[Foundation-l] Discussion Questions for Potentially-Objectionable Content

[Excirial]

*Thoughts on this so far*
1) I have to admit that my first thought upon reading this is "Oh no, not
AGAIN", mainly due to the fact that this topic seems to be a never-ending
debate which keeps flaring up at times. This debate is not only present on
community-wide discussions, but also on deletion discussions of specific
images, the mailing list, other wiki's and so on and on. Be aware that it
may be difficult to motivate people for another debate.
2) This topic has been discussed so often on so many places that the
arguments are virtually always recycled from previous discussions. A lot of
information can be gleaned from past discussions. Its a data-goldmine :).
3) I got to agree with the previous two posters - The current discussion
seems hard to boil down to anything sensible. I would equally warn that the
page is currently just 52k long - if it is already hard to follow now it
will be even harder later on. For example, the deletion
discussion<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2010_March_29&action=history>on
the English Wiki regarding the image on the Goatse article ended up
being
nearly 200k - and that discussion was just about a single image on a single
Wiki. If your going to tackle "Commons + controversial" the amount of
information may easily be several factors higher because of the larger
amount of images and the fact that it is cross-wiki.

*Possible error*
Besides this i noticed a possible errors in the questions , which i would
point out along with a few words of advice.
*1) "Q1:Wikipedia has put certain policies and procedures in place to deal
with special contentious categories of articles <Snip> see Wikipedia:
Controversial articles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AGFCA".*

There are two (possible) errors in this statement. First off, the article
linked is an essay <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Essay>, which is
not the same as a policy or
guideline<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies>.
An policy is a rule that everyone must follow, a guideline is a commonly
accepted best practice (Thus in practice it should be followed), but an
essay is the opinion of several editors. Some essays are widely followed,
but others are almost 1 person writeups. Hence, have a look at
WP:TTR<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DESiegel/Template_the_regulars>and
WP:DTTR <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:DTTR>. Those are both marked
as essays, but yet they are each others polar opposites.

The second thing i would point out is that this is an essay from the English
Wiki. Keep in mind that every Wiki may have its own, distinct set of rules.
For example, the Arabic Wiki forbids images of Muhammad while the English
Wiki allows them. Keep in mind that Commons is a cross-wiki project, which
means that it has to serve different projects with different rules. This is
not exactly an error, but rather a word of caution when considering commons.

*Some tips*
*Rethink the structuring of the page. I few pointers could be:*
 - Create a statement on top summarizing the context, boundries and reason
for the page itself. This will keep people on topic, and allows for late
joining of the discussion (People rarely join into a long discussion)
- Create a summary section which summarizes what has been discussed so far.
(See the History section on this
discussion<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/ace.wikipedia_and_Prophet_Muhammad_images>for
an example as to what i means). Long discussions are often only partly
read, which means that the same thing is often discussed multiple times. As
for another example: The "Goatse" discussion i linked above contains several
duplicate statements as to rule thisandthat with argument moreandmore, which
has already been discussed days ago resulting in a lot of duplicate work.
Besides, it is convenient to have a summary if your involved in a discussion
which you didn't read in a few days.
- Cluster the questions and move them up. Currently they are on the 17th
header of the talk page, which will scare off people (Do i have to read all
of that above?) or cause them to miss them. Also, clustering where possible
will reduce the amount of questions, and thus the area's of discussion (Thus
easier to overview - though some people would argue that a lot of questions
scares people off). For example, question two is simply a continuation of
question 1, so it might be better to create a subsection on question 1. (As
in: Question 1 <Question> A: <Subsequestion> B: <Subquestion>.
- Use subheaders! In the current situation everything is present under a
level two header, which makes things hard to read. A better structure would
be, for example:

== Introduction ==
<Short introduction of the page>
=== Goals, context and content ===
<As mentioned above - why do we have this page, and what do we intend to do
with it?>
=== Summary  ===
<What we discussed so far>

== Questions ==
<Short introduction if required>
=== Question 1 ===
==== Reactions ====

=== Question 2 ===
==== Reactions ====

=== Question 3 ===
==== Reactions ====

==== Subquestion A====
==== Reactions ====

==== Subquestion B====
==== Reactions ====

== Discussion ==
<Free discussion area - Off topic statements, or statements that don't fit
in the above sections can be added here. Header 1 to 16 can also be added
here as level 3 headers.>

Note that this schematic is a rather basic and quickly-made example. There
are certainly means to improve or alter it so that it fits better. For
example, you might consider a "background" page that summarizes the events
before this discussion (Such as the controversies since 2006 which are
already listed). Some editors might be new, and therefor they might lack
some background information. Hence, some of the Wikipedia communities
Commons serves are less then a year old, so there may be editors who aren't
even aware that this is a long-standing issue.

*And finally*
Best of luck with this project! You will certainly have a field day working
on this one, since i'd say that this is the most discussed subject on
Wikipedia - Once the floodgates break open you will see a tsunami of
responses coming your way so be ready for a lot of reading. I hope the
suggestions above will prove to be helpfull,

Kind regards,
~Excirial

On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 2:04 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Looking at the contributors so far, I'm not sure that discussion is
> > recoverable to any form of usefulness.
>
> 1. Checked and agreed.
> 2. I am not going to discuss with well known censorship trolls.
> 3. If this would be the main path of discussion, fork of Commons will
> be the option.
>
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