[Foundation-l] Image filter brainstorming: Personal filter lists

[Kim Bruning]

On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 02:41:51PM +0000, Tom Morris wrote:
> 
> You can have lists stored
(...)
>  on the WMF servers but in a secret file that they'll never
> ever ever ever release promise hand-on-heart*) 

This works so well if you DO read it sarcastically. ;-)

> and you can have lists stored publicly (in Adblock: the various public
> block lists that are community-maintained so that you don't actually
> see any ads, in an image filter: on the web somewhere). And you can
> put an instruction in the former list to transclude everything on a
> public list and keep it up-to-date.

Right, except then you have a public list of prejudicial labels. I think
that most have agreed that that's just a little too close to the fire for
comfort. 

> And if the WMF doesn't do it - perhaps because people are whinging
> that me being given the option to opt-in and *not* see "My
> micropenis.jpg" is somehow evil and tyrannical and contrary to
> NOTCENSORED

Even filter proponent Jimmy Wales is adamant about there being
no censorship ("Period").

The part where people are disagreeing on is "how close to we want to
dance to the fire, and how many burns do we accept?"

My proposal is that perhaps we shouldn't be dancing close to the fire at
all. If we want to escape BadPictures(tm), how about a nice refreshing
swim instead? 

more concretely: 

I think filters are probably the wrong solution to the problem today (in
fact, they're more like a solution looking for a problem) . I now think
that a combination of on-wiki policy and prudence, and improved
categorisation and search on commons, would probably not only avoid
potential problems entirely, but actually be a heck of a lot more
effective too.

See:
	http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kim_Bruning#Image_filter

In this discussion with Atlasowa I challenge them to come with actual
numbers and facts. I think Atlasowa has proved all of us more-or-less
wrong ;-)

sincerely,
	Kim Bruning
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