Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
On 05/06/2010 11:03 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 6 May 2010 19:00, Milos Rancicmill...@gmail.com wrote: The point is that this is an engine for virtual reality, while it is MMORPG, too. And unlike Second Life, the platform is free software which anyone would be able to install. Integrating Wikimedia projects into this framework should be priority as in five to ten years, this will be the most dominant form of using Internet. No, it won't. People have been saying that for years and the fact remains that a screen full of a text with a few relevant images is a much better way to convey information than VR. If people will forgive me for promoting a personal project, this is exactly the kind of thoughtful disagreement about the future we want to put on record at the non-profit site Long Bets: http://www.longbets.org/ Disagreements like this are turned into registered predictions, and then hopefully into bets. The wagered money ends up going to the winning bettor's designated charity, so both the Wikimedia Foundation and the Free Software Foundation could be eligible recipients. If you folks are interested that, contact me off list and I'm glad to put you in touch with the right people at the Long Now Foundation. William ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
I can’t imagine virtual reality playing a main role in an encyclopedia. But I see a lot of possibilities in creating learning materials. When people enroll a real live learning program they are paying for 3 things: For acquiring knowledge; for somebody (or some process) guiding and motivating them; and for a certificate crediting the knowledge they have acquired. Virtual reality certainly could help in creating virtual environments guiding and motivating people in the process of acquiring knowledge. Date: Thu, 6 May 2010 16:36:06 +0200 From: Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com Subject: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: j2x846221521005060736g98d23555g73f6c0465b08b...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 The MMORPG Ryzom goes Free Software [1]. Although it was just a matter of time, this event is very important for shaping our future. MMORPG is virtual reality and VR worlds will be [a significant part of] our future. Wikimedia should join FSF and Winch Gate Properties in shaping the future. [1] - http://dev.ryzom.com/news/13 -- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
Dan Rosenthal wrote: On May 6, 2010, at 10:24 PM, geni wrote: 3D objects could already be supported as .blend files although we don't at this point. But not the manipulation of them in a fully interactive physics based 3d environment with simultaneous interaction from thousands of other concurrent users. How about doing one thing at a time? Surely many Wikipedia articles would benefit from being illustrated with a 3D model, for example articles about molecules, or vehicles, or buildings. And when that is achieved we could think about how to add interaction, and when that is achieved we could think about how to add simultaneous interaction from thousands of people. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
On Friday, May 7, 2010, Noein prono...@gmail.com wrote: We're aiming in this mailing list to shape the futur of the human knowledge through the foundation, right? So it is right to talk about the future, it's not an arrogance. Of course, any affirmation about the future must be considered an hypothesis, however convinced may seem his bearer, but also however unconvinced we are. Listen and think. Then answer so that our interlocutor listens and thinks too. Well we're listening, we're just waiting for some arguments as to why the community should consider investing time and effort into this, instead of just assertions that VR is the future of the internets. There's certainly scope for content beyond text and embedded media in the projects. But it's going to start with things like 3D models incorporated into articles through canvas elements rather than fully immersive environments. To that end, does anyone know what happened to that project to embed 3D models of chemical compounds? -- Stephen Bain stephen.b...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 6:33 AM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: Milos Rancic wrote: The MMORPG Ryzom goes Free Software [1]. Although it was just a matter of time, this event is very important for shaping our future. MMORPG is virtual reality and VR worlds will be [a significant part of] our future. Nice to see our resident futurist making some more predictions. This reminds me, we're almost halfway to May 29, 2011, the date by which the Google Wave client will be the basic component of a modern operating system, replacing the web browser. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/39129 I don't suppose you'd like to put a date on this one as well? By what date will VR be a significant part of our lives? And will Google Wave be embedded in VR, or will VR be embedded in Google Wave? Will think about sensible response when awake fully :))) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
Hello, 2010/5/7 Noein prono...@gmail.com: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Please stop any sarcasm. There are ideas worth the consideration, as with any newly available technological tool. We're aiming in this mailing list to shape the futur of the human knowledge through the foundation, right? So it is right to talk about the future, it's not an arrogance. Of course, any affirmation about the future must be considered an hypothesis, however convinced may seem his bearer, but also however unconvinced we are. Listen and think. Then answer so that our interlocutor listens and thinks too. Otherwise, all this mailing list is sheer struggle of prestige, power or noise. Now, one of the unsolved questions of the WMF is: how do we plan to communicate with analphabets? Thinking that analphabets would get encyclopedic knowledge through VR shows a big misunderstanding of how the cause of analphabetism. If people are analphabets is because they lack the resource to have a proper education, so they won't get any access to a computer, much less to Internet and VR worlds. Regards, Yann ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 4:52 PM, Stephen Bain stephen.b...@gmail.com wrote: To that end, does anyone know what happened to that project to embed 3D models of chemical compounds? ... or .. to render sheet music... -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 9:41 AM, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote: Hello, 2010/5/7 Noein prono...@gmail.com: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Now, one of the unsolved questions of the WMF is: how do we plan to communicate with analphabets? Thinking that analphabets would get encyclopedic knowledge through VR shows a big misunderstanding of how the cause of analphabetism. If people are analphabets is because they lack the resource to have a proper education, so they won't get any access to a computer, much less to Internet and VR worlds. I can tell you of my experience with people from Kosovo who are not native english speakers, many of have a hard time reading anything longer than 140 characters. The dont like to read and books are very expensive, and the written language is very different than the spoken one. But they *will* watch videos, or listen to some talk, even in english or german or do something interactive. That is why we need videos of people (or computers) reading articles to them that they can pop into their dvd player or have share. more people have some form of ability to play dvds. The mit ocw distributes hdds of data to schools with no internet access, they include video lectures and alot of material. very good stuff. I can imagine, but may be wrong, that in most villages in world, even the poorest, where 99% of the people done have computers and such, at least one person or school in town will have some form of dvd player. In fact, you could distribute articles in image format for a normal dvd player as well. mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
Intersting, this thread evolved into a good discussion. The way I see it, VR does has potential, as some have pointed out. There are current practical applications for it. On the other hand, it's not here yet. Some that subscribe to the list have met me offline and know that I communicate with more than just words, though I tend to use a lot of them. Education is provided through some form of human interaction and not just text. I can bang out a powerpoint or paper, but that doesn't mean without interpersonal communication that my point will be fully grasped. Such as writing this email. Video conferencing was promised a decade ago, and now it is free. That doesn't mean that in ten years we can't communicate with VR, but I currently don't own the bodysuit. It's not a bad idea to think about, but practical applications for knowledge don't currently exist. That doesn't mean that they won't, and active development should be encouraged. This doesn't mean immediate use, but it's a decent thought. To Dan's analogy about the US military applications, that is an apt one. Teach soldiers combat before they go into it and this ties into the gaming principle and Noein's principle. What we have to bear in mind, as expressed, is that this is not an immediate application. Most of the rest of the world still learns hands on, and we haven't even come close to building a worldwide userbase either. So it's something to think about and not get into a debate about the present applications of VR, but we should follow the process of technological advancement. -- ~Keegan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 6:33 AM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: Milos Rancic wrote: The MMORPG Ryzom goes Free Software [1]. Although it was just a matter of time, this event is very important for shaping our future. MMORPG is virtual reality and VR worlds will be [a significant part of] our future. Nice to see our resident futurist making some more predictions. This reminds me, we're almost halfway to May 29, 2011, the date by which the Google Wave client will be the basic component of a modern operating system, replacing the web browser. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/39129 I don't suppose you'd like to put a date on this one as well? By what date will VR be a significant part of our lives? And will Google Wave be embedded in VR, or will VR be embedded in Google Wave? * * SKIP if you don't want to read about Google Wave * Unlike in prophecy, in speculative prediction will be means: It will be if: 1) Nothing cataclysmic happens. 2) Nothing radically different happens. 3) Matter of prediction goes through the most possible path of development. Google simply didn't do 3. Also, I said something like in a year or two. Such things can be predicted just as trends and I thought that one or two years are enough for that -- as it is driven by one large corporation. At the other side, I don't think that it will happen at all if it wouldn't become stable enough in five or so years, as something else, like VR will come. The point is that Google still didn't do the most basic things to make their product better. I can list a number of enhancements of Google Wave, which would make it much more alive. Most basically, integration with email (inside of Wave of Gmail interface); i.e. to be able to send email to some...@googlewave.com. However, Google did quite opposite; they did [almost] nothing. Just a couple of weeks ago they've added send me an email when I get new wave option; and that increased activity on Google Wave. After ~20 days of nothing, I've got a couple of new waves. As I said last year, the concept of Google Wave looks too radical to be supported by one corporation. Previously, I was just dreaming about something like that: social and collaborative network based on XMPP+P2P, using enhanced email clients as ultimate communication, collaborative and social networking programs. At the other side and because of a kind of lethargy inside of free software/knowledge/culture movement (this was the time just 8-9 months distant from the beginning of financial crisis; inner problems were still obvious: this was the time before the start of our strategic planning, which means that we didn't even have a clue of what do we want), I was thinking that such thing (Wave) would be possible just if some big corporation supports it. And, yes, I was very excited when I saw that Google did it. However, the most probable point about Wave is: Google didn't find a way how to make money from it. Other reasons may be: (1) Wave as a full replacement of email is in direct collision with one of their most important products, Gmail. (2) Wave as a full replacement for social networking and collaboration is in direct collision with other their products, including search engine. (3) It is a suicidal action. More Wave servers mean less Google ad share. Recent positioning of Apple explained to me a lot about Google's positioning. I suggest reading one interesting analysis about Apple [1], but very related to Google. At that point, a year ago, Facebook became very powerful (around that time, it passed Gmail with the number of users) and I think that Google management did a number of things relatively irrationally. Google Wave was not a mature project in September, it isn't mature still. For example, I would really like to install Google Wave server (preferably, integrated with MediaWiki [syntax]) for collaborative purposes. However, Google Wave server implementation is in pre-alpha stage (I can't find it in Debian experimental and I am not willing to force installation of unstable software). Google did a number of other things during the previous two-three years: (1) They've made Android in response to IPhone. (2) They've made app store similarly to Apple. (3) They've made Buzz and they've promoted Google Profile as much lighter responses to Facebook. (4) ChromeOS for netbooks. (5) probably something more which I forgot. Note that none of their products (except Wave) can be called as technological breakthrough, something new etc. So, I think that they just want to stay around and to be able to catch any kind of technological breakthrough. In other words, Google became too large to lead any kind of change, similarly to IBM decades ago. They are just fine now and the vast majority of their products and actions (including, for example, large scale OCR; but excluding Wave) are just logical developments of their previous business. And to word it as a conclusion: Google
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
Gerard, this statement surprises me. Why was the foundation involved in the localization of Freecol, a game with little or no historic information (compared with other historic games such as europa universalis)? kind regards, Teun On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 11:05 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.comwrote: Hoi, When you consider the Wikimedia movement to include translatewiki.net, we have already connections with games. We localise Freecol. While not everybody likes virtual realities, many do. As there is always a good reason to say no, there is typically also a good reason to say yes. I would welcome the suggestion that we branch out to alternative ways of involving people. We are about bringing knowledge to everyone, virtual reality is as valid an approach as for instance facebook. Thanks, GerardM On 6 May 2010 20:00, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 7:40 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: Doubtful. Why a few turn based and real time strategy have historically spread information MMORPGs have not. Freeciv might be a better target if you want to try that. The point is that this is an engine for virtual reality, while it is MMORPG, too. And unlike Second Life, the platform is free software which anyone would be able to install. Integrating Wikimedia projects into this framework should be priority as in five to ten years, this will be the most dominant form of using Internet. ___ 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 mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
Hoi, I am talking about the Wikimedia MOVEMENT and am not restricting myself to the foundation... Thanks, GerardM On 7 May 2010 17:08, teun spaans teun.spa...@gmail.com wrote: Gerard, this statement surprises me. Why was the foundation involved in the localization of Freecol, a game with little or no historic information (compared with other historic games such as europa universalis)? kind regards, Teun On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 11:05 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.comwrote: Hoi, When you consider the Wikimedia movement to include translatewiki.net, we have already connections with games. We localise Freecol. While not everybody likes virtual realities, many do. As there is always a good reason to say no, there is typically also a good reason to say yes. I would welcome the suggestion that we branch out to alternative ways of involving people. We are about bringing knowledge to everyone, virtual reality is as valid an approach as for instance facebook. Thanks, GerardM On 6 May 2010 20:00, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 7:40 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: Doubtful. Why a few turn based and real time strategy have historically spread information MMORPGs have not. Freeciv might be a better target if you want to try that. The point is that this is an engine for virtual reality, while it is MMORPG, too. And unlike Second Life, the platform is free software which anyone would be able to install. Integrating Wikimedia projects into this framework should be priority as in five to ten years, this will be the most dominant form of using Internet. ___ 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 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] Wikimedia Announcement list is active
Dnia 06.05.2010 Tim Landscheidt t...@tim-landscheidt.de napisał/a: Jay Walsh jwa...@wikimedia.org wrote: [...] Please share other thoughts or opportunities - on the meta page or on this list. And please also encourage others to widely subscribe to this list. Post to village pumps, on projects, etc. Could someone see to hooking it up to Gmane, please? Anyone can do it. I just posted a request to create gmane.org.wikimedia.community.announce (gmane.org.wikimedia.announce has been snarfed by Wikizine already). -- Marcin Cieslak // sa...@saper.info ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
On 7 May 2010 16:08, teun spaans teun.spa...@gmail.com wrote: this statement surprises me. Why was the foundation involved in the localization of Freecol, a game with little or no historic information (compared with other historic games such as europa universalis)? translatewiki is not a WMF project, but it does have strong associations with Wikimedia in its inspiration and volunteer base. It does translations for a lot more projects than MediaWiki. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
As some of you may know, Jimbo has recently used his standing in the community to dictate that Commons should not host porn. [1][2][3] He has interpreted this to include a wide swath of images both photographic and illustrative, and both contemporary and historical. In principle, I agree that having a stricter policy on sexual images is a good thing, but fundamentally we need to have a clear policy on what should be allowed and what shouldn't. Attempts to write one [4] have become a moving target that leaves us without a functional policy or community consensus. Initially, this was based on the characteristics of the USC 2257 record keeping laws, but Jimbo has gone beyond this by deleting non-photographic and historical works that would not be covered by 2257. In essence, right now Jimbo is deleting things based on his singular judgment about what should be allowed. [5] These deletions have continued with little apparent concern for whether or not an image is currently in use by any of the projects. This is a large change and lack of a clear policy creates a very confusing and frustrating environment for editors. (Multiple Commons admins have already stated their intention to resign and/or retire over this.) Again, I agree that tighter controls on sexual images are generally a good thing, but I believe the abruptness, lack of clear policy, and lack of a consensus based approach is creating an unnecessarily disruptive environment. Much of the content has been hosted by Wikimedia for years, so do we really have to delete it all, right now? Can we not take a week or two to articulate to boundaries of what should be deleted and what should be kept? In general, I would ask that things slow down until some sort of a clear policy can be created (either by the community or the WMF / Board). This is especially true when it comes to deleting images that are in use on the various Wikipedias. (Such deletions have already been widespread). I would also like to ask whether either the WMF or the Board plans to intervene? Because of Jimbo's historical standing and technical access, the Commons community is largely impotent to stop him. Multiple requests by the community that things slow down or a clear policy be crafted prior to mass deletions have thus far been ineffective. At the very least it would be helpful if the WMF and/or Board would express a position on the appropriate use of sexual content? -Robert Rohde [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales [2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Cleanup_policy (and following sections) [3] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content [4] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Sexual_content [5] http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALogtype=deleteuser=Jimbo+Wales ___ 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
Hi, I would like to point you to: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-May/08.html Jan-Bart de Vreede Vice Chair Wikimedia Board of Trustees Wikimedia Foundation On 7 mei 2010, at 21:23, Robert Rohde wrote: As some of you may know, Jimbo has recently used his standing in the community to dictate that Commons should not host porn. [1][2][3] He has interpreted this to include a wide swath of images both photographic and illustrative, and both contemporary and historical. In principle, I agree that having a stricter policy on sexual images is a good thing, but fundamentally we need to have a clear policy on what should be allowed and what shouldn't. Attempts to write one [4] have become a moving target that leaves us without a functional policy or community consensus. Initially, this was based on the characteristics of the USC 2257 record keeping laws, but Jimbo has gone beyond this by deleting non-photographic and historical works that would not be covered by 2257. In essence, right now Jimbo is deleting things based on his singular judgment about what should be allowed. [5] These deletions have continued with little apparent concern for whether or not an image is currently in use by any of the projects. This is a large change and lack of a clear policy creates a very confusing and frustrating environment for editors. (Multiple Commons admins have already stated their intention to resign and/or retire over this.) Again, I agree that tighter controls on sexual images are generally a good thing, but I believe the abruptness, lack of clear policy, and lack of a consensus based approach is creating an unnecessarily disruptive environment. Much of the content has been hosted by Wikimedia for years, so do we really have to delete it all, right now? Can we not take a week or two to articulate to boundaries of what should be deleted and what should be kept? In general, I would ask that things slow down until some sort of a clear policy can be created (either by the community or the WMF / Board). This is especially true when it comes to deleting images that are in use on the various Wikipedias. (Such deletions have already been widespread). I would also like to ask whether either the WMF or the Board plans to intervene? Because of Jimbo's historical standing and technical access, the Commons community is largely impotent to stop him. Multiple requests by the community that things slow down or a clear policy be crafted prior to mass deletions have thus far been ineffective. At the very least it would be helpful if the WMF and/or Board would express a position on the appropriate use of sexual content? -Robert Rohde [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales [2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Cleanup_policy (and following sections) [3] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content [4] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Sexual_content [5] http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALogtype=deleteuser=Jimbo+Wales ___ 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] Statement on appropriate educational content
Distributing this more widely, since apparently the forwarding from announce-l still has issues. The Board of Trustees has directed me to release the following statement: The Wikimedia Foundation projects aim to bring the sum of human knowledge to every person on the planet. To that end, our projects contain a vast amount of material. Currently, there are more than six million images and 15 million articles on the Wikimedia sites, with new material continually being added. The vast majority of that material is entirely uncontroversial, but the projects do contain material that may be inappropriate or offensive to some audiences, such as children or people with religious or cultural sensitivities. That is consistent with Wikimedia's goal to provide the sum of all human knowledge. We do immediately remove material that is illegal under U.S. law, but we do not remove material purely on the grounds that it may offend. Having said that, the Wikimedia projects are intended to be educational in nature, and there is no place in the projects for material that has no educational or informational value. In saying this, we don't intend to create new policy, but rather to reaffirm and support policy that already exists. We encourage Wikimedia editors to scrutinize potentially offensive materials with the goal of assessing their educational or informational value, and to remove them from the projects if there is no such value. --Michael Snow ___ 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
I found out about this from Larry Sanger's mailing list. Larry has reported the child pornography images on Commons to the FBI, as is the duty of any citizen, and has apparently appeared on Fox News with respect to the subject. I certainly have noticed occasional questionable images, the explicit image that used to illustrate Pearl necklace (sexuality) comes to mind. I have always objected to offensive images (such as of Muhammad) and know that somewhere there is a sane dividing line between the informative and the prurient. Fred Bauder As some of you may know, Jimbo has recently used his standing in the community to dictate that Commons should not host porn. [1][2][3] He has interpreted this to include a wide swath of images both photographic and illustrative, and both contemporary and historical. In principle, I agree that having a stricter policy on sexual images is a good thing, but fundamentally we need to have a clear policy on what should be allowed and what shouldn't. Attempts to write one [4] have become a moving target that leaves us without a functional policy or community consensus. Initially, this was based on the characteristics of the USC 2257 record keeping laws, but Jimbo has gone beyond this by deleting non-photographic and historical works that would not be covered by 2257. In essence, right now Jimbo is deleting things based on his singular judgment about what should be allowed. [5] These deletions have continued with little apparent concern for whether or not an image is currently in use by any of the projects. This is a large change and lack of a clear policy creates a very confusing and frustrating environment for editors. (Multiple Commons admins have already stated their intention to resign and/or retire over this.) Again, I agree that tighter controls on sexual images are generally a good thing, but I believe the abruptness, lack of clear policy, and lack of a consensus based approach is creating an unnecessarily disruptive environment. Much of the content has been hosted by Wikimedia for years, so do we really have to delete it all, right now? Can we not take a week or two to articulate to boundaries of what should be deleted and what should be kept? In general, I would ask that things slow down until some sort of a clear policy can be created (either by the community or the WMF / Board). This is especially true when it comes to deleting images that are in use on the various Wikipedias. (Such deletions have already been widespread). I would also like to ask whether either the WMF or the Board plans to intervene? Because of Jimbo's historical standing and technical access, the Commons community is largely impotent to stop him. Multiple requests by the community that things slow down or a clear policy be crafted prior to mass deletions have thus far been ineffective. At the very least it would be helpful if the WMF and/or Board would express a position on the appropriate use of sexual content? -Robert Rohde [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales [2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Cleanup_policy (and following sections) [3] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content [4] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Sexual_content [5] http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALogtype=deleteuser=Jimbo+Wales ___ 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] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
On 7 May 2010 20:30, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, I would like to point you to: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-May/08.html My interpretation of that is that Jimmy's unilateral deletions are not done with the support of the rest of the board, since the email talks about encouraging the community to deal with the problem. Is that correct? ___ 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 Fri, May 7, 2010 at 9:38 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 May 2010 20:30, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, I would like to point you to: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-May/08.html My interpretation of that is that Jimmy's unilateral deletions are not done with the support of the rest of the board, since the email talks about encouraging the community to deal with the problem. Is that correct? Willing to know the same, as Jimmy's last action is too serious. ___ 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
Hi, Speaking for myself I can state that Jimmy is a part of the community and that the board statement is in support of both his and the other administrators who have taken the initiative to clean up commons. Also, I would refer you to Jimmy's talk page on commons, as there is an active discussion going on there. Jan-Bart de Vreede Vice Chair Wikimedia Board of Trustees Wikimedia Foundation On 7 mei 2010, at 21:38, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 7 May 2010 20:30, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, I would like to point you to: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-May/08.html My interpretation of that is that Jimmy's unilateral deletions are not done with the support of the rest of the board, since the email talks about encouraging the community to deal with the problem. Is that correct? ___ 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] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
On 7 May 2010 20:45, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, Speaking for myself I can state that Jimmy is a part of the community and that the board statement is in support of both his and the other administrators who have taken the initiative to clean up commons. Also, I would refer you to Jimmy's talk page on commons, as there is an active discussion going on there. The board statement doesn't seem to be suggesting people take unilateral action. If that is what you meant, you should have made it explicit. The default in the Wikimedia movement is to discuss things before taking action, not after, so that is what most people will have interpreted your statement as meaning. ___ 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
HI, Before calling it a night I would like to point out the final paragraph of the statement. In saying this, we don't intend to create new policy, but rather to reaffirm and support policy that already exists. We encourage Wikimedia editors to scrutinize potentially offensive materials with the goal of assessing their educational or informational value, and to remove them from the projects if there is no such value. Jan-Bart de Vreede Vice Chair Wikimedia Board of Trustees WIkimedia Foundation On 7 mei 2010, at 21:49, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 7 May 2010 20:45, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, Speaking for myself I can state that Jimmy is a part of the community and that the board statement is in support of both his and the other administrators who have taken the initiative to clean up commons. Also, I would refer you to Jimmy's talk page on commons, as there is an active discussion going on there. The board statement doesn't seem to be suggesting people take unilateral action. If that is what you meant, you should have made it explicit. The default in the Wikimedia movement is to discuss things before taking action, not after, so that is what most people will have interpreted your statement as meaning. ___ 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] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
On 7 May 2010 20:56, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.org wrote: HI, Before calling it a night I would like to point out the final paragraph of the statement. In saying this, we don't intend to create new policy, but rather to reaffirm and support policy that already exists. We encourage Wikimedia editors to scrutinize potentially offensive materials with the goal of assessing their educational or informational value, and to remove them from the projects if there is no such value. Well, there is currently no policy to allow the unilateral deletion of images like this on Commons, which is why I interpreted the statement as not supporting Jimmy's actions. I know it is human nature to be intentionally vague about controversial matters in order to leave yourself room to manoeuvre in the future, but it is really unhelpful. Can the board please explicitly say whether Jimmy's actions are done with board authorisation or not? If not, I think our policies are very clear: Jimmy should be blocked from Commons until he agrees to comply with policy and all the images should be undeleted pending consensus. That is what would happen to anyone else. ___ 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 Fri, May 7, 2010 at 9:45 PM, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Speaking for myself I can state that Jimmy is a part of the community and that the board statement is in support of both his and the other administrators who have taken the initiative to clean up commons. Also, I would refer you to Jimmy's talk page on commons, as there is an active discussion going on there. Did you see what Jimmy deleted? For example, Franz von Bayros painting [1]. That guy is not so famous, but I don't see anymore any sane rule, except: What Jimmy's sexually impaired super rich friend wish, Jimmy do and then Board transform into the rule or a statement. Besides the fact that he was dealing just with Western taboos of naked body and sexual act, not with Mohamed cartoons [2] at English Wikipedia, where he is the God King. If the Board stays behind such action, this is a very clear signal that Wikimedia projects are becoming censored. And if Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons won't be deleted, then Wikimedia projects are a tool of Western cultural imperialism. I want to hear other Board members before making my decision about staying here. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_von_Bayros (yes, similar to that one, which is inside of the article) [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy ___ 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
The primary reason that several weeks back I became involved in the Common's discussions about sexually explicit content is my work with the strategic planning process for WMF. During the strategic plannings discussions, I became acutely aware of the problems with the lack of diversity among WMF readers and editors. As I considered the topic, I came to the conclusion that WMF hosting an unlimited amount of sexually explicit content could be one of the barriers for WMF being more diverse. The manner that we display nudity and sexually explicit content makes it difficult to avoid. Currently, our policies and practices do not allow for special care when displaying the content (for deletion discussion, categorizing, or links to our sister projects, ...). So, people may unexpectedly see it. In my opinion, the current approach to managing the content is insensitive to many people in the world of many nationalities and religions, and people that access WFM projects through settings where sexually explicit content is inappropriate or not allowed. So, I see a policy that better manages the content as potentially making WMF projects open to more users. I support the clean up effort by Jimmy and the administrators on Commons for the images that have no significant educational value. I also understand that to some editors who are new to thinking about the issue that this may seem abrupt. So, I encourage good communication between all the stakeholders so that we can understand each others concerns and address them. I'm also hopeful that technical solutions will be implemented and will resolve the concerns about hosting images that have an educational value.but are not appropriate for all readers in all settings. Sydney Poore (FloNight) On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.orgwrote: Hi, Speaking for myself I can state that Jimmy is a part of the community and that the board statement is in support of both his and the other administrators who have taken the initiative to clean up commons. Also, I would refer you to Jimmy's talk page on commons, as there is an active discussion going on there. Jan-Bart de Vreede Vice Chair Wikimedia Board of Trustees Wikimedia Foundation On 7 mei 2010, at 21:38, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 7 May 2010 20:30, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, I would like to point you to: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-May/08.html My interpretation of that is that Jimmy's unilateral deletions are not done with the support of the rest of the board, since the email talks about encouraging the community to deal with the problem. Is that correct? ___ 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 mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 3:08 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 May 2010 16:08, teun spaans teun.spa...@gmail.com wrote: this statement surprises me. Why was the foundation involved in the localization of Freecol, a game with little or no historic information (compared with other historic games such as europa universalis)? translatewiki is not a WMF project, but it does have strong associations with Wikimedia in its inspiration and volunteer base. It does translations for a lot more projects than MediaWiki. I would maybe say that translatewiki is part of the wiki knowledge movement :) Thanks, Pharos ___ 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
I try to understand what happened, but I'm not sure whether the pieces that I found so far add up. * Larry Sanger is mad about Wikimedia. [apparent] * Larry Sanger notifies the FBI and tells them Wikimedia hosts child porn. [affirmed] * The FBI is rather unimpressed and does not take swift action. [apparent] * Larry Sanger informs media about us alleging Wikimedia of hosting porn. [unaffirmed] * The (conservative) TV station FOX reports about Wikimedia and contacts many important companies that have donated money for Wikimedia in the past whether they want to comment on the allegations. [affirmed] * The companies are contacting Wikimedia to ask what's going on. [unaffirmed] * The board worries about losses in donations and either sends Jimbo to Commons or Jimbo unilaterally decides to handle the case. [unaffirmed] * Without mentioning the previous developments Jimbo starts to delete all files that are porn (in his opinion, not sparing PD-old artworks etc.). Even engaging in edit-warring and ignoring input from the Commons community and ignoring community policies. [affirmed] * The Commons community condemns Jimbo's actions but has no power at all to stop the Founder-flagged berserk. [affirmed] Is this the story? Or are there any story arcs that I missed? Please correct me, wherever I am wrong. 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
Hooray for letting American prurience and Larry Sanger's oddities shape the project. To be expected, though. On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 3:13 PM, Sydney Poore sydney.po...@gmail.com wrote: The primary reason that several weeks back I became involved in the Common's discussions about sexually explicit content is my work with the strategic planning process for WMF. During the strategic plannings discussions, I became acutely aware of the problems with the lack of diversity among WMF readers and editors. As I considered the topic, I came to the conclusion that WMF hosting an unlimited amount of sexually explicit content could be one of the barriers for WMF being more diverse. The manner that we display nudity and sexually explicit content makes it difficult to avoid. Currently, our policies and practices do not allow for special care when displaying the content (for deletion discussion, categorizing, or links to our sister projects, ...). So, people may unexpectedly see it. In my opinion, the current approach to managing the content is insensitive to many people in the world of many nationalities and religions, and people that access WFM projects through settings where sexually explicit content is inappropriate or not allowed. So, I see a policy that better manages the content as potentially making WMF projects open to more users. I support the clean up effort by Jimmy and the administrators on Commons for the images that have no significant educational value. I also understand that to some editors who are new to thinking about the issue that this may seem abrupt. So, I encourage good communication between all the stakeholders so that we can understand each others concerns and address them. I'm also hopeful that technical solutions will be implemented and will resolve the concerns about hosting images that have an educational value.but are not appropriate for all readers in all settings. Sydney Poore (FloNight) On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, Speaking for myself I can state that Jimmy is a part of the community and that the board statement is in support of both his and the other administrators who have taken the initiative to clean up commons. Also, I would refer you to Jimmy's talk page on commons, as there is an active discussion going on there. Jan-Bart de Vreede Vice Chair Wikimedia Board of Trustees Wikimedia Foundation On 7 mei 2010, at 21:38, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 7 May 2010 20:30, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, I would like to point you to: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-May/08.html My interpretation of that is that Jimmy's unilateral deletions are not done with the support of the rest of the board, since the email talks about encouraging the community to deal with the problem. Is that correct? ___ 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 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] Statement on appropriate educational content
Hoi, I learned about the imminence of this announcement and as I often do I blogged about it. As you will read I am in favour of scrutinizing much of the material that is largely irrelevant. At the same time there are historical reasons why we should not go overboard and remove much of the material that is of value or put labels on material that is obviously problematic. Thanks, GerardM http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2010/05/nudity-sexual-content-on-wikipedia.html On 7 May 2010 21:30, Michael Snow wikipe...@verizon.net wrote: Distributing this more widely, since apparently the forwarding from announce-l still has issues. The Board of Trustees has directed me to release the following statement: The Wikimedia Foundation projects aim to bring the sum of human knowledge to every person on the planet. To that end, our projects contain a vast amount of material. Currently, there are more than six million images and 15 million articles on the Wikimedia sites, with new material continually being added. The vast majority of that material is entirely uncontroversial, but the projects do contain material that may be inappropriate or offensive to some audiences, such as children or people with religious or cultural sensitivities. That is consistent with Wikimedia's goal to provide the sum of all human knowledge. We do immediately remove material that is illegal under U.S. law, but we do not remove material purely on the grounds that it may offend. Having said that, the Wikimedia projects are intended to be educational in nature, and there is no place in the projects for material that has no educational or informational value. In saying this, we don't intend to create new policy, but rather to reaffirm and support policy that already exists. We encourage Wikimedia editors to scrutinize potentially offensive materials with the goal of assessing their educational or informational value, and to remove them from the projects if there is no such value. --Michael Snow ___ 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] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
This is nuts. Literally, nothing has changed. Stuff on Wikimedia sites needs to be either educational or aimed at furthering the goals of the project and the foundation. We don't host articles about my her breasts or his penis, and we don't need to host images of them either. Arguing otherwise is just looking for a webhost. ~A ___ 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 7 May 2010 21:42, Amory Meltzer amorymelt...@gmail.com wrote: This is nuts. Literally, nothing has changed. Stuff on Wikimedia sites needs to be either educational or aimed at furthering the goals of the project and the foundation. We don't host articles about my her breasts or his penis, and we don't need to host images of them either. Arguing otherwise is just looking for a webhost. 1) That argument doesn't apply to old artwork. 2) It is for the community to decide what is and isn't educational, not Jimmy. (The board acting collectively could overrule the community, but they don't seem to have done that.) ___ 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
Hoi, There is a board message about this that is completely in line with what Jimmy mentioned. When you consider that because of many of those images that should have remained private the whole Wikmedia domain has been blogged, we really have to consider how we deal with this issue. The first priority is what our aim is for our WMF projects, the brinkmanship with a shit load of inappropriate content is hurting what we stand for. Is preventing us from furthering our aims. This is what is at issue. Thanks, GerardM http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-May/08.html On 7 May 2010 22:42, Amory Meltzer amorymelt...@gmail.com wrote: This is nuts. Literally, nothing has changed. Stuff on Wikimedia sites needs to be either educational or aimed at furthering the goals of the project and the foundation. We don't host articles about my her breasts or his penis, and we don't need to host images of them either. Arguing otherwise is just looking for a webhost. ~A ___ 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] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
On 7 May 2010 21:56, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, There is a board message about this that is completely in line with what Jimmy mentioned. When you consider that because of many of those images that should have remained private the whole Wikmedia domain has been blogged, we really have to consider how we deal with this issue. Consideration is good. Unilateral action with no authority is not. ___ 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 7 May 2010 21:56, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, There is a board message about this that is completely in line with what Jimmy mentioned. When you consider that because of many of those images that should have remained private the whole Wikmedia domain has been blogged, we really have to consider how we deal with this issue. The first priority is what our aim is for our WMF projects, the brinkmanship with a shit load of inappropriate content is hurting what we stand for. Is preventing us from furthering our aims. This is what is at issue. Thanks, GerardM http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-May/08.html Given the statement would require the deletion of 99% of userpages I think it is best ignored. -- geni ___ 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
It still works, it's just harder. And I'm totally with you on the second point. Jimmy got a needed process started. Could he have started it a different, less dramatic way? Probably. Would that have been better? Probably. As effective? Probably not. If you're looking to masturbate, Commons is among the best, most available, and easiest to navigate sources of material there is - the community can fix that and decide as a whole what to do, and should, but maybe Jimmy is playing the maverick and providing a giant leap toward that discussion. ~A On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 16:52, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: 1) That argument doesn't apply to old artwork. 2) It is for the community to decide what is and isn't educational, not Jimmy. (The board acting collectively could overrule the community, but they don't seem to have done that.) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content
On 7 May 2010 20:30, Michael Snow wikipe...@verizon.net wrote: Having said that, the Wikimedia projects are intended to be educational in nature, and there is no place in the projects for material that has no educational or informational value. Err the user namespace? the project namespace? In saying this, we don't intend to create new policy, but rather to reaffirm and support policy that already exists. We encourage Wikimedia editors to scrutinize potentially offensive materials with the goal of assessing their educational or informational value, and to remove them from the projects if there is no such value. Given the overwelming majority of projects have no such policy the statement would appear to be flawed. For example what policy would you suggests applies on be.wikipedia ? -- geni ___ 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
Amory Meltzer hett schreven: This is nuts. Literally, nothing has changed. Stuff on Wikimedia sites needs to be either educational or aimed at furthering the goals of the project and the foundation. We don't host articles about my her breasts or his penis, and we don't need to host images of them either. Arguing otherwise is just looking for a webhost. The thing that has changed is the fact that this was decided by the community, by admins who have earned their rights in a community vote, and according to policies. Take e.g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F%C3%A9licien_Rops_-_Sainte-Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se.png. That image is a 19th century artwork, a drawing, from an important artist. It was uploaded to Commons in 2006 and never questioned. But Jimbo didn't file a deletion request, he didn't even put a speedy delete. He just deleted it with a generic message given as reason. Two times the deletion was reverted by longstanding Commons admins who wanted to uphold Commons policy about deletions and two times Jimbo deleted it again, with the same generic reason. At the moment the file is again undeleted by a third Commons admin. (Jimbo is not online at the moment to overturn that decision.) I think this is a really obvious example how Jimbo breaks policies and why large parts of the Commons community are upset. 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
Hoi, We apparently disagree on this. The ban of the complete Wikimedia domain from Iran happened some time ago and nothing was considered. This issue has been raised several times and the amount of content that is inappropriate because it adds nothing to what is already there is high. Let me be clear, there is a need for many explicit images. I have added many explicit images and there are sound reasons for that material. Consequently I do not expect them to be an issue. What we need is an appropriate amount of material that illustrate our more contentious subjects well and that are neither gross nor of low quality nor illegal. Thanks, GerardM On 7 May 2010 22:59, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 May 2010 21:56, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, There is a board message about this that is completely in line with what Jimmy mentioned. When you consider that because of many of those images that should have remained private the whole Wikmedia domain has been blogged, we really have to consider how we deal with this issue. Consideration is good. Unilateral action with no authority is not. ___ 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] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 4:42 PM, Amory Meltzer amorymelt...@gmail.comwrote: This is nuts. Literally, nothing has changed. Stuff on Wikimedia sites needs to be either educational or aimed at furthering the goals of the project and the foundation. We don't host articles about my her breasts or his penis, and we don't need to host images of them either. Arguing otherwise is just looking for a webhost. ~A It's rather unfortunate that Jimbo went beyond deleting low-quality photographs of penises and deleted what are obviously works of art or educational illustrations. Had he stuck to the former, he would have had the support of a lot of people who are now upset. If he were to admit that it was a mistake to delete things that weren't clearly at the bottom of the barrel (rather than wheel-warring over them!), it would go a long way toward showing that this actually is about improving the quality of the project and not about PR or appeasing donors. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content
On 7 May 2010 22:27, Michael Snow wikipe...@verizon.net wrote: Is there some particular reason for using that as an example? Only in that it's the one I'm aware of from old BLP debates. The statement makes exactly the same error as was being made then. Making a statement supposedly about all projects when really at most it is only coherent with regards to a handful of them. -- geni ___ 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
It's another time we have a problem which would hypothetically fall into the scope of some global arbcom, but since it does not exist, I'm still not sure there's the correct way to handle such situations. I hope that Jimbo and Board will be able to make things settle down. Petition [1] seems to be a variant too, though I was told it does not work well. [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Petition_to_Jimbo ___ 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 Fri, May 7, 2010 at 11:54 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote: I don't actually see what the problem is necessarily in deleting it. It's called editorial judgment, and as I have been telling people for years and years on Wikipedia, editorial judgment =/= censorship. You may write the most awesome novel to ever have been written, but that doesn't mean it's fit for Wikipedia. Similarly, you may have the most righteous CC-BY pictures of naked people or your birthday party or your neighbor's cat or whatever, but that doesn't mean any of it needs to go -- or should go -- in Commons. Phoebe, of ~10 deleted images which I opened, statistics is around: * 4 cartoons which represents different sexual acts (made for illustration of sexual acts in Wikipedia articles) * 2 naked women (porn stars) * 1 naked man * 1 Second Life sexual act * 1 Second Life commercial (I suppose so) * 1 art work Just the naked man could be from personal collection, while it was obviously that photo was made carefully, not to fully show face, but to show body for educational purposes. From this group, only Second Life sexual act is useless. Even commercial has historiographical value. Naked man and women are probably redundant, but there are a lot of redundant images all over the Wikimedia projects. ___ 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
What I can say to your questions is that Jimmy informed the board about his intention and asked the board for support. Don't speaking for other board members, just speak for myself. I answered his mail with that I fully support his engagement. Personally, I think that the board is responsible for defining the scope and basic rules of the projects. While for projects like Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wiktionary the scope is more or less easier to define. On Wikipedia we have the five pillars as our basic rules. But we have also some projects that have a scope that is not quite so clear and no such basic rules. Commons is one of these projects, and the most important one. Fact is, there is no consensus in the community as what is educational or potentially educational for Commons. And as far as I see there would probably never be a concensus. And I think this is where the board should weigh in. To define scopes and basic rules. This is why the board made this statement. For me, this statement is at the first line a support for Jimmy's effort. It is a soft push from the board to the community to move in a direction. Both Jimmy as well as me believe that the best way for the 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 Thomas Dalton wrote: On 7 May 2010 20:30, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, I would like to point you to: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-May/08.html My interpretation of that is that Jimmy's unilateral deletions are not done with the support of the rest of the board, since the email talks about encouraging the community to deal with the problem. Is that correct? ___ 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] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
Doing something good in the worst possible way. Is this not completely par for the course for Wikimedia? Few people should be surprised. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] inadequate frame Re: Statement on appropriate educational content
On Fri, May 07, 2010 at 12:30:18PM -0700, Michael Snow wrote: Having said that, the Wikimedia projects are intended to be educational in nature, and there is no place in the projects for material that has no educational or informational value. In saying this, we don't intend to create new policy, but rather to reaffirm and support policy that already exists. We encourage Wikimedia editors to scrutinize potentially offensive materials with the goal of assessing their educational or informational value, and to remove them from the projects if there is no such value. I'm reading this fairly carefully. Is this the entirety of the board position? This statement by itself is not sufficient to create the frame that Jimmy Wales would require to be able to operate the way he is doing on wikimedia commons at this moment in time. Jimmy Wales is a very public figure. I would recommend that we either redefine the existing frame , so that it is more in line with Jimmy Wales' actions, or Jimmy Wales needs to bring his actions in line with the existing frame. Somewhere in-between those two options: If Jimmy Wales were to switch to promoting a PROD-like approach for commons, this would make a lot of people a lot happier. (commons rules get changed, jwale's behaviour changes, a reasonable compromise is reached, and people can get to work) Earlier, I had already emphasized that people needed to be very careful about dealing with in-use images, because this could cause issues with inter-wiki politics. Apparently this was ignored, and now there are several complaints coming in from wikis outside commons. sincerely , Kim Bruning -- [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment] gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key FEF9DD72 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A 01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72 ___ 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 Fri, May 07, 2010 at 06:21:38PM -0400, MZMcBride wrote: Doing something good in the worst possible way. Is this not completely par for the course for Wikimedia? Few people should be surprised. MZMcBride: You could re-state that in a more positive way: We are happy that some initiative is being taken. We would like to contribute to ensuring that the initiative will actually be successful and bear fruit. btw, congratulations, I think I just volunteered you. ;-) Read you soon, Kim Bruning -- [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment] gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key FEF9DD72 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A 01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72 ___ 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 Sat, May 8, 2010 at 12:15 AM, Ting Chen wing.phil...@gmx.de wrote: What I can say to your questions is that Jimmy informed the board about his intention and asked the board for support. Don't speaking for other board members, just speak for myself. I answered his mail with that I fully support his engagement. Personally, I think that the board is responsible for defining the scope and basic rules of the projects. While for projects like Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wiktionary the scope is more or less easier to define. On Wikipedia we have the five pillars as our basic rules. But we have also some projects that have a scope that is not quite so clear and no such basic rules. Commons is one of these projects, and the most important one. Fact is, there is no consensus in the community as what is educational or potentially educational for Commons. And as far as I see there would probably never be a concensus. And I think this is where the board should weigh in. To define scopes and basic rules. This is why the board made this statement. For me, this statement is at the first line a support for Jimmy's effort. It is a soft push from the board to the community to move in a direction. Both Jimmy as well as me believe that the best way for the 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 Thomas Dalton wrote: On 7 May 2010 20:30, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, I would like to point you to: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-May/08.html My interpretation of that is that Jimmy's unilateral deletions are not done with the support of the rest of the board, since the email talks about encouraging the community to deal with the problem. Is that correct? ___ 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 Ting, this is your statement about sexually explicit content from the last elections [1]: First of all I my position to this point had not changed since last year. I think content in Wikimedia projects should be educational, nothing more and nothing less. I think the communities of our major projects are meanwhile good enough to decide what is in scope and what not. This as overall principle. In most part of the world even pure educational content has some restriction of age, sometimes even per law. I think the Foundation should take this into account and give the community the possibility to act in accordance with the local laws if they decide to. From this point of view my suggestion is the following: The foundation should develop the MediaWiki software so that some content that are tagged with an age restriction would not be shown immediately if one comes to such an article. Only if the user confirms that he is above the age limit the content would be revealed. I believe this suggestion was already made by Erik a few years ago and I think we should do it. The board of trustees should issue a resolution in the form like the BPL resolution that announces the feature and call for the responsibility of the community to use this feature in accordance with the community consensus. I see here two things: * You didn't mention that sexually explicit content should be deleted. * You said that it is Board's responsibility to create a feature, not any kind of community's responsibility [out of the scope of particular legal systems]. In that sense, I want to ask you what did Board do except supporting Jimmy to delete many images of educational value? [1] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Candidates/Questions/1#Sexual_content_on_WMF ___ 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 Fri, May 7, 2010 at 15:15, Ting Chen wing.phil...@gmx.de wrote: For me, this statement is at the first line a support for Jimmy's effort. It is a soft push from the board to the community to move in a direction. The problem is that what Jimmy is doing on Commons isn't a soft push. It's a whack across the head with a spiked club, by someone who doesn't have good aim. -- Mark [[en:User:Carnildo]] ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] The Fox Article
Updated April 27, 2010 Wikipedia Distributing Child Porn, Co-Founder Tells FBI The parent company of Wikipedia is knowingly distributing child pornography, the co-founder of the online encyclopedia says, and he's imploring the FBI to investigate. http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/27/wikipedia-child-porn-larry-sanger-fbi/ Erik Möller is particularly unfair. Fred Bauder ___ 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
Hoi, There has been a need to address these things. Let us be clear, there is no need for speedy deletions, there is time to have the ordinary deletion process. Let us be equally clear that there is no room for business as usual because not only have things gone bad and bans like the current Iranian one are not addressed but also because the board of the WMF has clearly indicated that things are out of kilter. Consequently, it does not help at all to argue about if you like or dislike the approach Jimmy has taken. He has clearly put this issue on the map and that is good. When we want to stabilise the situation by having the standard process, it has to be clear that the argument why something is to be kept has to be clear and strong. Nudity is in and of itself not an issue. The nature and the volume of many subjects is. What is needed is are criteria and they have to include the amount of images we need for the subjects under discussion. As I argued on my blog, a Maroon with a loincloth should not even feature in the category nudity. Thanks, GerardM http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com On 8 May 2010 00:33, Mark Wagner carni...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 15:15, Ting Chen wing.phil...@gmx.de wrote: For me, this statement is at the first line a support for Jimmy's effort. It is a soft push from the board to the community to move in a direction. The problem is that what Jimmy is doing on Commons isn't a soft push. It's a whack across the head with a spiked club, by someone who doesn't have good aim. -- Mark [[en:User:Carnildo]] ___ 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] The Fox Article
You read that article, and what you got from it is that *Eric* is being unfair? Wow. ___ 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
Ting Chen hett schreven: For me, this statement is at the first line a support for Jimmy's effort. It is a soft push from the board to the community to move in a direction. Not my definition of a soft push. In my opinion it's not the task of board or foundation to push the community in any direction. It's the other way round, the community forms board and foundation. The task of board and foundation is to operate the servers, to develop the software needed to operate our projects, and to stop members of the community or of the outside world from doing things harmful to the community, e.g. by violating the law. But they should not decide on the actual content, that's the task of the community. If e.g. USC 2257 requires us to keep records, that would be okay to me. It would decimate our explicit content, but having content with clear provenance would be a nice advantage. But at the moment I see no rational reason like a law or anything like that. Just some vague scope that is inherently undefined and used to cover cleansings on moral grounds. We do not need 10,000 close-ups of penises. But we need some penises. Small, medium, big, from different ethnicities, crooked, shaved and unshaved, with jewelry, with diseases etc. pp. We will never reach a state where the number of our penis images is low enough to make conservative agenda makers happy without leaving medical articles or articles on sexuality unillustrated (which would lower their informativeness and thus their educational value). We had discussions on sexual content before. I proposed to use a technical solution in which images are tagged with tags that give detailed information about the form of explicit content present. The images could then be filtered by anybody who wants them to be filtered. That can be done on a per-user basis, but also on a per-project basis, or a per-country basis (based on IP geolocation). So if the people of the Kerguelen Islands don't want to see boobs and vagoos (or the government disallows showing them) a filter could be set to remove those images. Creating a technical solution like that is the task of the foundation. The _real_ task of the foundation. 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] The Fox Article
On Fri, May 07, 2010 at 06:49:06PM -0400, Nathan wrote: You read that article, and what you got from it is that *Eric* is being unfair? Wow. I think he means they're being unfair to Eric :-) -- [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment] gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key FEF9DD72 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A 01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content
On Fri, May 07, 2010 at 12:30:18PM -0700, Michael Snow wrote: announce-l still has issues. The Board of Trustees has directed me to release the following statement: Just to be sure: Are there no other statements that have been made by the board or are being planned to be made by the board on this subject? sincerly, Kim Bruning -- [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment] gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key FEF9DD72 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A 01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72 ___ 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
When I heard that Jimmy had taken an axe to explicit images on commons, I thought it was good news as I've been frustrated and disappointed by my own inability to convince the commons community that some things, like the bulk copying of erotic imagery from flickr— hundreds of images with little to no prospect of use in an article, was inappropriate. By in my first few clicks on Jimmy's deletion log I instantly found several hundred year old works of art by artists who have articles in almost every major language Wikipedia. ... and that these deletions were not just errors. When the images were deleted by people operating under that impression, Jimmy wheel-warred. As an example of their maturity, I'm not aware of any Commons Admin that undeleted a second time. After seeing that went and viewed Jimmy's talk page, and the commentary there was enough to dispel all hope I had of being able to support this initiative. I strongly recommend you read these sections yourself: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Franz_von_Bayros.3F The delete everything now, regardless of how long its been there, how widely used, the fact that it's a 100 year old line drawing, and worry about allowing some stuff later, maybe approach seems maximally poisonous to me. I've been guilty of it myself in the past, but I hope that I've learned better by now... I think Jimmy's conduct is alarming, disproportionate, and ill-considered. I find it shocking that the board has chosen to explicitly support this 'wild west' approach. I feel like our community is being dragged into a petty game of personal one-upmanship between Larry Sanger and Jimmy. On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 6:15 PM, Ting Chen wing.phil...@gmx.de wrote: What I can say to your questions is that Jimmy informed the board about his intention and asked the board for support. Don't speaking for other board members, just speak for myself. I answered his mail with that I fully support his engagement. Personally, I think that the board is responsible for defining the scope and basic rules of the projects. While for projects like Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wiktionary the scope is more or less easier to define. On Wikipedia we have the five pillars as our basic rules. But we have also some projects that have a scope that is not quite so clear and no such basic rules. Commons is one of these projects, and the most important one. I hope the rest of the board will step forward and disclose their level of support for Jimmy's actions. I think such disclosure will be relevant in the communities decision to support the members in the future. I don't see any reason why the board discussion on this topic should be kept confidential. Michael, Ting. Please consider this to be a request for the board to release its entire discussion related to this subject so that the community may better understand the basis for this sudden action against the commons community. I think a lot of people who have invested considerable effort into the structure and operation of commons will be gravely offended by your claim that Commons has no such basic rules, for it most certainly does— I know that your words hurt and offend me. The point that commons governance has not managed a single area to your liking can not be construed as evidence that commons is lawless. Fact is, there is no consensus in the community as what is educational or potentially educational for Commons. And as far as I see there would probably never be a concensus. And I think this is where the board should weigh in. To define scopes and basic rules. This is why the board made this statement. There is an enormous space of things strongly understood to be acceptable by consensus, and at least some space understood to be unacceptable. Then there is a area under which no clear consensus exists but under which several carefully navigated compromises exist on Commons and the projects. These compromises are not, in my opinion, anywhere near sufficient. But they do exist and they are helpful. The actions taken have disregarded both the area under clear consensus (e.g. hundreds year old works of art by famous artists) as well as having disregarded the area of compromise in the no consensus space. For example, on many Wikipedia projects drawings (albeit rather detailed ones) were used rather than sexually explicit photographs to illustrate articles on specific sex acts. — The compromise being that there is a need to use illustrations on these articles, just as we use illustrations on other physical activities (like dancing) but that drawings could achieve the informative purpose without being quite as likely to offend. Unfortunately Jimmy unilateral removed the commons policy preferring the illustrations: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Sexual_contentdiff=prevoldid=38893040 I think is incredibly unfortunate— it damages one of the things we've been able to do, not just at commons,
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Thank you for this analysis, Milos. I think you should definitely take the time to explain yourself more often since 1/ your bold statements are not unanimously intuitive 2/ we need to share visions, skills and knowledge to understand what we're talking about when we talk about wikimedia and the world. On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 9:41 AM, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote: I can tell you of my experience with people from Kosovo who are not native english speakers, many of have a hard time reading anything longer than 140 characters. The dont like to read and books are very expensive, and the written language is very different than the spoken one. *** warning: long reasoning *** I was talking yesterday with a french woman who went for two years to help peasants of the Choco in Colombia. They are of oral traditions. Some are descendant of white colons. Some are Amerindians. Some are of African roots. No villager can read, only some bachelors from the cities. Internet doesn't reach the agricultural communities in this jungle where you only travel by boat. The only way my friend found to inform them and communicate was by creating role-playing scenarii with local, more educated inhabitants from the city; then go with them to the villagers in the jungle and communicate through the role-playing games. This understanding of the situation and this roleplay idea has a potential. Is it urgent? Is it immediately feasible? Does it concern the WMF? I don't know. But I think it is linked with the bigger problem of outreaching people, which is one of the core problems of the WMF (and mankind). What I know is that as long as we are alphabetized, educated, computerized, living in the comfort of occidental life, we're some kind of rich, literate elite (this not an insult nor an arrogance); we need to establish bridges with the 5 billions people who work with different minds and conditions, without imposing our culture or forcing our values into them. One of the first fundamental questions to think about the supreme goal of the WMF is: do every human WANT to access mankind knowledge? In my opinion, it is too late to preserve most ethnic cultures from say, capitalism or western culture. Admittedly, I have very limited knowledge, even if I constantly try to learn about this problem, so I know that I may be wrong. However, I have lived and traveled in South America long enough to see the crushing of traditions and culture by one dominant, predatory culture. Since it is too late for them, since their virginity is only a memory, I can accept the goal of reaching every human, even if they didn't ask for it, to give them a way to know what they want to know about the world they're being anyway sucked into. Because if I had to ask just one question to another being it would be is it really what you want?, because of that I think bringing knowledge to analphabets, poors and minorities is justified, it gives them the choice. For this particular targeted public, my limited mind concludes that the WMF needs humanitarian, pragmatic volunteers who want and know how to deal with real, non-occidental people. I don't think it would cost that much to ally with people already accomplishing ethnological or humanitarian missions: WMF would just have to provide the internet devices and software to facilitate an access to knowledge during interaction with ethnies. Etc. (A lot more could be discussed about this idea. I feel that coherent projects can be developed and built from this seed, and I know some potential partners, but this is just a coincidence of my eclectic knowledge. I'm personally more interested in black holes, so don't take my mail as proselytism for a personal agenda). Please forgive the time I'm stealing from you with my considerations. I'm not a natural english speaker and an additional effort from your part may be required in order to understand me. I think we need to solve diary problems AND discuss long term goals, in this very mailing list: in my opinion, both poles of reflection/action should go hand in hand so that when the implementation reaches the goal, it IS what we wanted. If I'm not in the right list for this kind of talk please redirect me. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJL5KMcAAoJEHCAuDvx9Z6LN5gIAKkLtgL5/RgfTe14nSseJvxB dHAIhllFQ757yXBctwgKVCYyKmZ8/kettk2q20GmCqFGmE8tgUcWAb8wJTto4yMv gra9tZvB2CscQw1LHVoNFo5kXd2h+w6TCqkrjlCDSeU18aOM7Vuh0FYYldTZseNN lGdycrkTBhVQBpyNgeJNSFQTq28ilK1ZanFbm6LGCmIosnoqVeCzswu2Dl32K1E6 YuduLqFcCO/JVeCLpnYGbV4H/Ra3zZQQHhU6pHJa0eT/GcOk6nGbTyM1SjK9q1V8 MUMurtjwKOECQ73J9Emyo4LyOGenDZJ2Z3SXrNP/66+oemoO9xwDZUchW1OFpzw= =PRqK -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content
On 7 May 2010 16:07, Kim Bruning k...@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote: On Fri, May 07, 2010 at 12:30:18PM -0700, Michael Snow wrote: announce-l still has issues. The Board of Trustees has directed me to release the following statement: Just to be sure: Are there no other statements that have been made by the board or are being planned to be made by the board on this subject? sincerly, Kim Bruning Kim, the board (and I) have been talking about this for the past couple of days, and we'll continue to talk about it over the next couple of weeks. I think it's fairly likely there will be some kind of statement or statements at the end of that. I'm expecting that over the next few weeks, we all will be paying attention to the conversations on Commons and elsewhere, including here. Thanks, Sue -- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation 415 839 6885 office Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! 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] Statement on appropriate educational content
On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 10:30 AM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: Kim, the board (and I) have been talking about this for the past couple of days, and we'll continue to talk about it over the next couple of weeks. I think it's fairly likely there will be some kind of statement or statements at the end of that. I'm expecting that over the next few weeks, we all will be paying attention to the conversations on Commons and elsewhere, including here. Thanks, Sue If the board is still discussing the matter nothing should be getting done (the deletion) till the board has finished and finalized it's discussions, It's not differnt than a cop arresting someone for a law which doesn't exist or isn't passed yet (oh wait... yeah american's and their love of Contempt of Cop) ___ 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
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 This, my friends, beyond the porn debate, is an important lesson about the vulnerability of wikipedia. You just have to threaten or convince Mr. Wales to control or shutdown the entire project. The whole community is powerless. When this crisis is over, we should think about giving a stronger autonomy to wikipedia. A project of this magnitude can no longer rest on the shoulder of one man, depending on his good faith. Wikipedia is making enemies (today: the prudes). One day they'll force Mr. Wales to denature the project. Is it today? I don't know. But don't be fooled about the appearances: the real crisis is not about porn, but about who has control on the project and who has control on these critical persons. If this is an emergency situation requiring a justified, immediate, unilateral, king-like massive action, I regret Mr. Wales didn't take the time to explain the emergency to us. By rush-imposing his views and decisions on people who are not out of the debate yet, he is browbeating their inner self, ignoring their beliefs and opinions, discarding the value of the Other. This lack of respect and of equality of vote should be extremely well argumented and the reasons transparently communicated. Otherwise, trust, faith and adhesion to the WMF values dissolve. I don't think we should let this happen. Mr. Wales, I hope you enter reason and dialogue realms again. We're not idiots who can't understand strategy. And by the way, if you pretend to calm puritan donors in a first time, then try to reconquer the lost ground later, you just surrendered the whole project to them by showing that you will cede before their threat. Maybe it is time to adopt a bold secularism (morally neutral, but still respectful of humans)? Anyway, will I, for one, accept the situation if you don't explain? I would oppose any person pretending to dictate non-consensually how to handle the human knowledge: it is part of the Humanity Heritage. But you're the founder and I'm powerless. Am I? I think many of us are having these very questions now. Is it good for the WMF that we're asking them? Is it the consequence of Wales' bold actions? Is the board voluntarily ignoring our legitimate feelings ? On 07/05/2010 17:19, Marcus Buck wrote: I try to understand what happened, but I'm not sure whether the pieces that I found so far add up. * Larry Sanger is mad about Wikimedia. [apparent] * Larry Sanger notifies the FBI and tells them Wikimedia hosts child porn. [affirmed] * The FBI is rather unimpressed and does not take swift action. [apparent] * Larry Sanger informs media about us alleging Wikimedia of hosting porn. [unaffirmed] * The (conservative) TV station FOX reports about Wikimedia and contacts many important companies that have donated money for Wikimedia in the past whether they want to comment on the allegations. [affirmed] * The companies are contacting Wikimedia to ask what's going on. [unaffirmed] * The board worries about losses in donations and either sends Jimbo to Commons or Jimbo unilaterally decides to handle the case. [unaffirmed] * Without mentioning the previous developments Jimbo starts to delete all files that are porn (in his opinion, not sparing PD-old artworks etc.). Even engaging in edit-warring and ignoring input from the Commons community and ignoring community policies. [affirmed] * The Commons community condemns Jimbo's actions but has no power at all to stop the Founder-flagged berserk. [affirmed] Is this the story? Or are there any story arcs that I missed? Please correct me, wherever I am wrong. Marcus Buck User:Slomox ___ 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/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJL5LdTAAoJEHCAuDvx9Z6LfGEIANYli6roFaZJOqXv5j/rvE3B D/9B7VLzyEn86tkWYOACz+k+Ngj9mORGKwdVSDKYhwNdx/ek3SuW87lwp/l2ORhA e16SsFbzPTTE0dDewvMfK2aEGjgPpK15AmV02Z3X12PeQJCO76fnjH9aKedBdvns BZnk3hv53OSIq194bizkTk82GYWClc7wvXX6jnvc0dtOWEetm8PdM3D9q4Gpuzuh Bgqa+mMx3WVOuUywRVGGQQMQ3L/xF4aisMHYgDP19rtnV9mNz4m4v8r9joGP7lP8 Bq2zEO8KeoTU5Yjb3sPLA66yz8vsJ0YCixhQIvP3Y+qGwETm84x3wr4Hbt7pOzQ= =3wP0 -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
On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 5:18 PM, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: Is there anyone who disagrees that we need to hold to the policies: 2. that no WMF project contain material that it can not legally contain. Legally contain according to what laws? ___ 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
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 A technical and sincerely genuine question about this list. Is somebody, some bot or some site synthesizing our emailed discussion, or is everything vanishing as soon as it is spoken? In this last case, shouldn't we keep an organized trace of the threads to allow discussion and synthesis? How will we reach fair consensus for complex and heated discussions otherwise? How do we plan on anger and fatigue to sort it out? On 07/05/2010 22:33, Anthony wrote: On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 5:18 PM, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: Is there anyone who disagrees that we need to hold to the policies: 2. that no WMF project contain material that it can not legally contain. Legally contain according to what laws? ___ 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/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJL5MK9AAoJEHCAuDvx9Z6LqAcH/jFyF7WcgpympPaliNi5toHV J/BsH4WeA++e/5m/63b5jH+0mT410uPn+/i2HZaMLIjc8kztzOJTrhDvPeX3vl07 MAXG0Jp6SP7TnFLJx09QFzdaE/V/ItA0VU8qdIYe4TWq8z6EIfKNqpbgY3uTrGa0 HTG7CsoXk2MXYUgtXdT3ym0xAoPPL0FcLAMlHcqrPrRvgBY4kM8AM0rJknB313dF 3sD8dhgUsD7Gn2clCv+RJQQgGPOyRLc3sKAMc7Q48/ipr51WyneSNMGaHBrdE+3P F1Ut3c+J60bIibVGZek8PEj+Ar5YZuX5cOayBesXX5VjuFJrczOQWdq2rZseBUk= =L/5V -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content
Kim Bruning wrote: On Fri, May 07, 2010 at 12:30:18PM -0700, Michael Snow wrote: announce-l still has issues. The Board of Trustees has directed me to release the following statement: Just to be sure: Are there no other statements that have been made by the board or are being planned to be made by the board on this subject? For what it's worth, Jay Walsh has posted a QA at wikimediafoundation.org.[1] It seems like a lot of bullshit and spin to me, but perhaps there are nuggets of valuable information buried somewhere in there. MZMcBride [1] http://wikimedia.org/wiki/QA_Wikimedia_Commons_images_review,_May_2010 ___ 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
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/thread.html Everything is archived. ~Amory ___ 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
Gregory Maxwell wrote: By in my first few clicks on Jimmy's deletion log I instantly found several hundred year old works of art by artists who have articles in almost every major language Wikipedia. I confess I found a certain poignancy in reading the article on one of the victims. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adolphe_Bouguereau Bouguereaus works were eagerly bought by American millionaires who considered him the most important French artist of that time. But after 1920, Bouguereau fell into disrepute, due in part to changing tastes and partly to his staunch opposition to the Impressionists who were finally gaining acceptance. *For decades following, his name was not even mentioned in encyclopedias.* (emphasis mine) How sad. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content
One thing which I would have wished the Board's statement to address is the need for some sort of content rating and filtering system that will enable parents, schools and libraries to screen out content unsuitable for minors. Anyone giving minors access to Commons presently also gives them ready access to collections of pornographic media, via categories such as http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:BDSM (and its various subcategories). I am concerned about this, because it reflects poorly on the project. It is also against the law in parts of the world. In Germany, for example, The spreading of pornographic content and other harmful media via the internet is a criminal offence under German jurisdiction. A pornographic content on the internet is legal only if technical measures prohibit minors from getting access to the object (AVS = Age Verification System or Adult-Check-System). From: http://www.bundespruefstelle.de/bpjm/information-in-english.html As far as I am concerned, the community consensus model has failed us here, resulting in immature decision-making. The same thing goes for Wikipedia articles that contain pornographic material. We should have content rating categories, so schools and libraries can make Wikipedia accessible to minors without fearing that they will * lose their E-Rate funding (per the Children's Internet Protection Act, http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html -- Schools and libraries subject to CIPA may not receive the discounts offered by the E-rate program unless they certify that they have an Internet safety policy that includes technology protection measures. The protection measures must block or filter Internet access to pictures that are: (a) obscene, (b) child pornography, or (c) harmful to minors (for computers that are accessed by minors)), or * will be found to have infringed laws if a parent, say, complains to a teacher about their child having stumbled upon our hardcore pornography on a school computer. Doing nothing to address concerns that are widespread in society is risky and foolhardy. There is also the issue of underage admins being asked to administer hardcore pornographic content, making deletion decisions etc. It doesn't look good and will come to bite us sooner or later, if it is not addressed. Andreas (Jayen466) On 7 May 2010 21:30, Michael Snow wikipedia at verizon.net wrote: Distributing this more widely, since apparently the forwarding from announce-l still has issues. The Board of Trustees has directed me to release the following statement: The Wikimedia Foundation projects aim to bring the sum of human knowledge to every person on the planet. To that end, our projects contain a vast amount of material. Currently, there are more than six million images and 15 million articles on the Wikimedia sites, with new material continually being added. The vast majority of that material is entirely uncontroversial, but the projects do contain material that may be inappropriate or offensive to some audiences, such as children or people with religious or cultural sensitivities. That is consistent with Wikimedia's goal to provide the sum of all human knowledge. We do immediately remove material that is illegal under U.S. law, but we do not remove material purely on the grounds that it may offend. Having said that, the Wikimedia projects are intended to be educational in nature, and there is no place in the projects for material that has no educational or informational value. In saying this, we don't intend to create new policy, but rather to reaffirm and support policy that already exists. We encourage Wikimedia editors to scrutinize potentially offensive materials with the goal of assessing their educational or informational value, and to remove them from the projects if there is no such value. --Michael Snow ___ 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
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote: Gregory Maxwell wrote: By in my first few clicks on Jimmy's deletion log I instantly found several hundred year old works of art by artists who have articles in almost every major language Wikipedia. I confess I found a certain poignancy in reading the article on one of the victims. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adolphe_Bouguereau Bouguereaus works were eagerly bought by American millionaires who considered him the most important French artist of that time. But after 1920, Bouguereau fell into disrepute, due in part to changing tastes and partly to his staunch opposition to the Impressionists who were finally gaining acceptance. *For decades following, his name was not even mentioned in encyclopedias.* (emphasis mine) How sad. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen Apologies for replying to my own message, but that was a false alarm. In this case the link was broken because a better quality image had been uploaded with a different name, apparently. 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] The Fox Article
It seems like Fox News can't get enough. Fox News has a history of being the opposite of its so-called fair and balance reporting. I think that they went too far with saying that“Wikipedia’s continued interest in child sexual exploitation is troubling not only because the site hosts some questionable images, but because it can easily serve as a gateway to other sites containing child pornography, I'm pretty sure 100% that Wikimedia doesn't support child porn in any way, plus these images are art that were created so long also they are in public domain, and if they were child porn, they would be removed already. I also know that Erik Möller does not support child porn. If he did, he wouldn't be at the foundation right now. Fox News went too far with this, and they should actually investigate the story before making accusations. Fox News is biased. Techman224 On 2010-05-07, at 5:44 PM, Fred Bauder wrote: Updated April 27, 2010 Wikipedia Distributing Child Porn, Co-Founder Tells FBI The parent company of Wikipedia is knowingly distributing child pornography, the co-founder of the online encyclopedia says, and he's imploring the FBI to investigate. http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/27/wikipedia-child-porn-larry-sanger-fbi/ Erik Möller is particularly unfair. Fred Bauder ___ 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] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
Marcus Buck wrote: Amory Meltzer hett schreven: This is nuts. Literally, nothing has changed. Stuff on Wikimedia sites needs to be either educational or aimed at furthering the goals of the project and the foundation. We don't host articles about my her breasts or his penis, and we don't need to host images of them either. Arguing otherwise is just looking for a webhost. The thing that has changed is the fact that this was decided by the community, by admins who have earned their rights in a community vote, and according to policies. Take e.g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F%C3%A9licien_Rops_-_Sainte-Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se.png. That image is a 19th century artwork, a drawing, from an important artist. It was uploaded to Commons in 2006 and never questioned. But Jimbo didn't file a deletion request, he didn't even put a speedy delete. He just deleted it with a generic message given as reason. Two times the deletion was reverted by longstanding Commons admins who wanted to uphold Commons policy about deletions and two times Jimbo deleted it again, with the same generic reason. At the moment the file is again undeleted by a third Commons admin. (Jimbo is not online at the moment to overturn that decision.) I think this is a really obvious example how Jimbo breaks policies and why large parts of the Commons community are upset. Interestingly enough, the same caricatyrist still retains on teh commons another work (for the moment at least), which possibly many would find nearly as offensive, but is likely just about the perfectest metaphor for what is currently happening on Wikimedia Commons... http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F%C3%A9licien_Rops_-_La_tentation_de_Saint_Antoine.jpg 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] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
Fred Bauder wrote: Yes, Category:Women facing left A caricature of a Catholic saint using a dildo but used on Wikipedias in 3 languages to illustrate the article dildo. I'm not a student of Teresa of Ávila but it seems rather unlikely she did a lot of wanton stuff with dildos. Not that there would be anything wrong if she had, but we don't illustrate the articles of any number of women who might have used a dildo at some point in their lives in this way. In a word, the image is made up and quite offensive. It does present an interesting theoretical question though; Saint Teresa did practise body mortification quite enthusiastically. Would it be okay to portray a religious person flagellating themself on commons, considering that it isn't sexualized, and apparently on the other hand, the strictest part of Jimbos new order of the day seems to relate to BDSM depictions on commons? 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] Statement on appropriate educational content
The only existing US law that I think Commons might possibly not be complying with is the requirement to ensure that the models of some pictures are not minors; to what extent these provisions might be retroactive, IANAL, much less a specialist in these matters, is something that I do not know. But I do know about matters pertaining to libraries, and the responsibility for filtering is on them, not the information providers, or the sites which post the information. Most libraries deal with this by outsourcing, and relying on the standards of the providers of the filters. I see no reason why we should cooperate with censorship, however well intentioned. We should, however, maintain our own standards. (Because it is appropriate to provide some guides about our content to users generally, maintaining certain images in a collection labelled BDSM, and ensuring they have clearly descriptive titles--which remains incomplete in Commons more generally than just these images-- would seem to me quite adequate information about their likely nature. ) David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 11:39 PM, Jayen466 jayen...@yahoo.com wrote: One thing which I would have wished the Board's statement to address is the need for some sort of content rating and filtering system that will enable parents, schools and libraries to screen out content unsuitable for minors. Anyone giving minors access to Commons presently also gives them ready access to collections of pornographic media, via categories such as http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:BDSM (and its various subcategories). I am concerned about this, because it reflects poorly on the project. It is also against the law in parts of the world. In Germany, for example, The spreading of pornographic content and other harmful media via the internet is a criminal offence under German jurisdiction. A pornographic content on the internet is legal only if technical measures prohibit minors from getting access to the object (AVS = Age Verification System or Adult-Check-System). From: http://www.bundespruefstelle.de/bpjm/information-in-english.html As far as I am concerned, the community consensus model has failed us here, resulting in immature decision-making. The same thing goes for Wikipedia articles that contain pornographic material. We should have content rating categories, so schools and libraries can make Wikipedia accessible to minors without fearing that they will * lose their E-Rate funding (per the Children's Internet Protection Act, http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html -- Schools and libraries subject to CIPA may not receive the discounts offered by the E-rate program unless they certify that they have an Internet safety policy that includes technology protection measures. The protection measures must block or filter Internet access to pictures that are: (a) obscene, (b) child pornography, or (c) harmful to minors (for computers that are accessed by minors)), or * will be found to have infringed laws if a parent, say, complains to a teacher about their child having stumbled upon our hardcore pornography on a school computer. Doing nothing to address concerns that are widespread in society is risky and foolhardy. There is also the issue of underage admins being asked to administer hardcore pornographic content, making deletion decisions etc. It doesn't look good and will come to bite us sooner or later, if it is not addressed. Andreas (Jayen466) On 7 May 2010 21:30, Michael Snow wikipedia at verizon.net wrote: Distributing this more widely, since apparently the forwarding from announce-l still has issues. The Board of Trustees has directed me to release the following statement: The Wikimedia Foundation projects aim to bring the sum of human knowledge to every person on the planet. To that end, our projects contain a vast amount of material. Currently, there are more than six million images and 15 million articles on the Wikimedia sites, with new material continually being added. The vast majority of that material is entirely uncontroversial, but the projects do contain material that may be inappropriate or offensive to some audiences, such as children or people with religious or cultural sensitivities. That is consistent with Wikimedia's goal to provide the sum of all human knowledge. We do immediately remove material that is illegal under U.S. law, but we do not remove material purely on the grounds that it may offend. Having said that, the Wikimedia projects are intended to be educational in nature, and there is no place in the projects for material that has no educational or informational value. In saying this, we don't intend to create new policy, but rather to reaffirm and support policy that already exists. We encourage Wikimedia editors to scrutinize potentially offensive materials with the goal
Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content
I can't follow your reasoning there. Ensuring that Commons can be safely viewed by minors is not censorship, in my opinion. I am actually fine with uncensored pornographic content for adults, but I think we will end up cutting ourselves off from the younger generation if we don't cooperate with filtering systems. Commons content is dynamic and comprises 6.5 million media files. How would a library or school filter that content? And if it is not feasible for them to do so, the easiest way out for them, in order to avoid controversy, is to not allow access to the site at all, which is our loss. Andreas The only existing US law that I think Commons might possibly not be complying with is the requirement to ensure that the models of some pictures are not minors; to what extent these provisions might be retroactive, IANAL, much less a specialist in these matters, is something that I do not know. But I do know about matters pertaining to libraries, and the responsibility for filtering is on them, not the information providers, or the sites which post the information. Most libraries deal with this by outsourcing, and relying on the standards of the providers of the filters. I see no reason why we should cooperate with censorship, however well intentioned. We should, however, maintain our own standards. (Because it is appropriate to provide some guides about our content to users generally, maintaining certain images in a collection labelled BDSM, and ensuring they have clearly descriptive titles--which remains incomplete in Commons more generally than just these images-- would seem to me quite adequate information about their likely nature. ) David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
Hello, 2010/5/7 jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com: On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 9:41 AM, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote: Hello, 2010/5/7 Noein prono...@gmail.com: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Now, one of the unsolved questions of the WMF is: how do we plan to communicate with analphabets? Thinking that analphabets would get encyclopedic knowledge through VR shows a big misunderstanding of how the cause of analphabetism. If people are analphabets is because they lack the resource to have a proper education, so they won't get any access to a computer, much less to Internet and VR worlds. I can tell you of my experience with people from Kosovo who are not native english speakers, many of have a hard time reading anything longer than 140 characters. The dont like to read and books are very expensive, and the written language is very different than the spoken one. But they *will* watch videos, or listen to some talk, even in english or german or do something interactive. That is why we need videos of people (or computers) reading articles to them that they can pop into their dvd player or have share. more people have some form of ability to play dvds. The mit ocw distributes hdds of data to schools with no internet access, they include video lectures and alot of material. very good stuff. I can imagine, but may be wrong, that in most villages in world, even the poorest, where 99% of the people done have computers and such, at least one person or school in town will have some form of dvd player. In fact, you could distribute articles in image format for a normal dvd player as well. For a DVD player, you are a bit too optimist, for there is not even electricity everywhere. But many people have a mobile phone nowadays, so we could try making MP3 available with encyclopedic content. mike Regards, Yann ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content
On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 3:06 PM, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: ... I see no reason why we should cooperate with censorship, however well intentioned. I think cooperation with censorship is the only safe ground. If we perform censorship ourselves, the quality of our projects suffers and/or contributors leave in disgust. If we are uncooperative with censorship, we are in effect using our projects, which have a very large footprint on the internet, to aggressively force the issue. I think this is a distraction. Whether or not our readers accept or desire censorship is their decision, and it is common for parents to want to censor what their children can access. That is the reality of it. I agree with Andreas that is our loss if we force these people to ban Wikipedia when they would prefer to censor only the most obscene. Instead of deleting pornographic content that we deem important to the projects, we can tag those images in a uniform manner and emit POWDER ICRA labelling[1] or similar. The filters can then scale with us. 1. http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/NOTE-powder-primer-20090901/#ICRA1 -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
