Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-13 Thread Samuel Klein
I continue to be inspired by the quality of discourse in this debate.

Noein, I appreciate all of the points you make below, but want to call
out one in particular:

> My current vision is that there are several main obstacles to a free
> interaction, for example:
> - - illiteracy
> - - no internet access
> - - cultural rejection
> - - political censorship

Also "- - language barrier" for people literate in a language with no content.

You are right that we should consider what we can do about pragmatic
obstacles.  And all of these are of real importance.  Communities that
are restricted by one of these obstacles are often those most in need
of free access to information.

Sam


On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 2:31 PM, Noein  wrote:
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On 13/05/2010 13:01, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>> I don't know that reaching everybody was ever a stated goal. Being
>> theoretically available to everybody is a different matter...
> Ah, that's the part that is not clear to me. If you talk about the
> intrinsic properties of the Big Project, I agree that the core must be
> free, uncensored resources.
>
> My concern, however, is about the interface with the real world, that
> is, the way this project containing information, ideas and knowledge
> (specifically set in the context of the 21st century, mostly english
> language, mostly western, mostly rich users) interacts with mankind.
>
> Allow me to explain:
>
> My current vision is that there are several main obstacles to a free
> interaction, for example:
> - - illiteracy
> - - no internet access
> - - cultural rejection
> - - political censorship
>
> With this context, I wonder if being theoretically available is enough,
> or if the Foundation and community should worry about solving or
> circumventing the pragmatical obstacles.
>
> I understand the debate of the last days as an example about what I call
> a political censorship, in a very generic meaning: an arsenal of
> cultural values and technological means that forbid some ideas to
> circulate, thus governing the minds into certain authorized or tolerated
> behaviours (and thoughts).
>
> I think most of mankind feel some kind of taboos are necessary to
> achieved a civilized society. This feeling leads to the need (and thus
> acceptation) of laws, which can be viewed as a legitimized form of
> censorship.
>
> Because of this generalized feeling towards laws, it is impossible to
> sum up all the knowledge of humanity without offending each of these
> cultural laws, and thus incommoding their believers. Abiding to the
> cultural laws of a community gives a sense of belonging, of identity, of
> security... It's a strong, common urge.
>
> Let's add to this fact that many of those laws are in the hands of
> "tutors" who use them as a tool to shape their "protected ones". (It
> doesn't matter if I agree with their values or not, I'm focused on the
> mechanism.)
>
> The result is that you have deciding people between the foundation
> projects and their potential users, deciding people that have control of
> the flow of information. If they lose this control they lose power and
> their community (or child, for example) will lose faith in the official
> values and may start differing. From their perspective, it's the
> beginning of chaos.
>
>
> So, back to Wikipedia an Commons. Allowing such conflicts (free
> universal information versus locally controlled information) would
> antagonize the leaders and "disturb" the society order (which may be
> viewed as good or bad from our point of view, but is usually terrifying
> from theirs).
>
> The pragmatical approach seen in the debates is to compromise enough to
> avoid the conflicts and keep reaching the censored masses, minimizing
> the compromise of principles.
>
> The idealistic approach seems to only care about the internal community.
> For example:
>
>> David (a real thought leader) Goodman wrote:
>>> If there is a wish for a similar but censored
>>> service, this can be best done  by forking ours;
>
> But the wish to censor is not internal (except for parent maybe), thus a
> fork wouldn't be followed by users. It's not users who want the
> censorship system, it's detractors who don't want any out of their
> control, free access to information to begin with.
>
> My impressions from the last events is that people who believe in
> Wikipedia and Commons projects don't wish major changes to the
> censorship system that is satisfactorily self-managed by the users and
> editors.
>
> I think the people who feel strongly threatened by the lack of
> censorship on Wikipedia and Commons are whether from an opposing side or
> on a confused, testing phase. Because there is a war of influence, I
> wonder if we are robust enough to ignore the "enemies" we're creating by
> our very existence, given that they are influential. Fox News, Iran,
> China are just symptoms: what's happening here is that we're beginning
> to be a threat, imho, and that an esca

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-13 Thread Samuel Klein
On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 5:59 PM, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
> This post by David does prove that it is possible to argue, with intellectual 
> integrity, that there are more important things at stake than getting Commons 
> into schools.

Yes.  All of our core principles are designed to maximize the
long-term benefit to humanity of free access to human knowledge; and
those things are generally more important than any specific goal such
as outreach to schools.


David Goodman writes:
>>  if we do not offer comprehensive free uncensored but
>> reliable information, who will?

This is well said, as is the rest of your post.  Having comprehensive
free uncensored reliable information is essential to our mission.  So
is having information that is freely available to everyone.  But there
are barriers to both of these goals, and we will realize each of them
partly on our own and partly through collaboration with other
projects.


Other comments:

* Currently we do censor in the name of notability.  In particular,
established groups of editors censor the work of those who have
different notability standards.   Is this the right approach to take,
or do you see those subselections also happening outside of a big tent
for uncensored knowledge?

 * The Matthew effect has implications: modest changes to how
welcoming we are can significantly expand the community contributing
to free knowledge -- in a way that the right to fork has not.  And
unfriendliness often stems from editors who are "defending core
principles" on the wikis.  So it is worth finding ways to uphold our
principles respectfully, without driving people away.


About China's big online encyclopedias:

> All we can do in response is continue our own model, and hope that
> at some point their social values will change to see the virtues of it.

There is more that we can and should do.  We should acknowledge the
good work Hudong and Baike are doing to share knowledge - tremendously
furthering part of our mission (if not the 'uncensored' part,
certainly encouraging a generation of collaborators). [1]

And, as with the Encyclopedia of Life, we should recognize that they
are providing very meaningful cooperative competition.  They are
exploring different ways of presenting knowledge, creating views for
multiple audiences, and building social networks and games around
knowledge-creation -- all things we should be thinking hard about.  We
can learn quite a bit from one another before stumbling over
licensing.

Sam

[1] Hudong's 'learn, create, collaborate' is a good slogan.


>> From: David Goodman 
>> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion 
>> is happening
>> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" 
>> Date: Wednesday, 12 May, 2010, 21:50
>> Even more than what  Ray says:
>>
>>  if we do not offer comprehensive free uncensored but
>> reliable
>> information, who will?  Other sites may feel they have
>> to censor;
>> other  uncensored sites may and mostly do have little
>> standards of
>> reliability. Some uncensored reliable sites are likely to
>> require some
>> form of payment, either directly or through advertising or
>> government
>> support.   If there is a audience for
>> compromised sources of
>> information, there are many organizations eager to provide
>> it.
>>
>> Other free uncensored reliable projects can be very
>> important in their
>> sphere, but we have an almost universal range. We're at
>> present
>> unique, which we owe  to the historical fact  of
>> having been able to
>> attract a large community, committed to free access in
>> every sense,
>> operating in a manner which requires no financial support
>> beyond what
>> can be obtained from voluntary contributions, and tied to
>> no groups
>> with pre-existing agendas--except the general agenda of
>> free
>> information.   That we alone have been able
>> to get there is initially
>> the courage and vision of the founders, their correct guess
>> that the
>> conventional wisdom that this would be unworkable was
>> erroneous, the
>> general world-wide attractiveness of the notion of free
>> information,
>> and, at this point , the Matthew effect, that we are of
>> such size and
>> importance that working here is likely to be more
>> attractive and more
>> effective than working elsewhere--and thus our continuing
>> ability to
>> attract very large numbers of volunteer workers of many
>> cultural
>> backgrounds.
>>
>> We have everything to lose by compromising any of the
>> principles. To
>> the extent we ever become commercial, or censored , or
&g

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-13 Thread Noein
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 13/05/2010 13:01, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> I don't know that reaching everybody was ever a stated goal. Being
> theoretically available to everybody is a different matter...
Ah, that's the part that is not clear to me. If you talk about the
intrinsic properties of the Big Project, I agree that the core must be
free, uncensored resources.

My concern, however, is about the interface with the real world, that
is, the way this project containing information, ideas and knowledge
(specifically set in the context of the 21st century, mostly english
language, mostly western, mostly rich users) interacts with mankind.

Allow me to explain:

My current vision is that there are several main obstacles to a free
interaction, for example:
- - illiteracy
- - no internet access
- - cultural rejection
- - political censorship

With this context, I wonder if being theoretically available is enough,
or if the Foundation and community should worry about solving or
circumventing the pragmatical obstacles.

I understand the debate of the last days as an example about what I call
a political censorship, in a very generic meaning: an arsenal of
cultural values and technological means that forbid some ideas to
circulate, thus governing the minds into certain authorized or tolerated
behaviours (and thoughts).

I think most of mankind feel some kind of taboos are necessary to
achieved a civilized society. This feeling leads to the need (and thus
acceptation) of laws, which can be viewed as a legitimized form of
censorship.

Because of this generalized feeling towards laws, it is impossible to
sum up all the knowledge of humanity without offending each of these
cultural laws, and thus incommoding their believers. Abiding to the
cultural laws of a community gives a sense of belonging, of identity, of
security... It's a strong, common urge.

Let's add to this fact that many of those laws are in the hands of
"tutors" who use them as a tool to shape their "protected ones". (It
doesn't matter if I agree with their values or not, I'm focused on the
mechanism.)

The result is that you have deciding people between the foundation
projects and their potential users, deciding people that have control of
the flow of information. If they lose this control they lose power and
their community (or child, for example) will lose faith in the official
values and may start differing. From their perspective, it's the
beginning of chaos.


So, back to Wikipedia an Commons. Allowing such conflicts (free
universal information versus locally controlled information) would
antagonize the leaders and "disturb" the society order (which may be
viewed as good or bad from our point of view, but is usually terrifying
from theirs).

The pragmatical approach seen in the debates is to compromise enough to
avoid the conflicts and keep reaching the censored masses, minimizing
the compromise of principles.

The idealistic approach seems to only care about the internal community.
For example:

> David (a real thought leader) Goodman wrote:
>> If there is a wish for a similar but censored
>> service, this can be best done  by forking ours; 

But the wish to censor is not internal (except for parent maybe), thus a
fork wouldn't be followed by users. It's not users who want the
censorship system, it's detractors who don't want any out of their
control, free access to information to begin with.

My impressions from the last events is that people who believe in
Wikipedia and Commons projects don't wish major changes to the
censorship system that is satisfactorily self-managed by the users and
editors.

I think the people who feel strongly threatened by the lack of
censorship on Wikipedia and Commons are whether from an opposing side or
on a confused, testing phase. Because there is a war of influence, I
wonder if we are robust enough to ignore the "enemies" we're creating by
our very existence, given that they are influential. Fox News, Iran,
China are just symptoms: what's happening here is that we're beginning
to be a threat, imho, and that an escalation of hostility is to be
expected the more we are successful and they become aware of us.

Is it wise to ignore how the rest of the world reacts to the free access
of information? Can the community thrives only on the shoulders of the
people not offended by our current handling of information, or not?

I don't know the answer, but I think we should be attentive and
realistic enough to avoid a war, for example. That is not saying that we
should change or compromise just to please. But if we choose to
compromise, in this case allow some kind of censorship, forked or not,
we need to know what's at stake and the dangers.

Most of the libertarian communities that I know failed because they were
too disturbing / annoying for the surrounding powers. There should be a
constant acute perception of that. Maybe I've been too long in South
America to have blind faith in our enemies, but a n

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-13 Thread Gregory Maxwell
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 11:37 AM, Noein  wrote:
> Thank you for this deep analysis. While claiming that we should not
> compromise any of the principles, you didn't address directly the
> possibility that we won't reach everybody if we don't compromise.
> Reaching every human is a (currently and apparently) conflicting
> principle with free uncensored information. What is your vision about
> that? Wait for better times? Do you think that with time, the inherent
> virtues of our model will end convincing the reluctant or opposed people
> of today?

I don't know that reaching everybody was ever a stated goal. Being
theoretically available to everybody is a different matter...

In any case this issue has been specifically addressed here:

David (a real thought leader) Goodman wrote:
> If there is a wish for a similar but censored
> service, this can be best done  by forking ours; if there is a wish to
> abandon NPOV or permit commercialism, by expanding on our basis. We do
> not discourage these things; our licensing is in fact tailored to
> permitting them--but we should stay distinct from them. We have
> provided a general purpose feed and suitable metadata, and what the
> rest of the world does is up to them--our goal is not to monopolize
> the provision of information.

Kat Walsh wrote:
> Another principle to state related to this (that I've been trying to
> think about how to expand upon): no resource that is
> compatibly-licensed is our adversary, and we should encourage that
> sort of "competition".

Obsessively chasing every last reader, every last editor, regardless
of other factors is just as evil as the practice of chasing every last
dollar.  Diversity is good.

Insisting that our _project_, rather than just the benefits of our
good work, directly reach into the lives of each and every person,
regardless of the costs?   I'd call that megalomania.

That isn't to say that balancing audience vs other factors isn't an
important thing to do— the decision to run multiple language
Wikipedias rather than just teach everyone English was arguably one
such decision— but we _do_ have an answer for how we're going to help
the people who are inevitably left out.  We help them by being freely
licensed so that its easier for others to specialize in helping those
audiences.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-13 Thread Noein
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Thank you for this deep analysis. While claiming that we should not
compromise any of the principles, you didn't address directly the
possibility that we won't reach everybody if we don't compromise.
Reaching every human is a (currently and apparently) conflicting
principle with free uncensored information. What is your vision about
that? Wait for better times? Do you think that with time, the inherent
virtues of our model will end convincing the reluctant or opposed people
of today?

On 12/05/2010 17:50, David Goodman wrote:
> Even more than what  Ray says:
> 
>  if we do not offer comprehensive free uncensored but reliable
> information, who will?  Other sites may feel they have to censor;
> other  uncensored sites may and mostly do have little standards of
> reliability. Some uncensored reliable sites are likely to require some
> form of payment, either directly or through advertising or government
> support.   If there is a audience for compromised sources of
> information, there are many organizations eager to provide it.
> 
> Other free uncensored reliable projects can be very important in their
> sphere, but we have an almost universal range. We're at present
> unique, which we owe  to the historical fact  of having been able to
> attract a large community, committed to free access in every sense,
> operating in a manner which requires no financial support beyond what
> can be obtained from voluntary contributions, and tied to no groups
> with pre-existing agendas--except the general agenda of free
> information.   That we alone have been able to get there is initially
> the courage and vision of the founders, their correct guess that the
> conventional wisdom that this would be unworkable was erroneous, the
> general world-wide attractiveness of the notion of free information,
> and, at this point , the Matthew effect, that we are of such size and
> importance that working here is likely to be more attractive and more
> effective than working elsewhere--and thus our continuing ability to
> attract very large numbers of volunteer workers of many cultural
> backgrounds.
> 
> We have everything to lose by compromising any of the principles. To
> the extent we ever become commercial, or censored , or unreliable, we
> will be submerged in the mass of better funded information providers.
> On the contrary, they have an interest in supporting what we do,
> because we provide  what they cannot and give the basis for
> specialized endeavors. If there is a wish for a similar but censored
> service, this can be best done  by forking ours; if there is a wish to
> abandon NPOV or permit commercialism, by expanding on our basis. We do
> not discourage these things; our licensing is in fact tailored to
> permitting them--but we should stay distinct from them. We have
> provided a general purpose feed and suitable metadata, and what the
> rest of the world does is up to them--our goal is not to monopolize
> the provision of information. We need not provide specialized
> hooks--just continue our goal for improved quality and organization of
> the content and the metadata.
> 
> That China has chosen to take parts of our model and develop
> independently in line with its government's policy, rather than
> forking us,  is possible because of the size of the government effort
> and, like us, the very large potential number of interested and
> willing highly literate and well-educated participants. All we can do
> in response is continue our own model, and hope that at some point
> their social values will change to see the virtues of it. If some
> other countries do similarly, we will at least have contributed the
> idea of a workable very large scale intent encyclopedia with user
> input. All information is good, though free information is better. If
> those in the Anglo-american sphere wish to censor, they know at least
> they have a potent uncensored competitor that it practice will also be
> available, which cannot but induce therm to a more liberal policy than
> if we did not have our standards.
> 
> I wish very much Citizendium had succeeded--the existence of
> intellectual coopetition is a good thing. Even as it is, I think they
> have been a strong force in causing us to improve our formerly
> inadequate standards of reliability--as well as demonstrating by their
> failure the need for a very large committed group to emulate what we
> have accomplished, and also demonstrating the unworkability of
> excessively rigid organization and an exclusively expert-bound
> approach to content. I'm glad Larry did what he did in founding
> it--had it achieved more ,so would we have also.
> 
> 
> David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 2:55 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
>> Milos Rancic wrote:
>>> On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
>>>
 Milos Rancic wrote:

> On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-12 Thread Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva
2010/5/12 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen :
(...)
> Which brings to mind a question. Is there useful
> content on Citizendium that might be ported over
> to Wikipedia?

their best stuff is supposed to be here,
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Category:Approved_Articles

-- 
Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-12 Thread Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
Kat Walsh wrote:
> On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 4:53 PM, David Gerard  wrote:
>   
>> On 12 May 2010 21:50, David Goodman  wrote:
>>
>> 
>>> Even more than what  Ray says:
>>>   
>> +1 to this entire email.
>> 
>
> Ditto.
>
> Another principle to state related to this (that I've been trying to
> think about how to expand upon): no resource that is
> compatibly-licensed is our adversary, and we should encourage that
> sort of "competition".
>
>
>   
Which brings to mind a question. Is there useful
content on Citizendium that might be ported over
to Wikipedia?


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-12 Thread Kat Walsh
On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 4:53 PM, David Gerard  wrote:
> On 12 May 2010 21:50, David Goodman  wrote:
>
>> Even more than what  Ray says:
>
>
> +1 to this entire email.

Ditto.

Another principle to state related to this (that I've been trying to
think about how to expand upon): no resource that is
compatibly-licensed is our adversary, and we should encourage that
sort of "competition".

-Kat



-- 
Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en
Wikimedia, Press: k...@wikimedia.org * Personal: k...@mindspillage.org
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-12 Thread Andreas Kolbe
This post by David does prove that it is possible to argue, with intellectual 
integrity, that there are more important things at stake than getting Commons 
into schools. 

Andreas

--- On Wed, 12/5/10, David Goodman  wrote:

> From: David Goodman 
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion 
> is happening
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" 
> Date: Wednesday, 12 May, 2010, 21:50
> Even more than what  Ray says:
> 
>  if we do not offer comprehensive free uncensored but
> reliable
> information, who will?  Other sites may feel they have
> to censor;
> other  uncensored sites may and mostly do have little
> standards of
> reliability. Some uncensored reliable sites are likely to
> require some
> form of payment, either directly or through advertising or
> government
> support.   If there is a audience for
> compromised sources of
> information, there are many organizations eager to provide
> it.
> 
> Other free uncensored reliable projects can be very
> important in their
> sphere, but we have an almost universal range. We're at
> present
> unique, which we owe  to the historical fact  of
> having been able to
> attract a large community, committed to free access in
> every sense,
> operating in a manner which requires no financial support
> beyond what
> can be obtained from voluntary contributions, and tied to
> no groups
> with pre-existing agendas--except the general agenda of
> free
> information.   That we alone have been able
> to get there is initially
> the courage and vision of the founders, their correct guess
> that the
> conventional wisdom that this would be unworkable was
> erroneous, the
> general world-wide attractiveness of the notion of free
> information,
> and, at this point , the Matthew effect, that we are of
> such size and
> importance that working here is likely to be more
> attractive and more
> effective than working elsewhere--and thus our continuing
> ability to
> attract very large numbers of volunteer workers of many
> cultural
> backgrounds.
> 
> We have everything to lose by compromising any of the
> principles. To
> the extent we ever become commercial, or censored , or
> unreliable, we
> will be submerged in the mass of better funded information
> providers.
> On the contrary, they have an interest in supporting what
> we do,
> because we provide  what they cannot and give the
> basis for
> specialized endeavors. If there is a wish for a similar but
> censored
> service, this can be best done  by forking ours; if
> there is a wish to
> abandon NPOV or permit commercialism, by expanding on our
> basis. We do
> not discourage these things; our licensing is in fact
> tailored to
> permitting them--but we should stay distinct from them. We
> have
> provided a general purpose feed and suitable metadata, and
> what the
> rest of the world does is up to them--our goal is not to
> monopolize
> the provision of information. We need not provide
> specialized
> hooks--just continue our goal for improved quality and
> organization of
> the content and the metadata.
> 
> That China has chosen to take parts of our model and
> develop
> independently in line with its government's policy, rather
> than
> forking us,  is possible because of the size of the
> government effort
> and, like us, the very large potential number of interested
> and
> willing highly literate and well-educated participants. All
> we can do
> in response is continue our own model, and hope that at
> some point
> their social values will change to see the virtues of it.
> If some
> other countries do similarly, we will at least have
> contributed the
> idea of a workable very large scale intent encyclopedia
> with user
> input. All information is good, though free information is
> better. If
> those in the Anglo-american sphere wish to censor, they
> know at least
> they have a potent uncensored competitor that it practice
> will also be
> available, which cannot but induce therm to a more liberal
> policy than
> if we did not have our standards.
> 
> I wish very much Citizendium had succeeded--the existence
> of
> intellectual coopetition is a good thing. Even as it is, I
> think they
> have been a strong force in causing us to improve our
> formerly
> inadequate standards of reliability--as well as
> demonstrating by their
> failure the need for a very large committed group to
> emulate what we
> have accomplished, and also demonstrating the unworkability
> of
> excessively rigid organization and an exclusively
> expert-bound
> approach to content. I'm glad Larry di

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-12 Thread David Gerard
On 12 May 2010 21:50, David Goodman  wrote:

> Even more than what  Ray says:


+1 to this entire email.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-12 Thread David Goodman
Even more than what  Ray says:

 if we do not offer comprehensive free uncensored but reliable
information, who will?  Other sites may feel they have to censor;
other  uncensored sites may and mostly do have little standards of
reliability. Some uncensored reliable sites are likely to require some
form of payment, either directly or through advertising or government
support.   If there is a audience for compromised sources of
information, there are many organizations eager to provide it.

Other free uncensored reliable projects can be very important in their
sphere, but we have an almost universal range. We're at present
unique, which we owe  to the historical fact  of having been able to
attract a large community, committed to free access in every sense,
operating in a manner which requires no financial support beyond what
can be obtained from voluntary contributions, and tied to no groups
with pre-existing agendas--except the general agenda of free
information.   That we alone have been able to get there is initially
the courage and vision of the founders, their correct guess that the
conventional wisdom that this would be unworkable was erroneous, the
general world-wide attractiveness of the notion of free information,
and, at this point , the Matthew effect, that we are of such size and
importance that working here is likely to be more attractive and more
effective than working elsewhere--and thus our continuing ability to
attract very large numbers of volunteer workers of many cultural
backgrounds.

We have everything to lose by compromising any of the principles. To
the extent we ever become commercial, or censored , or unreliable, we
will be submerged in the mass of better funded information providers.
On the contrary, they have an interest in supporting what we do,
because we provide  what they cannot and give the basis for
specialized endeavors. If there is a wish for a similar but censored
service, this can be best done  by forking ours; if there is a wish to
abandon NPOV or permit commercialism, by expanding on our basis. We do
not discourage these things; our licensing is in fact tailored to
permitting them--but we should stay distinct from them. We have
provided a general purpose feed and suitable metadata, and what the
rest of the world does is up to them--our goal is not to monopolize
the provision of information. We need not provide specialized
hooks--just continue our goal for improved quality and organization of
the content and the metadata.

That China has chosen to take parts of our model and develop
independently in line with its government's policy, rather than
forking us,  is possible because of the size of the government effort
and, like us, the very large potential number of interested and
willing highly literate and well-educated participants. All we can do
in response is continue our own model, and hope that at some point
their social values will change to see the virtues of it. If some
other countries do similarly, we will at least have contributed the
idea of a workable very large scale intent encyclopedia with user
input. All information is good, though free information is better. If
those in the Anglo-american sphere wish to censor, they know at least
they have a potent uncensored competitor that it practice will also be
available, which cannot but induce therm to a more liberal policy than
if we did not have our standards.

I wish very much Citizendium had succeeded--the existence of
intellectual coopetition is a good thing. Even as it is, I think they
have been a strong force in causing us to improve our formerly
inadequate standards of reliability--as well as demonstrating by their
failure the need for a very large committed group to emulate what we
have accomplished, and also demonstrating the unworkability of
excessively rigid organization and an exclusively expert-bound
approach to content. I'm glad Larry did what he did in founding
it--had it achieved more ,so would we have also.


David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 2:55 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
> Milos Rancic wrote:
>> On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
>>
>>> Milos Rancic wrote:
>>>
 On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Sue Gardner  
 wrote:

> Let me know if I'm missing anything important.
>
 Actually, yes. In spite of multicultural nature of Wikimedia, this
 process shouldn't be formulated as purely related to sexual content,
 but as related to cultural taboos or to "offensive imagery" if we want
 to use euphemism.

 Under the same category are:
 * sexual content;
 * images Muhammad;
 * images of sacral places of many tribes;
 * etc.

>>> I'm sure you mean "sacred" instead of "sacral" :-) .
>>>
>>
>> I've just went to Wikipedia [1] (accidentally, instead of Wiktionary)
>> to see the difference between "sacral" and "sacred" and I've seen that
>> those words are synonyms. Any

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-12 Thread Ray Saintonge
Milos Rancic wrote:
> On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
>   
>> Milos Rancic wrote:
>> 
>>> On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Sue Gardner  wrote:
>>>   
 Let me know if I'm missing anything important.
 
>>> Actually, yes. In spite of multicultural nature of Wikimedia, this
>>> process shouldn't be formulated as purely related to sexual content,
>>> but as related to cultural taboos or to "offensive imagery" if we want
>>> to use euphemism.
>>>
>>> Under the same category are:
>>> * sexual content;
>>> * images Muhammad;
>>> * images of sacral places of many tribes;
>>> * etc.
>>>   
>> I'm sure you mean "sacred" instead of "sacral" :-) .
>> 
>
> I've just went to Wikipedia [1] (accidentally, instead of Wiktionary)
> to see the difference between "sacral" and "sacred" and I've seen that
> those words are synonyms. Anyhow, it is good to know that "sacral" is
> at leas ambiguous. ("Sacral" is a borrowed word in Serbian, too; and
> Latin words make life easier to one native speaker of Serbian when he
> speaks English [and some other languages] :) )
>
>   

Borrowed words can also be false friends.  "Sacral" as "sacred" tends to 
be a more recent and specialized usage of the word, applicable to, 
according to the Oxford English Dictionary, anthropology and religion.  
Sometimes for me the danger is to know the language too well, and in the 
present context that started with pornographic images I only too easily 
imagined a series of photos about the "sacral places" of individuals. :-D

>> Censoring by default puts us back in the same old conflict of having to
>> decide what to censor.  Given a random 100 penis pictures we perhaps
>> need to ask questions like what distinguishes penis picture #27 from
>> penis picture #82.  The same could be asked about numerous photographs
>> of national penises like the Washington Monument or Eiffel Tower.
>> 
> ...
>   
>> Voting is evil, particularly when it entrenches the tyranny of the majority.
>> 
> People should be able to choose categories and to vote about them.
>   

That doesn't seem very practical. The choice of categories would itself 
be the source of disputes. If what is seen depends on where one lives 
there would be an endless stream of variations that could not be easily 
tracked. A 51% vote can as easily go in the opposite direction on the 
very next day.
> That part of proposal is not about denying to anyone to see something,
> but to put defaults on what not logged in users could see. There
> should be a [very] visible link, like on Google images search, which
> would easily overwrite the default rules. Personal permission would
> overwrite them, too. (If I was not clear up to now, "cultural
> censorship" won't forbid to anyone to see anything. It would be just
> *default*, which could be easily overwritten.)
>   

I agree that users' choice should be paramount. Making that choice needs 
to be carefully worded.  Simply putting, "Do you want to see dirty 
pictures?" on the Main Page would inspire people to actively look for 
those pictures.
> The point is that "cultural censorship" should reflect dominant
> position of one culture. My position is that we shouldn't define that
> one of our goals is to enlighten anyone. We should build knowledge
> repository and everyone should be free to use it. However, if some
> culture is oppressive and not permissive, it is not up to us to
> *actively* work on making that culture not oppressive and permissive.
> The other issue is that I strongly believe that free and permissive
> cultures are superior in comparison with other ones.
>   

Reflecting the dominance of one culture is dangerous, and in the extreme 
has led to genocidal behaviour, and served to make the great inquisition 
holy.

It is somewhat naïve to believe that we can limit ourselves to strictly 
factual data. There is implicit enlightenment in the choice of which 
facts to present. The encyclopedists of the 18th century likely thought 
of themselves as bringers of enlightenment. The 1389 Battle of Kosovo is 
of great historical importance to Serbs, but another group might not 
attach such importance to a battle from more than six centuries ago and 
omit iit entirely.

I agree that liberating oppressed people is not one of our tasks.  We 
should not be the ones going into China or Iran to make a fuss when 
those governments have blocked access to Wikimedia projects. That's up 
to the residents of those countries. Nor should we alter our 
presentation of data when those governments insist on their version of 
the truth.  It's unfortunate that some governments would view a 
dispassionate treatment of facts as subversive.

> So, basically, if residents of Texas decide to censor all images of
> Bay Area, including the Golden Gate Bridge, because they worry that
> Bay Area values are transmissible via Internet (as they are), I don't
> have anything against it. If more than 50% of Wikipedia users from

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-12 Thread Milos Rancic
On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 1:32 AM, Milos Rancic  wrote:
> those words are synonyms. Anyhow, it is good to know that "sacral" is
> at leas ambiguous.

"sacral" -> "sacred"

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-11 Thread Milos Rancic
On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
> Milos Rancic wrote:
>> On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Sue Gardner  wrote:
>>
>>> Let me know if I'm missing anything important.
>>>
>> Actually, yes. In spite of multicultural nature of Wikimedia, this
>> process shouldn't be formulated as purely related to sexual content,
>> but as related to cultural taboos or to "offensive imagery" if we want
>> to use euphemism.
>>
>> Under the same category are:
>> * sexual content;
>> * images Muhammad;
>> * images of sacral places of many tribes;
>> * etc.
>>
>
> I'm sure you mean "sacred" instead of "sacral" :-) .

I've just went to Wikipedia [1] (accidentally, instead of Wiktionary)
to see the difference between "sacral" and "sacred" and I've seen that
those words are synonyms. Anyhow, it is good to know that "sacral" is
at leas ambiguous. ("Sacral" is a borrowed word in Serbian, too; and
Latin words make life easier to one native speaker of Serbian when he
speaks English [and some other languages] :) )

> We want to facilitate private decisions, not make them for people.

Agreed. My mail was partially self-contradictory. I've realized that
it is not so good idea to decide what shouldn't be seen by default
even though we could reasonably suppose that.

> Censoring by default puts us back in the same old conflict of having to
> decide what to censor.  Given a random 100 penis pictures we perhaps
> need to ask questions like what distinguishes penis picture #27 from
> penis picture #82.  The same could be asked about numerous photographs
> of national penises like the Washington Monument or Eiffel Tower.
...
> Voting is evil, particularly when it entrenches the tyranny of the majority.

People should be able to choose categories and to vote about them.

That part of proposal is not about denying to anyone to see something,
but to put defaults on what not logged in users could see. There
should be a [very] visible link, like on Google images search, which
would easily overwrite the default rules. Personal permission would
overwrite them, too. (If I was not clear up to now, "cultural
censorship" won't forbid to anyone to see anything. It would be just
*default*, which could be easily overwritten.)

The point is that "cultural censorship" should reflect dominant
position of one culture. My position is that we shouldn't define that
one of our goals is to enlighten anyone. We should build knowledge
repository and everyone should be free to use it. However, if some
culture is oppressive and not permissive, it is not up to us to
*actively* work on making that culture not oppressive and permissive.
The other issue is that I strongly believe that free and permissive
cultures are superior in comparison with other ones.

So, basically, if residents of Texas decide to censor all images of
Bay Area, including the Golden Gate Bridge, because they worry that
Bay Area values are transmissible via Internet (as they are), I don't
have anything against it. If more than 50% of Wikipedia users from
Texas think so, let it be. Other inhabitants of Texas would need just
to simply click on "I don't want to be censored" if they are not
logged in, or they could adjust their settings as they like if they
are logged in.

But, I would be, of course, completely fine if we implement censorship
just on [voluntary] personal basis and thus just for logged in users.
(As well as we don't implement censorship at all.)

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-11 Thread Florence Devouard
On 5/11/10 7:40 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Sue Gardner wrote:
>> Yeah. I don't remember exactly what Ting said, and even if I did, I wouldn't 
>> comment on it.  But FWIW to your point, Ting's not in a chapters-selected 
>> seat; Ting was elected by the Wikimedia community.
>>
>>
> His seat doesn't come up for re-election until next year, but I'm sure
> somebody will remember this discussion during that campaign.
>
> Ec


Nod.

This year, the two positions up for replacement are the chapter-selected 
people (currently Arne and Michael occupy these seats).



Ant


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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-11 Thread Ray Saintonge
Milos Rancic wrote:
> On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Sue Gardner  wrote:
>   
>> Let me know if I'm missing anything important.
>> 
> Actually, yes. In spite of multicultural nature of Wikimedia, this
> process shouldn't be formulated as purely related to sexual content,
> but as related to cultural taboos or to "offensive imagery" if we want
> to use euphemism.
>
> Under the same category are:
> * sexual content;
> * images Muhammad;
> * images of sacral places of many tribes;
> * etc.
>   

I'm sure you mean "sacred" instead of "sacral" :-) .


> Although it is not the same medium, under the same category are all
> texts which some culture may treat as offensive. So, censorship
> categorization below assumes categorization of media *and texts*.
>   

Fair enough.
> Important note is that we have to put some principles before going
> into the process:
> 1) We don't want to censor ourselves (out of illegal material under
> the US and Florida laws).
> 2) We want to allow voluntary auto-censorship on personal basis.
> (Anyone can decide which categories he or she doesn't want to see.)
> 3) We should allow voluntary/default censorship on cultural basis, as
> the most of our readers are not registered. (Based on IP address of
> reader. Thus, pictures of Muhammad should be shown by default for
> someone from Germany, but shouldn't be shown by default to someone
> from Saudi Arabia. In all cases there has to be possibility to
> overrule such censorship by simple click or by preferences.)
> 4) We shouldn't help any kind of organized censorship by any
> organization. For example, if looking at the naked body is prohibited
> in some [Western] school even for educational purposes of teaching
> anatomy, it is not our responsibility to censor it. Contrary, as naked
> body is much deeper taboo in Muslim world, it should be censored on
> "cultural basis".
>   

It's also important to keep it simple.  We need to be aware of the 
various hot button issues without judging them.  We want to facilitate 
private decisions, not make them for people.
> Speaking about "default censorship on cultural basis" and in the
> context of the Western cultural standards, this should be contextual.
> Commons gallery of penises should be censored by default, but that
> exemplary image shouldn't be censored inside of the Wikipedia article
> about penis.
>   

Censoring by default puts us back in the same old conflict of having to 
decide what to censor.  Given a random 100 penis pictures we perhaps 
need to ask questions like what distinguishes penis picture #27 from 
penis picture #82.  The same could be asked about numerous photographs 
of national penises like the Washington Monument or Eiffel Tower.
> We should have a voting system for registered users at site like
> "censor.wikimedia.org" can be. At that site *registered* users would
> be able to vote [anonymously] should they or not have censored images
> of any category in their region (again, this is about Google-like
> cultural based censorship which can be overruled by personal wish).
> Users from Germany will definitely put different categories for
> censorship than users from Texas. And it should be respected. Rights
> of more permissive cultures shouldn't be endangered because of rights
> of less permissive cultures.
>
> That kind of voting system would remove the most of responsibility
> from WMF. If majority of users in one culture expressed their wish, it
> is not about us to argue with anyone why is it so.
Voting is evil, particularly when it entrenches the tyranny of the majority.

Ec

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-11 Thread Ray Saintonge
Sue Gardner wrote:
> Yeah. I don't remember exactly what Ting said, and even if I did, I wouldn't 
> comment on it.  But FWIW to your point, Ting's not in a chapters-selected 
> seat; Ting was elected by the Wikimedia community.
>
>   
His seat doesn't come up for re-election until next year, but I'm sure 
somebody will remember this discussion during that campaign.

Ec

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-11 Thread Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Sue Gardner wrote:
>   
>> 1) There has been a very active strand about Jimmy's actions over the
>> past week and his scope of authority, which I think is now resolving.
>> That's mostly happened here and on meta.
>>
>>   
>> 
> What made that one easier to resolve is that the problem could be easily 
> defined, and very specific solutions could be clearly enunciated.
>
> The longer term and more important problems do not adapt very well to 
> easy definitions.
>
>   
Right, the problem was never just Jimmy. The board were
also complicit, so Jimmy shouldn't be made to carry the
can.

I dearly hope none of the staff were complicit, because
they would be even further away from their remit than
the Board of Trustees.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-11 Thread Ray Saintonge
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Hoi,
> What I am missing is that Iran has blocked the whole Wikimedia domain as
> Commons is included in that domain. I understand that the reason is there
> being too much sexual explicit content.  As a consequence this important
> free resource is no longer available to the students of Iran as a resource
> for illustrations for their project work.
>
> What I would like to know is if we have been talking to Iranian politicians
> and / or if we have an understanding of what it takes to ensure that Commons
> becomes available again.

That's ultimately up to the Iranians to find a solution. We should no 
more adapt to their lowest standards of free speech for the sake of 
being accepted than we would stop talking about Tibet to please the 
Chinese government.

Ec

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-11 Thread Ray Saintonge
Sue Gardner wrote:
> 1) There has been a very active strand about Jimmy's actions over the
> past week and his scope of authority, which I think is now resolving.
> That's mostly happened here and on meta.
>
>   
What made that one easier to resolve is that the problem could be easily 
defined, and very specific solutions could be clearly enunciated.

The longer term and more important problems do not adapt very well to 
easy definitions.

Ec

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread Anthony
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Gregory Maxwell  wrote:

> On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 3:34 PM, Mike Godwin  wrote:
> > I just had a thought -- what if it were possible for a user to
> categorically
> > block views of any images that are not linked to in any project's article
> > pages?  Presumably, those Commons images that are found in articles are
> > relevant and appropriately encyclopedic (speaking generally -- I also
> assume
> > there are some exceptions).
>
> A good number of the deleted images were in use... so I don't quite
> know about that, but lets assume it to be true.
>

What is the issue that you're trying to solve?  I thought the issue was with
images which aren't (or, at least, shouldn't be) used on any project.  Yes,
Jimbo confused the issue by deleting some images which were (and/or should
be) used in Wikipedia, but I thought we were pretty much all in agreement
that this was a mistake.

> Images that were just "dumped" to Commons
> > without being associated with any particular article would still be
> > available to those who were looking for them -- perhaps to complement a
> > particular article that needs illustration -- but the umpteenth
> superfluous
> > porn shot (or unconnected Muhammed image) would be invisible to those who
> > chose this option.
> >
> > Obviously, this notion is too cute to actually be helpful, but I thought
> I'd
> > share it.
>
> It has an enormously cute strawman answer:  If you don't want to see
> images which aren't used inline in another wiki, don't look at commons
> at all!   By definition any image in use in a Wikipedia is available
> outside of commons. :)
>

Well, yeah, exactly.  How the issue got moved from non-educational porn to
educational yet offensive images, I really don't know.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread Mike Godwin
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 12:47 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>
> > Obviously, this notion is too cute to actually be helpful, but I thought
> I'd
> > share it.
>
> It has an enormously cute strawman answer:  If you don't want to see
> images which aren't used inline in another wiki, don't look at commons
> at all!   By definition any image in use in a Wikipedia is available
> outside of commons. :)
>

Right. The difference is that instead of simply telling people not to go to
Commons, you could say "go to Commons, but if you only want to see images
that have been deemed to be worth including in an article, click here."

Back in the old days, we used to call this "user empowerment" (I actually
coined the term in mid-1990s for EFF).



> Don't forget that a major reason that people look at commons is
> because Wikipedia articles will usually only have a few illustrations,
> for editorial/flow reasons.  If you're mostly interested in visual
> details about the subject of your interest you'll follow the commons
> link from the Wikipedia article.   ... but in that case your suggested
> image hiding wouldn't be helpful.
>

It might be helpful for people who are worried about seeing images that have
merely been dumped in Commons.  Presumably those who want to see all the
images could click the appropriate option and see all unlinked images as
well.

Remember that the goal here (not my personal goal, but the goal of some) is
less for a "perfect solution" than for a way of avoiding superfluous dumped
images that don't have educational value.  My suggestion is inelegant (there
are no elegant solutions), but also content-neutral (the umpteenth unlinked
image of Lincoln or Gandhi would be blocked too).  That way, the only
offensive images we'd have to defend would be the ones that the community
deemed appropriate to include in an article (a category of images that I
personally am generally willing to defend, regardless of the type of
content).


--Mike
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread Gregory Maxwell
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 3:34 PM, Mike Godwin  wrote:
> I just had a thought -- what if it were possible for a user to categorically
> block views of any images that are not linked to in any project's article
> pages?  Presumably, those Commons images that are found in articles are
> relevant and appropriately encyclopedic (speaking generally -- I also assume
> there are some exceptions).

A good number of the deleted images were in use... so I don't quite
know about that, but lets assume it to be true.


> Images that were just "dumped" to Commons
> without being associated with any particular article would still be
> available to those who were looking for them -- perhaps to complement a
> particular article that needs illustration -- but the umpteenth superfluous
> porn shot (or unconnected Muhammed image) would be invisible to those who
> chose this option.
>
> Obviously, this notion is too cute to actually be helpful, but I thought I'd
> share it.

It has an enormously cute strawman answer:  If you don't want to see
images which aren't used inline in another wiki, don't look at commons
at all!   By definition any image in use in a Wikipedia is available
outside of commons. :)


Don't forget that a major reason that people look at commons is
because Wikipedia articles will usually only have a few illustrations,
for editorial/flow reasons.  If you're mostly interested in visual
details about the subject of your interest you'll follow the commons
link from the Wikipedia article.   ... but in that case your suggested
image hiding wouldn't be helpful.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread Mike Godwin
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 12:41 PM, Milos Rancic  wrote:

>
> And what about choosing "Would you like to see uncategorized images?"
>
> And the same for "cultural censorship": Is your culture brave enough
> to gamble would you be horrified by seeing a penis or Muhammad or not?
>

I'm not sure I understand either question.  The proposal I suggest would
allow you to see uncategorized images if you want to. It would also allow
you to see a penis or Muhammed if you want to (or in encyclopedic articles
about penises or Muhammed images).


--Mike
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread Milos Rancic
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 9:34 PM, Mike Godwin  wrote:
> I just had a thought -- what if it were possible for a user to categorically
> block views of any images that are not linked to in any project's article
> pages?  Presumably, those Commons images that are found in articles are
> relevant and appropriately encyclopedic (speaking generally -- I also assume
> there are some exceptions). Images that were just "dumped" to Commons
> without being associated with any particular article would still be
> available to those who were looking for them -- perhaps to complement a
> particular article that needs illustration -- but the umpteenth superfluous
> porn shot (or unconnected Muhammed image) would be invisible to those who
> chose this option.
>
> Obviously, this notion is too cute to actually be helpful, but I thought I'd
> share it.

And what about choosing "Would you like to see uncategorized images?"

And the same for "cultural censorship": Is your culture brave enough
to gamble would you be horrified by seeing a penis or Muhammad or not?

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread Mike Godwin
David Goodman writes:

I have been taking an extreme anticensorship position, but I would
> consider this acceptable.  People certainly do have the right as
> individuals to select what they want to see.  It is not censorship,
> just a display option Such  display options  could be expanded--I
> would suggest an option to initially display the lead paragraph only,
> of articles in certain categories.
>

I just had a thought -- what if it were possible for a user to categorically
block views of any images that are not linked to in any project's article
pages?  Presumably, those Commons images that are found in articles are
relevant and appropriately encyclopedic (speaking generally -- I also assume
there are some exceptions). Images that were just "dumped" to Commons
without being associated with any particular article would still be
available to those who were looking for them -- perhaps to complement a
particular article that needs illustration -- but the umpteenth superfluous
porn shot (or unconnected Muhammed image) would be invisible to those who
chose this option.

Obviously, this notion is too cute to actually be helpful, but I thought I'd
share it.


--Mike
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread David Goodman
Most browsers have the ability   to not automatically download images,
but display only the ones that one clicks on--a very useful option for
slow connections and those using screen readers.   For some sites with
distracting advertising, I enable it myself before I go there.

But David Gerard's suggestion above would be a very flexible extension of this.


David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:14 PM, Noein  wrote:
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On 10/05/2010 07:56, Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva wrote:
>> 2010/5/10 Marcus Buck :
>>> J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov hett schreven:
 I have a problem with basing it on IP addresses. As a non Muslim in a 
 Muslim
 country, why should Wikimedia decide that *I* cannot see Muhammad pictures
 but that it is perfectly OK to show it to a Muslim in Germany / France
 wherever. I think the world has moved on a bit from the one country, one
 religion / set of values / morals.

>>>
>>> You are of course right. But what is the alternative? The only
>>> alternative is not basing it on location so everybody sees the same.
>>> That's like "one world, one set of values".
>>
>> The alternative is to not censor, in any circumstance, to any kind of
>> audience whatsoever. I must confess I find this particular alternative
>> brilliant.
>>
>> It is imperfect, as any other form of freedom of thought and
>> expression. But other options are more imperfect, not less, in my
>> opinion.
>>
>> I think some projects (like the English Wikipedia) already reached
>> consensus on this issue.
>>
>
> I don't understand exactly your thoughts. What happens to someone who
> wants to navigate Wikipedia or use Commons but doesn't want to reach
> offending (according to his/her personal sensibility) pages? If this
> person wants a protecting tool, what is your answer? You give me the
> impression that you're saying: ignore him, let's let him be offended.
> In this case even if you're think you're right theoretically, you're
> alienating part of humanity from the big project that is reaching them
> all. Creating negligently a strong feeling of rejection with a few month
> of obliviousness to their culture can take dozen of years to repair. I
> don't think the topic should be solved so lighly and bluntly. But maybe
> I'm misunderstanding you.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread David Goodman
I have been taking an extreme anticensorship position, but I would
consider this acceptable.  People certainly do have the right as
individuals to select what they want to see.  It is not censorship,
just a display option Such  display options  could be expanded--I
would suggest an option to initially display the lead paragraph only,
of articles in certain categories.


David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:18 PM, David Gerard  wrote:
> On 10 May 2010 19:14, Noein  wrote:
>
>> I don't understand exactly your thoughts. What happens to someone who
>> wants to navigate Wikipedia or use Commons but doesn't want to reach
>> offending (according to his/her personal sensibility) pages? If this
>> person wants a protecting tool, what is your answer? You give me the
>> impression that you're saying: ignore him, let's let him be offended.
>> In this case even if you're think you're right theoretically, you're
>> alienating part of humanity from the big project that is reaching them
>> all. Creating negligently a strong feeling of rejection with a few month
>> of obliviousness to their culture can take dozen of years to repair. I
>> don't think the topic should be solved so lighly and bluntly. But maybe
>> I'm misunderstanding you.
>
>
> Create a tool (e.g. a JavaScript gadget) that allows a logged-in user
> to block images from Commons or local categories they don't want to
> see images from. Then it's each individual's discretion as to what
> they want not to see, and uses the existing category systems. Popular
> unpopular categories can be offered as a package.
>
>
> - d.
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread geni
On 10 May 2010 19:18, David Gerard  wrote:
> Create a tool (e.g. a JavaScript gadget) that allows a logged-in user
> to block images from Commons or local categories they don't want to
> see images from. Then it's each individual's discretion as to what
> they want not to see, and uses the existing category systems. Popular
> unpopular categories can be offered as a package.

Adblock already exists and can be used to provide exactly the feature
set you describe. I'm not aware of any wikipedia image blocklists
being produced for it.


-- 
geni

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread David Gerard
On 10 May 2010 19:14, Noein  wrote:

> I don't understand exactly your thoughts. What happens to someone who
> wants to navigate Wikipedia or use Commons but doesn't want to reach
> offending (according to his/her personal sensibility) pages? If this
> person wants a protecting tool, what is your answer? You give me the
> impression that you're saying: ignore him, let's let him be offended.
> In this case even if you're think you're right theoretically, you're
> alienating part of humanity from the big project that is reaching them
> all. Creating negligently a strong feeling of rejection with a few month
> of obliviousness to their culture can take dozen of years to repair. I
> don't think the topic should be solved so lighly and bluntly. But maybe
> I'm misunderstanding you.


Create a tool (e.g. a JavaScript gadget) that allows a logged-in user
to block images from Commons or local categories they don't want to
see images from. Then it's each individual's discretion as to what
they want not to see, and uses the existing category systems. Popular
unpopular categories can be offered as a package.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread Noein
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 10/05/2010 07:56, Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva wrote:
> 2010/5/10 Marcus Buck :
>> J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov hett schreven:
>>> I have a problem with basing it on IP addresses. As a non Muslim in a Muslim
>>> country, why should Wikimedia decide that *I* cannot see Muhammad pictures
>>> but that it is perfectly OK to show it to a Muslim in Germany / France
>>> wherever. I think the world has moved on a bit from the one country, one
>>> religion / set of values / morals.
>>>
>>
>> You are of course right. But what is the alternative? The only
>> alternative is not basing it on location so everybody sees the same.
>> That's like "one world, one set of values".
> 
> The alternative is to not censor, in any circumstance, to any kind of
> audience whatsoever. I must confess I find this particular alternative
> brilliant.
> 
> It is imperfect, as any other form of freedom of thought and
> expression. But other options are more imperfect, not less, in my
> opinion.
> 
> I think some projects (like the English Wikipedia) already reached
> consensus on this issue.
> 

I don't understand exactly your thoughts. What happens to someone who
wants to navigate Wikipedia or use Commons but doesn't want to reach
offending (according to his/her personal sensibility) pages? If this
person wants a protecting tool, what is your answer? You give me the
impression that you're saying: ignore him, let's let him be offended.
In this case even if you're think you're right theoretically, you're
alienating part of humanity from the big project that is reaching them
all. Creating negligently a strong feeling of rejection with a few month
of obliviousness to their culture can take dozen of years to repair. I
don't think the topic should be solved so lighly and bluntly. But maybe
I'm misunderstanding you.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread David Goodman
If we follow sexual taboos, which ones do we follow? Some Moslem and
non-Moslem groups object to the depiction of any part of the anatomy,
some to depiction or exposure of certain parts only. Some extend it to
males. Some object to the portray of certain objects in an irreverent
manner--there have been major commotions over such displays of
christian symbols in artworks.
Different cultures have different taboos on the depiction of violence,
taboos not connected with religion.

There are similar cultural restrictions on verbal; expression. There
are the obvious different ones for sexual expression. US law includes
the concept of "community standards" --but our community is the entire
world. Some have taboos against public discussion of any religion not
the majority religion there. Some avoid the public discussion of
politics. And so on endlessly.
Someone above mentioned going by the majority in the region.
Protecting minority interests is part of NPOV, and actively promoting
minority languages is a policy of the WMF.

There is no way to limit censorship. The only consistent positions are
either  to not have external media at all, a position adopted by some
religious groups, or to not have censorship at all.


David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 12:23 PM, Noein  wrote:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Censorship#Some_reflexions_following_the_censorship_polemic_of_May_2010

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread Noein
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

I put my impressions of the moment on this discussion page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Censorship#Some_reflexions_following_the_censorship_polemic_of_May_2010



On 09/05/2010 20:04, Sue Gardner wrote:
> Yeah, Pryzkuta, I know there are lots of debates happening everywhere; that's 
> a good thing --- obviously talking about all this stuff is good, and people 
> should use whatever mechanisms work for them. All the discussions are good, 
> and everybody is bringing useful stuff to the table.
> 
> Re Jimmy, my understanding is that he has voluntarily relinquished the 
> ability to act globally and unlilaterally, in an attempt to bring closure to 
> that thread of discussion, because he thinks it's a distraction from the main 
> conversation.  Which is, the projects contain, and have contained, material 
> which many people (different groups, for different reasons) find 
> objectionable. The main question at hand is: what, if anything, should be 
> done about the inclusion in the projects of potentially objectionable 
> material.  Should we provide warnings about potentially objectionable 
> material, should we make it easy for people to have a "safe" view if they 
> want it, should we make a "safe" view a default view, and so forth.
> 
> My view is that Jimmy and others have brought closure to the "scope of 
> Jimmy's authority" question. In saying that, I don't mean to diminish the 
> importance of that question -- I realize that many people are angry about 
> what's happened over the past week, and it will take time for them to be less 
> angry.   But I think Jimmy's goal --which I support-- is to enable people to 
> now move on to have the more important conversation, about how to resolve the 
> question of objectionable material.
> 
> To recap: it's a big conversation, and it's happening in lots of places. That 
> may need to happen for a while. I would like to see us move into a synthesis 
> phase, where we start talking in a focused way, in a few places, about what 
> we should do to resolve the question of objectionable material.  I think the 
> thread by Derk-Jan is a step towards that.  But it may be that we're not 
> ready to move into a synthesis phase yet: people may still need to vent and 
> brainstorm and so forth, for a while.
> 
> Thanks,
> Sue
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Przykuta przyk...@o2.pl
> Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 00:16:02 
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l]
>   Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the d
>   iscussion ishappening
> 
> 
>> 1) There has been a very active strand about Jimmy's actions over the
>> past week and his scope of authority, which I think is now resolving.
>> That's mostly happened here and on meta.
>>
> Sue - everywhere - mailing lists, IRC channels, village pumps... 
> 
> We need to talk as Wikimedia Community. There is no authority without 
> communication - face to face(s); keyboard to keyboard. The biggest fire (RfC 
> flame) is here: 
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Remove_Founder_flag
> 
> 400 votes - 400 users 
> 
> Maybe the best way will be to start special IRC debate - about past, present 
> and future. (and again, and again, and again - yeah)
> 
> Yes... We have bigger problems, but... maybe not. This is real trouble.
> 
> przykuta
> 
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva
2010/5/10 Marcus Buck :
> J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov hett schreven:
>> I have a problem with basing it on IP addresses. As a non Muslim in a Muslim
>> country, why should Wikimedia decide that *I* cannot see Muhammad pictures
>> but that it is perfectly OK to show it to a Muslim in Germany / France
>> wherever. I think the world has moved on a bit from the one country, one
>> religion / set of values / morals.
>>
>
> You are of course right. But what is the alternative? The only
> alternative is not basing it on location so everybody sees the same.
> That's like "one world, one set of values".

The alternative is to not censor, in any circumstance, to any kind of
audience whatsoever. I must confess I find this particular alternative
brilliant.

It is imperfect, as any other form of freedom of thought and
expression. But other options are more imperfect, not less, in my
opinion.

I think some projects (like the English Wikipedia) already reached
consensus on this issue.

-- 
Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov
2010/5/10 Milos Rancic 

> On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 11:17 AM, J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov
>  wrote:
> > I have a problem with basing it on IP addresses. As a non Muslim in a
> Muslim
> > country, why should Wikimedia decide that *I* cannot see Muhammad
> pictures
> > but that it is perfectly OK to show it to a Muslim in Germany / France
> > wherever. I think the world has moved on a bit from the one country, one
> > religion / set of values / morals.
>
> You didn't read it well or I didn't explain it well. I should be just
> default, like Google image search.
>
> You would be able to override it by:
> * logging into your account; or
> * by simply clicking somewhere that you don't want to be censored.
>
> The only level of censorship which should be imposed on cultural basis
> is "default censorship". That means that just defaults should be in
> accordance to the majority's taboos. However, everyone should be able
> to switch from censored version to not censored version.
>
>
> Apologies, due to email saturation I quite missed "In all cases there has
to be possibility to
overrule such censorship by simple click or by preferences."

That said, the idea of the majority voting for a region doesn't sit well
with me. Muslims account for approximately 6% of the population in France
and it's a lose-lose situation: either the minority manages to prevail
(unlikely) and hence the majority would be subject to a minority POV or the
majority prevails (likely given Wikidemographics) and the minority is
suppressed.

If censorship were only implemented at the user's request (opt-in) then I
would have absolutely no problem with that whatsoever.

AD

AD
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread Marcus Buck
J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov hett schreven:
> I have a problem with basing it on IP addresses. As a non Muslim in a Muslim
> country, why should Wikimedia decide that *I* cannot see Muhammad pictures
> but that it is perfectly OK to show it to a Muslim in Germany / France
> wherever. I think the world has moved on a bit from the one country, one
> religion / set of values / morals.
>   

You are of course right. But what is the alternative? The only 
alternative is not basing it on location so everybody sees the same. 
That's like "one world, one set of values".

Marcus Buck
User:Slomox

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread Milos Rancic
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 11:17 AM, J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov
 wrote:
> I have a problem with basing it on IP addresses. As a non Muslim in a Muslim
> country, why should Wikimedia decide that *I* cannot see Muhammad pictures
> but that it is perfectly OK to show it to a Muslim in Germany / France
> wherever. I think the world has moved on a bit from the one country, one
> religion / set of values / morals.

You didn't read it well or I didn't explain it well. I should be just
default, like Google image search.

You would be able to override it by:
* logging into your account; or
* by simply clicking somewhere that you don't want to be censored.

The only level of censorship which should be imposed on cultural basis
is "default censorship". That means that just defaults should be in
accordance to the majority's taboos. However, everyone should be able
to switch from censored version to not censored version.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov
2010/5/10 Milos Rancic 

> 
> 3) We should allow voluntary/default censorship on cultural basis, as
> the most of our readers are not registered. (Based on IP address of
> reader. Thus, pictures of Muhammad should be shown by default for
> someone from Germany, but shouldn't be shown by default to someone
> from Saudi Arabia. In all cases there has to be possibility to
> overrule such censorship by simple click or by preferences.)
> 


I have a problem with basing it on IP addresses. As a non Muslim in a Muslim
country, why should Wikimedia decide that *I* cannot see Muhammad pictures
but that it is perfectly OK to show it to a Muslim in Germany / France
wherever. I think the world has moved on a bit from the one country, one
religion / set of values / morals.

AD
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-10 Thread Milos Rancic
On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Sue Gardner  wrote:
> Let me know if I'm missing anything important.

Actually, yes. In spite of multicultural nature of Wikimedia, this
process shouldn't be formulated as purely related to sexual content,
but as related to cultural taboos or to "offensive imagery" if we want
to use euphemism.

Under the same category are:
* sexual content;
* images Muhammad;
* images of sacral places of many tribes;
* etc.

Although it is not the same medium, under the same category are all
texts which some culture may treat as offensive. So, censorship
categorization below assumes categorization of media *and texts*.

Important note is that we have to put some principles before going
into the process:
1) We don't want to censor ourselves (out of illegal material under
the US and Florida laws).
2) We want to allow voluntary auto-censorship on personal basis.
(Anyone can decide which categories he or she doesn't want to see.)
3) We should allow voluntary/default censorship on cultural basis, as
the most of our readers are not registered. (Based on IP address of
reader. Thus, pictures of Muhammad should be shown by default for
someone from Germany, but shouldn't be shown by default to someone
from Saudi Arabia. In all cases there has to be possibility to
overrule such censorship by simple click or by preferences.)
4) We shouldn't help any kind of organized censorship by any
organization. For example, if looking at the naked body is prohibited
in some [Western] school even for educational purposes of teaching
anatomy, it is not our responsibility to censor it. Contrary, as naked
body is much deeper taboo in Muslim world, it should be censored on
"cultural basis" (3).

Speaking about "default censorship on cultural basis" and in the
context of the Western cultural standards, this should be contextual.
Commons gallery of penises should be censored by default, but that
exemplary image shouldn't be censored inside of the Wikipedia article
about penis.

We should have a voting system for registered users at site like
"censor.wikimedia.org" can be. At that site *registered* users would
be able to vote [anonymously] should they or not have censored images
of any category in their region (again, this is about Google-like
cultural based censorship which can be overruled by personal wish).
Users from Germany will definitely put different categories for
censorship than users from Texas. And it should be respected. Rights
of more permissive cultures shouldn't be endangered because of rights
of less permissive cultures.

That kind of voting system would remove the most of responsibility
from WMF. If majority of users in one culture expressed their wish, it
is not about us to argue with anyone why is it so.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-09 Thread Samuel Klein
Hi Przykuta,

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 6:16 PM, Przykuta  wrote:
>
> We need to talk as Wikimedia Community. There is no authority without 
> communication - face to face(s); keyboard to keyboard.
<
> Maybe the best way will be to start special IRC debate - about past, present 
> and future. (and again, and again, and again - yeah)

This is a good topic for an open Wikimedia meeting.  I propose having
a chat in #wikimedia on Wednesday, at 1900 UTC:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_meetings#May_12,_2010

I hope to see you there (or to the next iteration, as we do it again and again).

SJ

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-09 Thread Mike Godwin
Geoffrey Plourde writes:

Wouldn't regulating content mean abdicating the role of webhost, which would
> call Section 230 into question?
>

 Mere removal of content posted by others does not create a Section 230
problem or a problem under equivalent provisions elsewhere in the law. A
guideline or policy urged by the Wikimedia Foundation and
adopted/implemented by the volunteer-editor community would not create such
a problem either.


--Mike
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-09 Thread Geoffrey Plourde
Wouldn't regulating content mean abdicating the role of webhost, which would 
call Section 230 into question? 





From: David Gerard 
To: susanpgard...@gmail.com; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List 

Sent: Sun, May 9, 2010 4:21:46 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is 
happening

On 10 May 2010 00:04, Sue Gardner  wrote:

> My view is that Jimmy and others have brought closure to the "scope of 
> Jimmy's authority" question. In saying that, I don't mean to diminish the 
> importance of that question -- I realize that many people are angry about 
> what's happened over the past week, and it will take time for them to be less 
> angry.


Ting's statements on the role of the Board (that it should regulate
project content) will also take some digesting. I doubt chapters
outside the US put people forward for the Board thinking this would
mean the Board supporting content removal to appease Fox News.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-09 Thread Sue Gardner
Yeah. I don't remember exactly what Ting said, and even if I did, I wouldn't 
comment on it.  But FWIW to your point, Ting's not in a chapters-selected seat; 
Ting was elected by the Wikimedia community.

--Original Message--
From: David Gerard
To: Sue Gardner GMail
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is 
happening
Sent: 9 May 2010 4:21 PM

On 10 May 2010 00:04, Sue Gardner  wrote:

> My view is that Jimmy and others have brought closure to the "scope of 
> Jimmy's authority" question. In saying that, I don't mean to diminish the 
> importance of that question -- I realize that many people are angry about 
> what's happened over the past week, and it will take time for them to be less 
> angry.


Ting's statements on the role of the Board (that it should regulate
project content) will also take some digesting. I doubt chapters
outside the US put people forward for the Board thinking this would
mean the Board supporting content removal to appease Fox News.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-09 Thread David Gerard
On 10 May 2010 00:04, Sue Gardner  wrote:

> My view is that Jimmy and others have brought closure to the "scope of 
> Jimmy's authority" question. In saying that, I don't mean to diminish the 
> importance of that question -- I realize that many people are angry about 
> what's happened over the past week, and it will take time for them to be less 
> angry.


Ting's statements on the role of the Board (that it should regulate
project content) will also take some digesting. I doubt chapters
outside the US put people forward for the Board thinking this would
mean the Board supporting content removal to appease Fox News.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-09 Thread Sue Gardner
Yeah, Pryzkuta, I know there are lots of debates happening everywhere; that's a 
good thing --- obviously talking about all this stuff is good, and people 
should use whatever mechanisms work for them. All the discussions are good, and 
everybody is bringing useful stuff to the table.

Re Jimmy, my understanding is that he has voluntarily relinquished the ability 
to act globally and unlilaterally, in an attempt to bring closure to that 
thread of discussion, because he thinks it's a distraction from the main 
conversation.  Which is, the projects contain, and have contained, material 
which many people (different groups, for different reasons) find objectionable. 
The main question at hand is: what, if anything, should be done about the 
inclusion in the projects of potentially objectionable material.  Should we 
provide warnings about potentially objectionable material, should we make it 
easy for people to have a "safe" view if they want it, should we make a "safe" 
view a default view, and so forth.

My view is that Jimmy and others have brought closure to the "scope of Jimmy's 
authority" question. In saying that, I don't mean to diminish the importance of 
that question -- I realize that many people are angry about what's happened 
over the past week, and it will take time for them to be less angry.   But I 
think Jimmy's goal --which I support-- is to enable people to now move on to 
have the more important conversation, about how to resolve the question of 
objectionable material.

To recap: it's a big conversation, and it's happening in lots of places. That 
may need to happen for a while. I would like to see us move into a synthesis 
phase, where we start talking in a focused way, in a few places, about what we 
should do to resolve the question of objectionable material.  I think the 
thread by Derk-Jan is a step towards that.  But it may be that we're not ready 
to move into a synthesis phase yet: people may still need to vent and 
brainstorm and so forth, for a while.

Thanks,
Sue

-Original Message-
From: Przykuta przyk...@o2.pl
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 00:16:02 
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l]
Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the d
iscussion ishappening


> 1) There has been a very active strand about Jimmy's actions over the
> past week and his scope of authority, which I think is now resolving.
> That's mostly happened here and on meta.
> 
Sue - everywhere - mailing lists, IRC channels, village pumps... 

We need to talk as Wikimedia Community. There is no authority without 
communication - face to face(s); keyboard to keyboard. The biggest fire (RfC 
flame) is here: 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Remove_Founder_flag

400 votes - 400 users 

Maybe the best way will be to start special IRC debate - about past, present 
and future. (and again, and again, and again - yeah)

Yes... We have bigger problems, but... maybe not. This is real trouble.

przykuta

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-09 Thread Milos Rancic
On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Sue Gardner  wrote:
> [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia.  AFAIK it's not
> taking place on-wiki anywhere.
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/195663

After Greg's, David Gerard's and Mike's arguments, I think that it is
clear that ICRA is not so good idea. We should make our own not
aggressive approach based on existing categorization system.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

2010-05-09 Thread Gerard Meijssen
Hoi,
What I am missing is that Iran has blocked the whole Wikimedia domain as
Commons is included in that domain. I understand that the reason is there
being too much sexual explicit content.  As a consequence this important
free resource is no longer available to the students of Iran as a resource
for illustrations for their project work.

What I would like to know is if we have been talking to Iranian politicians
and / or if we have an understanding of what it takes to ensure that Commons
becomes available again.
Thanks,
  GerardM

On 9 May 2010 23:28, Sue Gardner  wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> I'm aiming to stay on top of this whole conversation -- which is not
> easy: there is an awful lot of text being generated :-)
>
> So for myself and others --including new board members who may not be
> super-fluent in terms of following where and how we discuss things--,
> I'm going to recap here where I think the main strands of conversation
> are happening.  Please let me know if I'm missing anything important.
>
> 1) There has been a very active strand about Jimmy's actions over the
> past week and his scope of authority, which I think is now resolving.
> That's mostly happened here and on meta.
>
> 2) There is a strand about a proposed new Commons policy covering
> sexual content: what is in scope, how to categorize and describe, etc.
>  This policy has been discussed over time, and is being actively
> discussed right now.  It is not yet agreed to, nor enforced.  I gather
> it (the policy) reaffirms that sexual imagery needs to have some
> educational/informational value to warrant inclusion in Commons,
> attempts to articulate more clearly than in the past what is out of
> scope for the project and why, and overall, represents a tightening-up
> of existing standards rather than a radical change to them. It's here:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Sexual_content
>
> 3) There is a strand about content filtering (and, I suppose, other
> initiatives we might undertake, in addition to new/tighter policy at
> Commons).  This discussion is happening mostly here on foundation-l,
> where it was started by Derk-Jan Hartman with the thread title
> [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia.  AFAIK it's not
> taking place on-wiki anywhere.
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/195663
>
> I also think that if people skipped over Greg Maxwell's thread
> [Foundation-l] Appropriate surprise (Commons stuff) -- it might be
> worth them going back and taking a look at it.  I'm not expressing an
> opinion on Greg's views as laid out in that note, and I think the
> focus of the conversation has moved on a little in the 12 hours or so
> since he wrote it.  But it's still IMO a very useful recap/summary of
> where we're at, and as such I think definitely worth reading.  Few of
> us seem to gravitate towards recapping/summarizing/synthesizing, which
> is probably too bad: it's a very useful skill in conversations like
> this one, and a service to everyone involved :-)
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/195598.
>
> Let me know if I'm missing anything important.
>
> 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
>
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