Call for Papers - Abstract Deadline: June 7, 2010 *** The 3rd Free Culture Research Conference (FCRC) Free Culture between Commons and Markets: Approaching the Hybrid Economy? The Free Culture Research Conference presents a unique opportunity for scholars whose work contributes to the promotion, study or criticism of a Free Culture, to engage with a multidisciplinary group of academic peers and practitioners, identify the most important research opportunities and challenges, and attempt to chart the future of Free Culture. This event builds upon the successful workshop held in 2009 at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, organized and attended by renowned scholars and research institutions from the US, Europe and Asia. The first event was held in Sapporo, Japan, in 2008, in conjunction with the 4th iCommons Summit. This year's event is larger in ambition and scope, to provide more time for interaction in joint as well as break-out sessions. It is hosted jointly by the Free University of Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies and will take place at *October 8-9, 2010* at the Free University Campus in Berlin, in collaboration with COMMUNIA, the European Network on the digital public domain. Funding and support is also provided by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Given this year's theme and the generous support of the Free University's School of Business and Economics, we encourage submissions at the interface of Free Culture and business, although we welcome submissions from any relevant discipline, will be inclusive and will maintain the interdisciplinary nature of the event, as in previous years. Enabled by new Internet technologies and innovative legal solutions, Free Culture prospers in the form of new business models and via commons-based peer production, thereby both challenging and complementing classic market institutions. Alongside business perspectives, we expect that perspectives from law, IT, the social sciences and humanities will help us develop a better understanding of the challenges at hand, for individuals, business, law, the economy, and society at large. Topics of interest include: - Studies on the use and growth of open/free licensing models - Critical analyses of the role of Creative Commons or similar models - The role of Free Culture in markets, industry, government, or the non-profit sector - Technical, legal or business solutions towards a hybrid economy - Incentives, innovation and community dynamics in open collaborative peer production - Economic models for the sustainability of commons-based production - The economic value of the public domain - Business models and the public domain - Successes and failures of open licensing - Analyses of policies, court rulings or industry moves that influence the future of Free Culture - Regional studies of Free Culture with global lessons - Best practices from open/free licensing, and the application of different business and organizational models by specific communities or individuals - Definitions of openness and freedom for different media types, users and communities - Broader economic, sociopolitical, legal or cultural implications of Free Culture initiatives and peer production practices - Methodological concerns in the study of Free Culture This is the first time the event will be held in Europe, the home of many past supporters and participants of the Free Culture workshops and also home to millions of individual and institutional adopters of open licensing models. We will therefore strive to promote and connect European scholars working in relevant spheres, while also representing the global diversity of the field. For more information see: - Submission Process: http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/display/fcrc/Submission+process - Venue: http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/display/fcrc/Venue - Organizing Committee: http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/display/fcrc/Organizing+Committee - Academic Program Committee: http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/display/fcrc/Academic+Program+Committee -- FCRC 2010 organizing committee -- -- Michelle Thorne Eisenacher Strasse 2 10777 Berlin, Germany +49 302 191 582 66 creativecommons.org/international ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 I put my impressions of the moment on this discussion page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Censorship#Some_reflexions_following_the_censorship_polemic_of_May_2010 On 09/05/2010 20:04, Sue Gardner wrote: Yeah, Pryzkuta, I know there are lots of debates happening everywhere; that's a good thing --- obviously talking about all this stuff is good, and people should use whatever mechanisms work for them. All the discussions are good, and everybody is bringing useful stuff to the table. Re Jimmy, my understanding is that he has voluntarily relinquished the ability to act globally and unlilaterally, in an attempt to bring closure to that thread of discussion, because he thinks it's a distraction from the main conversation. Which is, the projects contain, and have contained, material which many people (different groups, for different reasons) find objectionable. The main question at hand is: what, if anything, should be done about the inclusion in the projects of potentially objectionable material. Should we provide warnings about potentially objectionable material, should we make it easy for people to have a safe view if they want it, should we make a safe view a default view, and so forth. My view is that Jimmy and others have brought closure to the scope of Jimmy's authority question. In saying that, I don't mean to diminish the importance of that question -- I realize that many people are angry about what's happened over the past week, and it will take time for them to be less angry. But I think Jimmy's goal --which I support-- is to enable people to now move on to have the more important conversation, about how to resolve the question of objectionable material. To recap: it's a big conversation, and it's happening in lots of places. That may need to happen for a while. I would like to see us move into a synthesis phase, where we start talking in a focused way, in a few places, about what we should do to resolve the question of objectionable material. I think the thread by Derk-Jan is a step towards that. But it may be that we're not ready to move into a synthesis phase yet: people may still need to vent and brainstorm and so forth, for a while. Thanks, Sue -Original Message- From: Przykuta przyk...@o2.pl Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 00:16:02 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing Listfoundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the d iscussion ishappening 1) There has been a very active strand about Jimmy#039;s actions over the past week and his scope of authority, which I think is now resolving. That#039;s mostly happened here and on meta. Sue - everywhere - mailing lists, IRC channels, village pumps... We need to talk as Wikimedia Community. There is no authority without communication - face to face(s); keyboard to keyboard. The biggest fire (RfC flame) is here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Remove_Founder_flag 400 votes - 400 users !--- (and probably puppets :p) --- Maybe the best way will be to start special IRC debate - about past, present and future. (and again, and again, and again - yeah) Yes... We have bigger problems, but... maybe not. This is real trouble. przykuta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJL6DLoAAoJEHCAuDvx9Z6LPyEIANZz0qs0ETveeNNZl+cLAWYo q6Ivu/2Y49VpfzRrgCm1RtUMiYPxvFtoXPv2PQpOmf4CiU6opm/fFZ06cEp30ete Jey5525ALYyZidrnFaCnzzSl2Mai4zjKsLCcT3FPveAYdPk0JSf5Y4gIiWxU9a3i WTbOnKByved0AN5tHlxFrorGx2cva/atUQX+RDGWfD6YWP4gbiyz4U2HyXaaMMOK GXL3kA3wE/mUXg33hRmqJBVbIrMzQB6vrbkTbAijm2FiLW6j7iGC1iOFUDNMdVdA hteOXYsIZs/UvtGLb8E0xZb+5UmjUtuwP+yMGSBNSy5TzuRVW7obu6AsFOhqSAA= =eOeC -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia
Dear Derk-jan, As for 1), I think youtube can be compared in populairity and size with wikipedia, and in videos surpasses commons. Youtube enables its visitors to tag videos as adult. see for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA22WSVlCZ4 kind regards, Teun Spaans On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 3:24 PM, Derk-Jan Hartman d.j.hart...@gmail.comwrote: This message is CC'ed to other people who might wish to comment on this potential approach --- Dear reader at FOSI, As a member of the Wikipedia community and the community that develops the software on which Wikipedia runs, I come to you with a few questions. Over the past years Wikipedia has become more and more popular and omnipresent. This has led to enormous problems, because for the first time, a largely uncensored system has to work in the boundaries of a world that is largely censored. For libraries and schools this means that they want to provide Wikipedia and its related projects to their readers, but are presented with the problem of what some people might consider, information that is not child-safe. They have several options in that case, either blocking completely or using context aware filtering software that may make mistakes, that can cost some of these institutions their funding. Similar problems are starting to present themselves in countries around the world, differing views about sexuality between northern and southern europe for instance. Add to that the censoring of images of Muhammad, Tiananman square, the Nazi Swastika, and a host of other problems. Recently there has been concern that all this all-out-censoring of content by parties around the world is damaging the education mission of the Wikipedia related projects because so many people are not able to access large portions of our content due to a small (think 0.01% ) part of our other content. This has led some people to infer that perhaps it is time to rate the content of Wikipedia ourselves, in order to facilitate external censoring of material, hopefully making the rest of our content more accessible. According to statements around the web ICRA ratings are probably the most widely supported rating by filtering systems. Thus we were thinking of adding autogenerated ICRA RDF tags to each individual page describing the rating of the page and the images contained within them. I have a few questions however, both general and technical. 1: If I am correctly informed, Wikipedia would be the first website of this size to label their content with ratings, is this correct? 2: How many content filters understand the RDF tags 3: How many of those understand multiple labels and path specific labeling. This means: if we rate the path of images included on the page different from the page itself, do filters block the entire content, or just the images ? (Consider the Virgin Killer album cover on the Virgin Killer article, if you are aware of that controversial image http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer) 4: Do filters understand per page labeling ? Or do they cache the first RDF file they encounter on a website and use that for all other pages of the website ? 5: Is there any chance the vocabulary of ICRA can be expanded with new ratings for non-Western world sensitive issues ? 6: Is there a possibility of creating a separate namespace that we could potentially use for our own labels ? I hope that you can help me answer these questions, so that we may continue our community debate with more informed viewpoints about the possibilities of content rating. If you have additional suggestions for systems or problems that this web-property should account for, I would more than welcome those suggestions as well. Derk-Jan Hartman ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 6:27 PM, teun spaans teun.spa...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Derk-jan, As for 1), I think youtube can be compared in populairity and size with wikipedia, and in videos surpasses commons. Youtube enables its visitors to tag videos as adult. I think there is a difference between using tags/categories like contains the depiction of a female breast or contains a portrait of Muhammad and suitable for adults only or offensive to Islam. The first way is an objective categorisation, and I see nothing wrong in someone else using such categorisation to censor contents, while the second way is too much culture dependent. Even a concept like nudity strongly depends on culture, so I wouldn't use it as a categorisation. Cruccone ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia
Presumably you mean nude female breast, and then you are involved with exactly the nudity definition dilemma you allude to. If you mean nude or clothed, Every full or half length picture of a woman seen from the front or side contains a depiction of the female breast. As another consideration, If we are out to describe the image, we would need to put in an tag for nude male breast also, and presumably other sometimes uncovered parts of the body, like the hand. Otherwise we are concentrating on tagging those portions of images that are sexually charged, and the only reason for doing that preferentially is to facilitate censorship. (or to facilitate access by those who want sexually charged material over those who want access to other kinds of material). Neither is an appropriate function for a free encyclopedia. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 12:40 PM, Marco Chiesa chiesa.ma...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 6:27 PM, teun spaans teun.spa...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Derk-jan, As for 1), I think youtube can be compared in populairity and size with wikipedia, and in videos surpasses commons. Youtube enables its visitors to tag videos as adult. I think there is a difference between using tags/categories like contains the depiction of a female breast or contains a portrait of Muhammad and suitable for adults only or offensive to Islam. The first way is an objective categorisation, and I see nothing wrong in someone else using such categorisation to censor contents, while the second way is too much culture dependent. Even a concept like nudity strongly depends on culture, so I wouldn't use it as a categorisation. Cruccone ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [OT] Am I the only one...
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/05/2010 22:10, Ryan Lomonaco wrote: On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 8:48 PM, Aphaia aph...@gmail.com wrote: Is there any option to tell them commons has its own mailing list instead of adding it to the foundation-l? I think Austin touched upon this as well, but, yes, I would remind everyone that discussions are occurring now on Meta, Commons and the English Wikipedia, as well as their respective mailing lists. Aspects of this discussion specific to certain projects are probably better suited to those projects. Could you link to these discussions? It would be interesting to learn their views and ideas. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJL6EAHAAoJEHCAuDvx9Z6LCJoH/iU8D32zwJyRPuSgFLuXKLD0 zsvaTSc8zoMnVlGat4MokRolBic/fSdCFwTg9l3ht1WRdwZJnJbUTK3zVGHDn3m4 xmlDaDM36sXo0fCf3zBw38ShOgVSFYIzVQDAciDsGfKSDqmVMiLtDMkfcryAbkFY GdFYT/tL9aAjXYwVUWJbsyenAe3FLRh1flu1WfphMCtQIOhqEGkJk3vFOkn8MvV8 rrUX7qDzg8KE7BGg9KhkJVf9rS3O/YxBOiF2CP3gam8qHAOJLuLn2Hdk0gT3aoFT oEJdtXzf/bm2Ke5VHU1ObqPmuZUVAa2+2CzoHaxwc5XSerNwee24tm1OdLJUtlw= =9Lkn -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
If we follow sexual taboos, which ones do we follow? Some Moslem and non-Moslem groups object to the depiction of any part of the anatomy, some to depiction or exposure of certain parts only. Some extend it to males. Some object to the portray of certain objects in an irreverent manner--there have been major commotions over such displays of christian symbols in artworks. Different cultures have different taboos on the depiction of violence, taboos not connected with religion. There are similar cultural restrictions on verbal; expression. There are the obvious different ones for sexual expression. US law includes the concept of community standards --but our community is the entire world. Some have taboos against public discussion of any religion not the majority religion there. Some avoid the public discussion of politics. And so on endlessly. Someone above mentioned going by the majority in the region. Protecting minority interests is part of NPOV, and actively promoting minority languages is a policy of the WMF. There is no way to limit censorship. The only consistent positions are either to not have external media at all, a position adopted by some religious groups, or to not have censorship at all. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 12:23 PM, Noein prono...@gmail.com wrote: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Censorship#Some_reflexions_following_the_censorship_polemic_of_May_2010 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Commons:Sexual content
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 10/05/2010 05:51, Andre Engels wrote: On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:23 AM, Kim Bruning k...@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote: On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 12:23:28AM +0200, Andre Engels wrote: Being educational should be just another word for being in scope, and in scope are, in my opinion, in the first place those files that are usable for the projects. That is the first thing that we should be judging things by. I've already emphasized that a bit already on the page, but more from the WARNING angle. That only says that pictures that are _used_ should not be deleted indiscriminately. Used and usable are not the same. Could you edit or comment on the page in a way that reflects what you just stated? :-) Hardly. The page as it is now seems to go from the point of view that we should not host any pornography, then restricts itself by trying to get a narrow definition of 'pornography'. For me, whether or not something is pornographic is at best a secondary issue. Then would the http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Censorship page be more appropriate? -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJL6Eo5AAoJEHCAuDvx9Z6LUW8IAIRl3uSV0wHZ3GP7hUCrWwuR CEeJnjKuVKW+mIlXfvViUuZIAKiCkNxAgPzxajxf4ng0rn89O/Kz/yZQVlRh1lQe IaVJUr3C0QSlvp6+Eo8yhwSCMxgV4XBHlkB4w2BeaIIvebFVxJMaASyP0ujy9CrF E6GPEgODy/HLVlEXTV+1qjtp3jgTmwJSHHkUB0PnRhO+Lsm8NzUl26aq/9zouxIw grSmmdNyXkTb+QkopMSPh8p27K5rcq9NpiLMIAu9pMguaM0E/XMiCADobajLJ/vv ex4E3RpUayNrP163tjAzJSHOPnKn9aKPjy9rJ70StAS3n9S3si9P9c1pTdQFISE= =R83f -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
2010/5/10 Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva tolkiend...@gmail.com: I sincerely don't personally care much about Muhammad pictures, for example. If people decided to delete them, I would simply think they are too afraid of offending, but I wouldn't care that much. (I know that being very notable and encyclopedic, the pictures themselves might have their own article, so it's not like they are going to be deleted anyway) But some people (Like Ayaan Hirsi Ali) would be harshly offended by deletion of those pictures. It might sound funny, but not accepting Islam rules on non-muslim contexts is very important to her (being a vocal ex-muslim, she received multiple death threats, and the director of a short documentary her wrote was killed). I would show opposition to this kind of deletion, but just because I'm a lot influenced by her (and dislike deletionism in general) This was maybe confuse. The message I was trying to convey is: a) For some people including nudity (in especial en masse) is offensive b) For some people including depictions of Muhammad is offensive c) For some people removing nudity (in especial en masse) is offensive (eg. me :) d) For some people removing depictions of Muhammad is offensive (eg. for Ayaan) -- Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva tolkiend...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 10/05/2010 07:56, Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva wrote: 2010/5/10 Marcus Buck m...@marcusbuck.org: J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov hett schreven: I have a problem with basing it on IP addresses. As a non Muslim in a Muslim country, why should Wikimedia decide that *I* cannot see Muhammad pictures but that it is perfectly OK to show it to a Muslim in Germany / France wherever. I think the world has moved on a bit from the one country, one religion / set of values / morals. You are of course right. But what is the alternative? The only alternative is not basing it on location so everybody sees the same. That's like one world, one set of values. The alternative is to not censor, in any circumstance, to any kind of audience whatsoever. I must confess I find this particular alternative brilliant. It is imperfect, as any other form of freedom of thought and expression. But other options are more imperfect, not less, in my opinion. I think some projects (like the English Wikipedia) already reached consensus on this issue. I don't understand exactly your thoughts. What happens to someone who wants to navigate Wikipedia or use Commons but doesn't want to reach offending (according to his/her personal sensibility) pages? If this person wants a protecting tool, what is your answer? You give me the impression that you're saying: ignore him, let's let him be offended. In this case even if you're think you're right theoretically, you're alienating part of humanity from the big project that is reaching them all. Creating negligently a strong feeling of rejection with a few month of obliviousness to their culture can take dozen of years to repair. I don't think the topic should be solved so lighly and bluntly. But maybe I'm misunderstanding you. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJL6Ez7AAoJEHCAuDvx9Z6LKkQH/0c0uBfRQ6NJsSAiJQzCHSGt Irl+uUg2xGhK9YfkeKFVpIcpSPzOTZA2oNZXjSr8lTS65U/jTui1f2T+zJsIUlTt 4TA87eRWY8lWub9zOdVmmlW3tOsrG12XB70GDrQOYqkVraYUX1owlRXS/nxWl877 rU3Uq+Y7LWhcILC8cFvQQ9LIsWKAfTrDQbsPITDAmWVV7LeDcllMShn6l9cMbAs9 TazNTb/CJwi0j/vdnjy4JYJ0sGPrGoLKfQ3QZPFSZ/EoyfcUnx6GwjgPOMPol5ZO hEK+QzY3lbUqbtcDtEMX3/V1RR/gKCnHocP9bOiFNWxdruJq1cFAcSCTwqgPY1Q= =1xe5 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
On 10 May 2010 19:14, Noein prono...@gmail.com wrote: I don't understand exactly your thoughts. What happens to someone who wants to navigate Wikipedia or use Commons but doesn't want to reach offending (according to his/her personal sensibility) pages? If this person wants a protecting tool, what is your answer? You give me the impression that you're saying: ignore him, let's let him be offended. In this case even if you're think you're right theoretically, you're alienating part of humanity from the big project that is reaching them all. Creating negligently a strong feeling of rejection with a few month of obliviousness to their culture can take dozen of years to repair. I don't think the topic should be solved so lighly and bluntly. But maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Create a tool (e.g. a JavaScript gadget) that allows a logged-in user to block images from Commons or local categories they don't want to see images from. Then it's each individual's discretion as to what they want not to see, and uses the existing category systems. Popular unpopular categories can be offered as a package. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
On 10 May 2010 19:18, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Create a tool (e.g. a JavaScript gadget) that allows a logged-in user to block images from Commons or local categories they don't want to see images from. Then it's each individual's discretion as to what they want not to see, and uses the existing category systems. Popular unpopular categories can be offered as a package. Adblock already exists and can be used to provide exactly the feature set you describe. I'm not aware of any wikipedia image blocklists being produced for it. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
I have been taking an extreme anticensorship position, but I would consider this acceptable. People certainly do have the right as individuals to select what they want to see. It is not censorship, just a display option Such display options could be expanded--I would suggest an option to initially display the lead paragraph only, of articles in certain categories. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:18 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 10 May 2010 19:14, Noein prono...@gmail.com wrote: I don't understand exactly your thoughts. What happens to someone who wants to navigate Wikipedia or use Commons but doesn't want to reach offending (according to his/her personal sensibility) pages? If this person wants a protecting tool, what is your answer? You give me the impression that you're saying: ignore him, let's let him be offended. In this case even if you're think you're right theoretically, you're alienating part of humanity from the big project that is reaching them all. Creating negligently a strong feeling of rejection with a few month of obliviousness to their culture can take dozen of years to repair. I don't think the topic should be solved so lighly and bluntly. But maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Create a tool (e.g. a JavaScript gadget) that allows a logged-in user to block images from Commons or local categories they don't want to see images from. Then it's each individual's discretion as to what they want not to see, and uses the existing category systems. Popular unpopular categories can be offered as a package. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
Most browsers have the ability to not automatically download images, but display only the ones that one clicks on--a very useful option for slow connections and those using screen readers. For some sites with distracting advertising, I enable it myself before I go there. But David Gerard's suggestion above would be a very flexible extension of this. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:14 PM, Noein prono...@gmail.com wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 10/05/2010 07:56, Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva wrote: 2010/5/10 Marcus Buck m...@marcusbuck.org: J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov hett schreven: I have a problem with basing it on IP addresses. As a non Muslim in a Muslim country, why should Wikimedia decide that *I* cannot see Muhammad pictures but that it is perfectly OK to show it to a Muslim in Germany / France wherever. I think the world has moved on a bit from the one country, one religion / set of values / morals. You are of course right. But what is the alternative? The only alternative is not basing it on location so everybody sees the same. That's like one world, one set of values. The alternative is to not censor, in any circumstance, to any kind of audience whatsoever. I must confess I find this particular alternative brilliant. It is imperfect, as any other form of freedom of thought and expression. But other options are more imperfect, not less, in my opinion. I think some projects (like the English Wikipedia) already reached consensus on this issue. I don't understand exactly your thoughts. What happens to someone who wants to navigate Wikipedia or use Commons but doesn't want to reach offending (according to his/her personal sensibility) pages? If this person wants a protecting tool, what is your answer? You give me the impression that you're saying: ignore him, let's let him be offended. In this case even if you're think you're right theoretically, you're alienating part of humanity from the big project that is reaching them all. Creating negligently a strong feeling of rejection with a few month of obliviousness to their culture can take dozen of years to repair. I don't think the topic should be solved so lighly and bluntly. But maybe I'm misunderstanding you. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJL6Ez7AAoJEHCAuDvx9Z6LKkQH/0c0uBfRQ6NJsSAiJQzCHSGt Irl+uUg2xGhK9YfkeKFVpIcpSPzOTZA2oNZXjSr8lTS65U/jTui1f2T+zJsIUlTt 4TA87eRWY8lWub9zOdVmmlW3tOsrG12XB70GDrQOYqkVraYUX1owlRXS/nxWl877 rU3Uq+Y7LWhcILC8cFvQQ9LIsWKAfTrDQbsPITDAmWVV7LeDcllMShn6l9cMbAs9 TazNTb/CJwi0j/vdnjy4JYJ0sGPrGoLKfQ3QZPFSZ/EoyfcUnx6GwjgPOMPol5ZO hEK+QzY3lbUqbtcDtEMX3/V1RR/gKCnHocP9bOiFNWxdruJq1cFAcSCTwqgPY1Q= =1xe5 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Open Wikimedia meeting on IRC: Wednesday, 1900 UTC in #wikimedia
Hello, I think it would be good to have an open meeting (or a few) to discuss the wider Wikimedia community, project governance, and recent issues on Commons and Meta. Przykuta suggested an IRC meeting soon. For those who are available, please join us in #wikimedia on Wednesday, at 1900 UTC. (for those who dislike IRC, there's a link For everyone, please add topics for discussion, and link to discussions taking place elsewhere on the projects. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_meetings#May_12.2C_2010 SJ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
David Goodman writes: I have been taking an extreme anticensorship position, but I would consider this acceptable. People certainly do have the right as individuals to select what they want to see. It is not censorship, just a display option Such display options could be expanded--I would suggest an option to initially display the lead paragraph only, of articles in certain categories. I just had a thought -- what if it were possible for a user to categorically block views of any images that are not linked to in any project's article pages? Presumably, those Commons images that are found in articles are relevant and appropriately encyclopedic (speaking generally -- I also assume there are some exceptions). Images that were just dumped to Commons without being associated with any particular article would still be available to those who were looking for them -- perhaps to complement a particular article that needs illustration -- but the umpteenth superfluous porn shot (or unconnected Muhammed image) would be invisible to those who chose this option. Obviously, this notion is too cute to actually be helpful, but I thought I'd share it. --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Open Wikimedia meeting on IRC: Wednesday, 1900 UTC in #wikimedia
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 3:32 PM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote: For those who are available, please join us in #wikimedia on Wednesday, at 1900 UTC. (for those who dislike IRC, there's a link * on the page below to a webclient you can use to connect.) For everyone, please add topics for discussion, and link to discussions taking place elsewhere on the projects. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_meetings#May_12.2C_2010 SJ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 9:34 PM, Mike Godwin mnemo...@gmail.com wrote: I just had a thought -- what if it were possible for a user to categorically block views of any images that are not linked to in any project's article pages? Presumably, those Commons images that are found in articles are relevant and appropriately encyclopedic (speaking generally -- I also assume there are some exceptions). Images that were just dumped to Commons without being associated with any particular article would still be available to those who were looking for them -- perhaps to complement a particular article that needs illustration -- but the umpteenth superfluous porn shot (or unconnected Muhammed image) would be invisible to those who chose this option. Obviously, this notion is too cute to actually be helpful, but I thought I'd share it. And what about choosing Would you like to see uncategorized images? And the same for cultural censorship: Is your culture brave enough to gamble would you be horrified by seeing a penis or Muhammad or not? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 12:41 PM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: And what about choosing Would you like to see uncategorized images? And the same for cultural censorship: Is your culture brave enough to gamble would you be horrified by seeing a penis or Muhammad or not? I'm not sure I understand either question. The proposal I suggest would allow you to see uncategorized images if you want to. It would also allow you to see a penis or Muhammed if you want to (or in encyclopedic articles about penises or Muhammed images). --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 3:34 PM, Mike Godwin mnemo...@gmail.com wrote: I just had a thought -- what if it were possible for a user to categorically block views of any images that are not linked to in any project's article pages? Presumably, those Commons images that are found in articles are relevant and appropriately encyclopedic (speaking generally -- I also assume there are some exceptions). A good number of the deleted images were in use... so I don't quite know about that, but lets assume it to be true. Images that were just dumped to Commons without being associated with any particular article would still be available to those who were looking for them -- perhaps to complement a particular article that needs illustration -- but the umpteenth superfluous porn shot (or unconnected Muhammed image) would be invisible to those who chose this option. Obviously, this notion is too cute to actually be helpful, but I thought I'd share it. It has an enormously cute strawman answer: If you don't want to see images which aren't used inline in another wiki, don't look at commons at all! By definition any image in use in a Wikipedia is available outside of commons. :) Don't forget that a major reason that people look at commons is because Wikipedia articles will usually only have a few illustrations, for editorial/flow reasons. If you're mostly interested in visual details about the subject of your interest you'll follow the commons link from the Wikipedia article. ... but in that case your suggested image hiding wouldn't be helpful. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 12:47 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.comwrote: Obviously, this notion is too cute to actually be helpful, but I thought I'd share it. It has an enormously cute strawman answer: If you don't want to see images which aren't used inline in another wiki, don't look at commons at all! By definition any image in use in a Wikipedia is available outside of commons. :) Right. The difference is that instead of simply telling people not to go to Commons, you could say go to Commons, but if you only want to see images that have been deemed to be worth including in an article, click here. Back in the old days, we used to call this user empowerment (I actually coined the term in mid-1990s for EFF). Don't forget that a major reason that people look at commons is because Wikipedia articles will usually only have a few illustrations, for editorial/flow reasons. If you're mostly interested in visual details about the subject of your interest you'll follow the commons link from the Wikipedia article. ... but in that case your suggested image hiding wouldn't be helpful. It might be helpful for people who are worried about seeing images that have merely been dumped in Commons. Presumably those who want to see all the images could click the appropriate option and see all unlinked images as well. Remember that the goal here (not my personal goal, but the goal of some) is less for a perfect solution than for a way of avoiding superfluous dumped images that don't have educational value. My suggestion is inelegant (there are no elegant solutions), but also content-neutral (the umpteenth unlinked image of Lincoln or Gandhi would be blocked too). That way, the only offensive images we'd have to defend would be the ones that the community deemed appropriate to include in an article (a category of images that I personally am generally willing to defend, regardless of the type of content). --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
Despite Content Purge, Pornographic Images Remain on Wikimedia By Jana Winter http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/10/porn-wikipedia-illegal-content-remains/ Any attempt to filter ourselves is not addressing the fact that the images exist at all on Commons. Any attempted appeasement of these vicious morons was and is counterproductive at best. Fox News is best aggressively ignored from now on and given similar cooperation to the Register. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Open Wikimedia meeting on IRC: Wednesd ay,1900 UTC in #wikimedia
Hello, I think it would be good to have an open meeting (or a few) to discuss the wider Wikimedia community, project governance, and recent issues on Commons and Meta. Przykuta suggested an IRC meeting soon. For those who are available, please join us in #wikimedia on Wednesday, at 1900 UTC. (for those who dislike IRC, there#039;s a link For everyone, please add topics for discussion, and link to discussions taking place elsewhere on the projects. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_meetings#May_12.2C_2010 SJ thx :))) przykuta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
David Levy writes: Agreed. As some predicted, Fox News has cited Jimbo's actions as validation that its earlier claims were correct. And because any graphic images remain, this means that we're aware of an egregious problem and have made only a token effort to address it. Essentially, we've gone from alleged smut peddlers pleading our innocence to self-acknowledged smut peddlers flaunting our guilt. It was an enormous mistake to respond to this news organization as though it possessed a shred of credibility or integrity. The hidden assumption here -- an incorrect assumption, in my view -- is that there is some universe of possibilities in which Fox News would not have cited Jimbo's *inaction* as validation that it was correct. I infer from this comment that you imagine that if Jimbo had not intervened as he did, there would be no such story from Fox News. My response is, if you think this, then you don't know Fox News. Fox News (or at least this reporter and her editors) have dedicated themselves to damaging Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects. This is a given, and it is evident from their behavior. *Any* followup story would have demonstrated what these days in the U.S. we are calling epistemic closure -- all results will be interpreted as validation of cherished theories. It is perfectly appropriate, it seems to me, for the community to second-guess Jimmy (or me, or anyone else working to protect the projects). But I don't think we should implicitly or explicitly embrace the theory that, had Jimmy not intervened, there would be no story, or a better story. My personal view is that the story Fox News wanted to tell would have been worse, but even if you disagree about that, let's not pretend there would have been no story at all. --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
Mike Godwin wrote: The hidden assumption here -- an incorrect assumption, in my view -- is that there is some universe of possibilities in which Fox News would not have cited Jimbo's *inaction* as validation that it was correct. I infer from this comment that you imagine that if Jimbo had not intervened as he did, there would be no such story from Fox News. My response is, if you think this, then you don't know Fox News. No, that isn't my assumption at all. I'm quite certain that Fox News would have attempted to spin any response (or lack thereof) in a manner injurious to the Wikimedia Foundation's reputation. The key difference is that in the other scenario, it would have continued to be their word vs. ours (with an opportunity to reach out to responsible media and explain our position). Instead, Jimbo has essentially announced to the world that Fox News was correct. And until we purge our servers of every graphic image, we knowingly retain our self-acknowledged state of indecency. David Levy ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:23 PM, David Levy lifeisunf...@gmail.com wrote: Instead, Jimbo has essentially announced to the world that Fox News was correct. And until we purge our servers of every graphic image, we knowingly retain our self-acknowledged state of indecency. Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion that Fox News was correct? This statement strikes me as identifying a theoretical hazard rather than an actual outcome. --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
The Fox article helpfully describes how to find those cartoon illustrations depicting child sex acts Would anyone be interested in seeing how many times those pictures were viewed prior to Fox's article, and after the article came out? Dirty hands is an effective legal counter-claim is it not? W.J. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion that Fox News was correct? I'm referring to the conclusion that one, in my assessment, would draw upon encountering Jimbo's remarks first-hand, with or without reading Fox's subsequent reports on the matter. David Levy ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:31 PM, David Levy lifeisunf...@gmail.com wrote: Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion that Fox News was correct? I'm referring to the conclusion that one, in my assessment, would draw upon encountering Jimbo's remarks first-hand, with or without reading Fox's subsequent reports on the matter. Did you draw that conclusion? --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
On 10 May 2010 22:32, Mike Godwin mnemo...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:31 PM, David Levy lifeisunf...@gmail.com wrote: Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion that Fox News was correct? I'm referring to the conclusion that one, in my assessment, would draw upon encountering Jimbo's remarks first-hand, with or without reading Fox's subsequent reports on the matter. Did you draw that conclusion? Your equivocation on this point is wearisome. Jimbo's actions were ridiculously damaging for *no gain whatsoever*. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
Mike Godwin wrote: Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion that Fox News was correct? I'm referring to the conclusion that one, in my assessment, would draw upon encountering Jimbo's remarks first-hand, with or without reading Fox's subsequent reports on the matter. Did you draw that conclusion? No. I'm not referring to the tiny percentage of Earth's population possessing a substantial degree of familiarity with the Wikimedia Foundation and its work. I'm referring to anyone taking Jimbo's comments at face value, as I would expect the vast majority of persons to do. David Levy ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Is anyone here really concerned by Fox News actions? From the beginning it seemed to me that what they were barking about were of no impact: they would confirm the WMF's opponents in their opinions and obtain an indifferent or amused shrug from the rest of the world. Am I wrong? Should we really panic as the Board and Mr. Wales did? (ok, not panic, but feel the gravity and urgency of the situation?) On 10/05/2010 18:36, David Gerard wrote: On 10 May 2010 22:32, Mike Godwin mnemo...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:31 PM, David Levy lifeisunf...@gmail.com wrote: Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion that Fox News was correct? I'm referring to the conclusion that one, in my assessment, would draw upon encountering Jimbo's remarks first-hand, with or without reading Fox's subsequent reports on the matter. Did you draw that conclusion? Your equivocation on this point is wearisome. Jimbo's actions were ridiculously damaging for *no gain whatsoever*. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJL6H4GAAoJEHCAuDvx9Z6LDYIIAJGqKCI2Y5HREzCzqfey5NEw ykTST9dXNmwWVnTMp9V0OkJ4AG5P2Zp+FwYbqVqyRFQToAlMHq7FBbFpQ8sWkzHv HwPxH/s31IGvpA7YsVv/k8+hOBjUoFqph0entHZ5em/04o3cj3ee2yQU/ufn4COZ 6LXJ7DFE3uyfsI2zspMHg3HsVpytLSYg+kCBwRyeZXgJLssS3e8ZU2huqWHfH9oE PfOmqIPbOdovIvU7RAVAfxzY7J/lj9GUNPXhjUXWJ0R2d1sNJ0/dJSa9wnJt8euT MnEs/aiNm3ugd8PRQoUnRP6vr7nSozpU3AXMqOPP5J6saTBWOhWV4CqoIKRbQmw= =l87b -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
This is excellent advice from David. I could not agree more regarding Fox News; ignore them. They won't go away, but any reaction feeds their nonsense. - Original Message - From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, May 10, 2010 4:25 PM Subject: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless Despite Content Purge, Pornographic Images Remain on Wikimedia By Jana Winter http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/10/porn-wikipedia-illegal-content-remains/ Any attempt to filter ourselves is not addressing the fact that the images exist at all on Commons. Any attempted appeasement of these vicious morons was and is counterproductive at best. Fox News is best aggressively ignored from now on and given similar cooperation to the Register. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
Noein wrote: Is anyone here really concerned by Fox News actions? From the beginning it seemed to me that what they were barking about were of no impact: they would confirm the WMF's opponents in their opinions and obtain an indifferent or amused shrug from the rest of the world. Am I wrong? Should we really panic as the Board and Mr. Wales did? (ok, not panic, but feel the gravity and urgency of the situation?) What's especially damaging isn't the absurd reporting from Fox News, but our founder's proclamation that the reports are accurate. David Levy ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:36 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 10 May 2010 22:32, Mike Godwin mnemo...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:31 PM, David Levy lifeisunf...@gmail.com wrote: Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion that Fox News was correct? I'm referring to the conclusion that one, in my assessment, would draw upon encountering Jimbo's remarks first-hand, with or without reading Fox's subsequent reports on the matter. Did you draw that conclusion? Your equivocation on this point is wearisome. Jimbo's actions were ridiculously damaging for *no gain whatsoever*. I saw this whole thing starting and took the weekend off to avoid stress. That said, now that it's fairly unavoidable - As far as I can tell, major mainstream media coverage of the original Fox stories was minimal. Followup in major mainstream media to Jimmy's actions has been limited at best - The BBC has a decent story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10104946.stm ...And the aforementioned Vanity Fair blog, and something on Huffington Post. There seems to be a widespread disbelief in the underlying child porn accusation, other than at Fox. In retrospect, attempting to some degree to read Jimmy's mind as of four days ago, I think we jumped to try and get ahead of negative press that did not develop. I think it was reasonably predictable that it wouldn't develop, but I understand why the mistake was made there. In response to the wider use/abuse of power issues; I think it's wise anytime a very bold action is taken, to consider beforehand whether the underlying issue is worth it - worth, if everything goes completely sideways in the ensuing event / discussion, the loss of the power or authority that was invoked to try and take the bold action. I can't help but think that this was a tremendously worthless underlying issue to go and melt the Founder Bit over. That bit has been extremely useful at times, used more carefully. It also has dragged down a number of people's perceptions (within the community) of the board and several individual members, again extremely useful things we had to work with and have now lost. One of the most important features and functions of a wider community input is to calibrate responses. Even if you do not change your underlying opinion on an issue, if others say consistently or loudly This isn't worth it, then perhaps it's not worth being bold about. It's not a function of leadership to ignore such input; it's sometimes a function of leadership to override such input. I think a bunch of people forgot the difference between override and ignore, in the leadup to the events of Friday/Saturday, and we're all much poorer for it. I would like to say thanks to those who maintained AGF and fought to seek and engage on community input throughout this. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
Hi, Le lundi 10 mai 2010 13:25:29, David Gerard a écrit : Any attempt to filter ourselves is not addressing the fact that the images exist at all on Commons. Any attempted appeasement of these vicious morons was and is counterproductive at best. Fox News is best aggressively ignored from now on and given similar cooperation to the Register. Filtering ourselves would be pointless if our goal was to appease Fox [1]. However, I think most of us agree that it has not been, is not and should not be our goal. As you say very well yourself, Fox is best left ignored. Our goal is to facilitate the dissemination of free knowledge, and to provide the best experience possible to our readers, our participants and more generally our population of users. In this context, I think it makes sense to research the needs or our users, and investigate possible ways to improve their experience on our websites. If a significant amount of our users wish to be able to filter out some parts of our content, we should do our best to empower them to do so, as a service to them. [1] I'm having a hard time using the oxymoron Fox News, so I'm just using Fox. -- Guillaume Paumier Product Manager, Multimedia Usability Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:36 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Did you draw that conclusion? Your equivocation on this point is wearisome. I don't know what you mean by equivocation here. I'm not equivocating, so far as I know. Perhaps I'm just not understanding what you mean by this point. Jimbo's actions were ridiculously damaging for *no gain whatsoever*. I understand that you believe this. But it depends on what you mean by damage and on what you mean by no gain. The thesis has been advanced here that Jimmy's actions somehow damaged us in the view of the whole world. I'm only questioning that particular thesis. Whether the whole world would have had a higher opinion of Wikipedia if Fox had run the story they were trying to manufacture -- instead of the lame stories they have run -- is also an interesting proposition, but I hope you will understand why I don't find that proposition particularly credible. --m ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
Mike Godwin wrote: Do you mean the vast majority of persons in Earth's population? I don't imagine much of Earth's population is even aware of the story, much less Jimmy's actions. Of course not. I mean the vast majority of persons encountering Jimbo's statements. David Levy ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
Let us assume for a minute that would not have taken any action whatsoever. Seeing Fox's habit of stretching and turning the truth upside down i would not be surprised if the next headline would have been Wikipedia or Pedopedia? - Online encyclopedia endorses child pornography. Eventually the Foundation would have to respond to this in some way, if only to counter a web of lies being spun. Again, no matter what, we would have gotten a negative response. Had Jimbo released a written statement or open letter to the community the headline would have been Failing Founders - Wikipedia founder fails to take decisive action. Fox was out to burn and pillage, and no matter what, they would have done so. Also keep in mind that Fox news was actively pursuing large Wikimedia donors with a clear intend to make them Guilty by association of child porn. Hence, the truth is irrelevant in this case. No company wants to be associated with anything negative and therefor Wikipedia itself could have taken even more damage if we just headed to a shelter and waited for the storm to pass. If i would blame Jimbo for something, it would be the complete lack of communication and the removal of content which was in use and valid. Had Jimbo kept his deletion spree to unused sexual images the community response would have been more limited, while the breaking story would have been largely the same. Even so, we are starting to beat a horse that is dead and buried, with the Jimbo discussion going round and round in circles. Jimbo relinquished his founder flag and apologized. What else can we do? Ban him altogether? I would say it is best to lay the Jimbo issue to rest unless someone suggest that we need to take further actions - complaints won't change history. ~Excirial On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 11:59 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: Sure Mike, we were going to get bad press from Fox News no matter what we did. You're clearly right about that, and I don't think anyone would disagree with you. I'm not seeing how you go from that position to endorsing (or at least defending against criticism) the panicked response from Jimmy and the board. Reason would suggest that if we can't change the message from Fox News, urgent action that earns universal condemnation (as opposed to just condemnation from Fox) is the wrong way to go. Now, instead of just further bad press from Fox, we've got Jimmy giving up his founder status, a large group of angry contributors, *and* more bad press from Fox. How is that defensible, given that the outcome was predictable? Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 3:34 PM, Mike Godwin mnemo...@gmail.com wrote: I just had a thought -- what if it were possible for a user to categorically block views of any images that are not linked to in any project's article pages? Presumably, those Commons images that are found in articles are relevant and appropriately encyclopedic (speaking generally -- I also assume there are some exceptions). A good number of the deleted images were in use... so I don't quite know about that, but lets assume it to be true. What is the issue that you're trying to solve? I thought the issue was with images which aren't (or, at least, shouldn't be) used on any project. Yes, Jimbo confused the issue by deleting some images which were (and/or should be) used in Wikipedia, but I thought we were pretty much all in agreement that this was a mistake. Images that were just dumped to Commons without being associated with any particular article would still be available to those who were looking for them -- perhaps to complement a particular article that needs illustration -- but the umpteenth superfluous porn shot (or unconnected Muhammed image) would be invisible to those who chose this option. Obviously, this notion is too cute to actually be helpful, but I thought I'd share it. It has an enormously cute strawman answer: If you don't want to see images which aren't used inline in another wiki, don't look at commons at all! By definition any image in use in a Wikipedia is available outside of commons. :) Well, yeah, exactly. How the issue got moved from non-educational porn to educational yet offensive images, I really don't know. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
Fox News (or at least this reporter and her editors) have dedicated themselves to damaging Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects. This is a given, and it is evident from their behavior. *Any* followup story would have demonstrated what these days in the U.S. we are calling epistemic closure -- all results will be interpreted as validation of cherished theories. --Mike Yeh, and there is not a thing we can do about it, because under our editing policies our article on Foz News will be very unpleasant reading for them. I do think we need to sort out some of these issues: One: are any of them actually illegal? Two: Do we need legal documentation with respect to pictures of people? Three: Is there legal material we should not host? Four: Should we offer a sanitized version for children? Or anyone else? Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia
I've read most of the replies in this thread, And i think I should point out a few things out: * The omg tagging for any reason is censorship mentality is a needless, Yes we tag things presently *shock horror* look at the currently category system. * Omg adding this to Mediawiki will destroy Wikipedia Currently Mediawiki is a separate application from wiki and always will be, Wikipedia is just a site that uses Mediawiki for it's back end. Just because Mediawiki supports something, doesn't mean it will be activated (or in the case of extensions, installed) on Wikipedia and Wikipedia isn't the only site that uses Mediawiki. ** Currently there are two discussions about possible implementation: A) Bug 982: Is referring to a EXTENSION that provides the functionality of tagging content (with it's current discussion being pointed at ICRA) so it has a rating of sorts which can be used by external sources (AKA filtering companies) B) The discussion on wikitech-l is currently discussing a way (either extension or a core functionality) to accurately grab the contents of a category and provide it in a usable interface so that again, it can be used by third parties. Currently this discussions has hardly approached the rating system discussion (who it would be done? own internal scale? some sort of standard out there?). * The lesser of two evils, Currently there is no easy way to get a list of the files (and their file paths) of images contained within a category, This can be applied for multiple things (bots for example) but use, the discussion is primarily about a exportable format so a machine can easily use it. Schools and Filter providers are currently blocking whole W* projects because there are no easy ways to do it. Unfortunately the lesser of the two evils is allow a easy way for a company to get a list of what is contained in a certain category (Eg: Category:Images of BDSM) and then import that into the filtering system to block them compared to the whole project. JUST A REMINDER: The current discussions are revolving around implementations in Mediawiki as either as a core functionality (like most of these, being enabled/disabledable) or as a extension, and not of how to implement this in the WMF hemisphere of projects such as for example commons. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] What Wikipedia owes to Jimbo (was Re: Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions)
On 10/05/10 20:51, Delirium wrote: That isn't really true, though. He recruited volunteers with the promise of the free-content license for sure, and with a sort of implicit promise of a generally free-culture / volunteer-run encyclopedia. If he had *not* promised anything, he would have had many more troubles recruiting volunteers. Perhaps, but the lack of a free license didn't stop IMDB or Yahoo Answers, did it? You do remember that GNUpedia was gearing up to serve as a competitor, and only backed down because Jimmy gave them enough assurances that Wikipedia was such a free-culture encyclopedia that their efforts would be redundant? No, I remember that GNUpedia was a tiny non-wiki encyclopedia project, I don't remember it gearing up to be a competitor. But I'll admit that the content license was the most essential to Wikipedia's success of the three elements I'm talking about. I think the case is much stronger that it could have succeeded with a for-profit stance, and with a closed-source software stack. Even the bulk of the open-source community doesn't mind contributing to websites that run on a closed-source stack, look at Sourceforge or GitHub. And for-profit organisations which commercialise community-developed open-source projects have become the norm. In short, Jimmy could not have gone the for-profit or non-free-culture route, because he would have been left more pitiful than Citizendium: a project with no contributors. Wikipedia collected thousands of articles while it had an FAQ that read: Q. Why is wikipedia.org redirected to wikipedia.com and not the other way around? A. I'm afraid it's for precisely the reason you fear: the people who are organizing this view it partly, from their point of view, as a business. They hope to recoup their costs, at the very least (certain Wikipedia members are actually paid to help!)--by placing unobtrusive ads, someday in the possibly-distant future. It would, thus, be dishonest of them to use .org. Of course, if you don't like this, it will be possible to export all the contents of Wikipedia for use elsewhere, since the contents of Wikipedia are covered by the GNU Free Documentation License. It's complete nonsense to claim that with a for-profit stance, Wikipedia would have been more pitiful than Citizendium. It was bigger than Citizendium while it *had* a for-profit stance. Of course some contributors would have left, that's partly my point. The policies Jimmy imposed on Wikipedia caused an accumulation of like-minded people, and that's why Wikipedia's culture today is what it is. -- Tim Starling ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Commons: An initial notice to reduce surprises
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#An_initial_notice_to_reduce_surprises ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Commons: An initial notice to reduce surprises
Gregory Maxwell wrote: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#An_initial_notice_to_reduce_surprises _ Rock on! Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
On 05/10/2010 02:57 PM, Mike Godwin wrote: On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:36 PM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: Jimbo's actions were ridiculously damaging for *no gain whatsoever*. I understand that you believe this. But it depends on what you mean by damage and on what you mean by no gain. The thesis has been advanced here that Jimmy's actions somehow damaged us in the view of the whole world. I'm only questioning that particular thesis. Whether the whole world would have had a higher opinion of Wikipedia if Fox had run the story they were trying to manufacture -- instead of the lame stories they have run -- is also an interesting proposition, but I hope you will understand why I don't find that proposition particularly credible. Counterfactual predictions are always tricky, but my guess is there would at least have been less total news coverage. Almost all the news coverage is currently being driven by the power dispute and the question of whether we're giving in to Fox or not, not anybody actually caring about the original allegations. See, e.g., this BBC News article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10104946.stm Or the left-ish New Statesman (UK) calling our actions the result of a Fox News effect: http://www.newstatesman.com/digital/2010/05/sexually-explicit-images-news -Mark http://www.newstatesman.com/digital/2010/05/sexually-explicit-images-news ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Filtering ourselves is pointless
On 10 May 2010 22:57, Mike Godwin mnemo...@gmail.com wrote: Jimbo's actions were ridiculously damaging for *no gain whatsoever*. I understand that you believe this. But it depends on what you mean by damage and on what you mean by no gain. The thesis has been advanced here that Jimmy's actions somehow damaged us in the view of the whole world. I'm only questioning that particular thesis. Whether the whole world would have had a higher opinion of Wikipedia if Fox had run the story they were trying to manufacture -- instead of the lame stories they have run -- is also an interesting proposition, but I hope you will understand why I don't find that proposition particularly credible. We were going to have nonsense articles in Fox whatever we do - that's the way Fox is. Now we have an article on the BBC News website (a very respected news outlet, unlike Fox) saying there is infighting in Wikipedia which we wouldn't have had if Jimmy hadn't acted. I'm far more concerned about the BBC article than I would be any Fox story. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Another board member statement
First of all, this is entirely my own opinion, not that of the board, and anyone who quotes it as a statement of the WMF will get promptly crushed by a giant puzzle globe. I absolutely sign on to the board statement[1]. Commons should not be a host for media that has very little informational or educational value; works that are primarily intended to shock, arouse, or offend generally fall under this category. But as a compendium of knowledge about, well, everything, we cover topics that some people will find unsuitable or offensive. If a topic is covered at all, it should be done well and honestly, explained in the as thorough and neutral a fashion as other topics--including illustrations. The Commons community and the individual project communities have already largely recognized this, developing policies that strike compromises between being excessive and being incomplete, but of course there are still some areas that slip through the cracks. Jimmy's actions are not the Board's; I don't agree with the extent of what he was doing and I wish he had gone about it differently. Not least because I think it's been unclear what he believes personally and what the Foundation's position is and it's caused a great deal of unrest and distrust. Some of this is unavoidable: it's difficult for any of us to speak our minds, knowing that whatever we say is likely to be attributed to WMF, or at least to be unclear. He's acknowledged that his own actions went too far and resigned his rights, and I respect him for doing so. I don't think we can say with a straight face that sexual topics should be treated no differently than, say, tea pots or cute cats. I think we benefit from trying to be no more shocking than necessary--where things have comparable informative value, we should prefer the ones that will be most broadly accepted and useful. A line drawing instead of a photograph, or a medical study image instead of an amateur porn model. However, I think it is because Commons is a project that must serve every Wikimedia project in every language that it must be broadly inclusive. Media only a few projects might wish to use still belongs on Commons for their benefit. (I also think that it's not only images included in articles that are support for projects--a page of text can only have so many images before they begin to overwhelm the text or frustrate users with slow internet connections. Having a gallery of additional media illustrating different aspects of a subject adds value: roses of every color, boats of every variety, and yes, images of every sexually-transmitted disease.) I can think of few better places to go than Wikipedia for complete and informative coverage of topics that may be shocking or explicit. Most other sites which are uncensored are also intended to have entertainment or shock value, or to present a culturally or politically biased viewpoint. (I do remember being a young geek, going to the library with a small cluster of other middle-school girls, looking at books which had depictions of sex and sexual topics and giggling over them, trying not to admit that we really *didn't* know what certain things were or what they looked like, but wanted to. If the librarians ever figured out what we were doing, they never even cast a disapproving glance, for which I am grateful. It was a non-threatening context for satisfying curiosity. Wikipedia would serve the same purpose for me, now.) What shouldn't happen is people being surprised by media they didn't want to see. (And yes, Greg Maxwell and I do in fact talk about Wikimedia at the dinner table. Occasionally we even reach consensus.) I don't think filtering is effective, useful, or desirable; the reasons are pretty adequately covered elsewhere on the list and on the web. (The American Library Association--my employer--agrees with this anti-filtering stance: providers of information should provide access to the best of their abilities, and allow adult users to choose what they see.) And I am firmly against reducing the content on Wikimedia to only that which is acceptable for children. The world's knowledge contains a lot of things that are shocking, divisive, offensive, or horrific, and people should be able to learn about them, and to educate others. Not including these things doesn't make them go away--it only makes it more difficult for interested people to learn from a source that tries to be neutral and educational. I don't think Wikipedia will ever be (or should ever be) safe, for the same reason your public library will never be, either. (One of the benefits of being free content is that anyone with sufficient motivation can produce an edited version that aligns with their values and goals; there are several existing edited Wikipedia mirrors intended for children, though none have been very successful.) What I do support are tools and procedures that make it simpler for users to choose what they see: I don't think anyone should have to
