------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 01:31:14 +0300
> From: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Image filtering without undermining the
> category system
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAJ9-EK+ed2G9PTQqw4a9CJQr7PzKgKiP3DJE=n1ua9JnUnXBDA(a)mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 11:55 PM, WereSpielChequers
> <werespielchequers(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > OK in a spirit of compromise I have designed an Image filter which should
> > meet most of the needs that people have expressed and resolve most of the
> > objections that I'm aware of. Just as importantly it should actually
> work.
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/filter
> >
>
> I really read that with a huge deal of thought. I keep coming to the same
> conclusion here that the people who don't not only believe a workable
> system is desireable, but actively ignore the fact that what they are
> proposing is not real world workable seem to dominate the side in
> favor of some filtering scheme.
>
> Case in point: (from your proposal)
>
> "Whilst almost no-one objects to individuals making decisions as to
> what they want to see, as soon as one person decides what others on
> "their" network or IP can see you have crossed the line into enabling
> censorship. However as Wikimedia accounts are free, a logged in only
> solution would still be a free solution that was available to all."
>
> No, that is just simply not logically sound. Period. Wikipedia has no
> control over what happens to content or the formats or abilities of
> their scripts or whatever, as soon as it goes out of a intarweb pipe.
> Period. Not tenable, even if you believe a non-censorship
> enabling implementation is a good thing (I don't, but I am trying to
> address the insanity of believing that it could ever be accomplished.)
>
>
>
> --
> --
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
>
>
> The issue of whether external agencies could hack this has already come up
on the talkpage.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:WereSpielChequers/filter
The difficulty for anyone trying to do that is that they would be attempting
to read millions of pages as a logged in user without a bot flag. So they'd
probably get blocked as a denial of service attack. Even if someone
subdivided their calls and created multiple accounts to read parts of the
project from hundreds of different PCs they would only learn that someone
had filtered in or out certain images. To replicate the filter they would
need to have each of those accounts flag certain images as filtered or un
filtered - and at that point I would suggest that this has become a much
more difficult thing to hack than simply extracting some of our existing
categories.
As your the second person to raise this I'll add an explanation to the
proposal as to how this can be countered.
WereSpielChequers
I have learnt this morning that the "Timedmedia" extension "is not yet
installed on wikimedia sites, but its meant to replace the existing
player" (1).
As I was uploading videos, and needed some specific tools, I happened
the other day to use the mwEmbed gadget on Wikimedia Commons which
seems to be a prefiguration of what the WMF plans to install
everywhere on its sites. My experience as guinea pig of that
experiment is negative:
Clicking on the "i" option of the polar bear video inserted on commons
village pump (2) produces the following screenshot:
http://prototype.wikimedia.org/timedmedia/File:Screenshot_of_commons_villag…
(3). What the video viewer can read is "Credits: Title :
File:PolarBearsPlayingSDZooFeb09.ogv Kaltura". This is not a proper
way of providing author name (which should be Nehrams2020 ) and
license (which should be Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
Unported license with a link). The "share" menu provides "< i frame
src = " // commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PolarBearsPlayingSDZooFeb09.ogv?withJS=Medi…"
width="220" height="165" frameborder="0" >< /iframe > ". There is no
"Attribution" code similar to the one you can find when clicking on
"Use this file" on the photostock toolbar on the Commons description
page (4). The small polar bear icon displayed in the "i" option of the
"menu" is too small (it is only about 50x30px, while the standard
"thumb" size is 220px!). Using the full 220px rectangle as a link is
the way by which we tell readers/viewers that the Commons description
page is an important page. Most users will not be aware that they may
click on that 50x30px icon to find valuable information about the
file. The File:PolarBearsPlayingSDZooFeb09.ogv text is in grey color.
This is not the standard way to make the viewer aware that it is a
clickable link. Usually, clickable links are blue. This video player
is putting the Wikimedia commons description page 3 clicks away from
Wikipedia instead of just one (you must click on "menu", then on "i"
then on "File:PolarBearsPlayingSDZooFeb09.ogv"). If installed on
Wikipedia, this gadget will not be an improvement, but a huge drawback
for the quality of the relation between Wikipedia and Wikimedia
Commons. Wikimedia Commons will be unknown from Wikipedia readers or
seen as something far away. I guess a lot of people are going to
believe that the person who deserves credit is the company named
"Kaltura" instead of the real video creator. The "i" symbol is
meaningless for people whose languages do not have the word
"information" in their vocabularies. Even in English or in French
"information" is vague and does not mean "credit" or "license" or
"attribution". The efforts Wikimedia Commons has been doing on
description pages (indicating the source of the file, provide a
description, provide a date, provide categories to find related files,
etc.) are put aside for the purpose of the promotion of the "Kaltura"
brand name. And again a download link seems to be provided straight
away from the "menu" even if the user has not made the effort to learn
about the licensing conditions.
(1) Michael Dale 2011-10-11 02:54:09 UTC
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31583
(2) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#mwEmbed_gadget:_Vide…
(3) http://prototype.wikimedia.org/timedmedia/File:Screenshot_of_commons_villag…
(4) screenshot of "use this file" toolbar tool:
http://prototype.wikimedia.org/timedmedia/File:Use_this_file_screenshot.jpg
( the "stockphoto.js" toolbar)
That can't be meant serious anymore. You first make a Board decision and then
want to research how big the problem is or if it at all exists, after you already made
the decision about the solution? The Board seems to act on a highly confused
and amateur level ... it is not to understand anymore what is going on there.
On such a decision the Board should have before making any decision researched
really what raeders expect and want and this with empathy for different regions and
the understanding that germany maybe has different needs than the arabic room and
that a making them all the same is not a good idea, and not empathic at all. Before a
Board decision there would have been to be a poll that really ask the right questions,
not this fake thing with no impact at all. The way the Board acted on this and now not
even says "yes, we fucked it up, we take the decision back and start at point zero
again" is a shame for teh complete Wikimedia world and community.
Second last point: Give back to the editors the responsibility to amke the choice how the can
present their educational content to the readers. That is no Board decision. If a
community says we don't need the filter, then the Board doesn't know any better
about the needs and wishes of teh users of this project and shouldn't act into it
this way.
Last point: The Board should start fisrt thinking and then deciding. It would reduce much
the danger of splitting the communities an the Wikipedias. The Board seems a little
bit too american, first shooting by feeling threatend and then asking ... That is not
the way the Board should work. So act responsible and take back the decision
until a really good decision process would have been made through ...
Julius Redzinski (de:Julius1990)
> On 10.10.2011 13:24, wrote Ting:
>
> Hello Fae,
>
> thank you very much for pointing this out. Yes, I think you indeed hit
> the nail. We discussed this problem on our meeting and Sue provided some
> plans on how to work on this problem. I am normally reluctant to comment
> what the staff is doing or what they are planning to do, because this
> often can be seen as an intervening of the staff activity. But I think
> it is ok for me to spoil this a bit now: So Sue suggests a two step
> approach. In the first step we will only collect reader reactions on
> images, to see if there is a problem at all, how big is the problem, and
> where are the problems. And on a second step, when we have those data
> and can work out an understanding of it, then we can go on to work out
> dedicated solutions for the problems, as I said in my letter, together
> with the community.
>
> Greetings
> Ting
>
> On 09.10.2011 23:55, wrote Fae:
> > Hi Ting,
> >
> > Thanks for explaining the position of the board in your own words. I
> > appreciate the board is listening. I am concerned that you state that
> > the board is acting from "belief", I recommend you consider how this
> > can move to proposing a strategy based on facts and non-controversial
> > analysis.
> >
> > I suspect that any proposal for change will be strongly resisted and
> > continue to divide our community until well understood and well
> > communicated facts underpin the board's resolution rather than
> > personal belief.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Fae
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 9
> Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:17:21 -0700
> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Letter to the community on Controversial
> Content
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <4E939921.1010704(a)telus.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> On 10/09/11 9:58 AM, Risker wrote:
> > On 9 October 2011 12:48, Federico Leva (Nemo)<nemowiki(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> Risker, 09/10/2011 18:40:
> >>> The primary responsibility of Board members is to the Foundation, not
> to
> >>> the community or the chapters or to any other external agent.
> >> I find this response a bit odd. ;-) It almost seems to assume that the
> >> community (or Nathan?) is likely wanting to elect someone the WMF
> >> couldn't accept, or that "responsibility to the community" is a bad
> >> thing, while we used to say only that there's no imperative mandate and
> >> that chapters-elected trustees are not chapters representatives, etc.
> > I'm not sure what you find odd about it, but it is factual.
> >
> > The key point is that board members must work on behalf of the
> Foundation,
> > and must not act as representatives of a particular constituency, and
> those
> > constituencies cannot direct board members elected/nominated by them to
> act
> > in certain ways.
> >
> >
> It's not the factuality of the statement that is odd. The Hong Kong
> style of democracy that insures that the elected members can never form
> a majority is.
>
> In a fully democratic country all elected representatives work on behalf
> of the country, but they still represent particular constituencies
> and/or parties, to which they are accountable. Without that the entire
> notion of constituencies is a sham. When they fail to represent the
> interests of their constituencies they should be voted out.
>
> Ray
>
>
>
> In a real life democratic election there are certain checks and balances,
if a candidate was in jail or had recently been disqualified as a director
from another organisation, then you would expect that the opposing
candidates would find this out and bring it to the attention of the voters.
Virtual elections don't always have the same transparency, and so it makes
sense to me that for trustee elections we have the safeguard that the
community nominates but the existing board can refuse to accept a
nomination. However I think it would be unwise for the board to refuse to
accept someone over something that was disclosed in the election, and
especially if that was a difference of opinion as to the future direction
of the Project rather than a bit of personal history that the candidate had
persuaded most of the community to ignore.
WereSpielChequers
That can just mean an italian solution. The Board is ignorant against the community needs and wishes, while the Foundation was just some month ago, so caring about the editors and to keep them happy and contributing to the projects. If the filter should get forced on a project that voted against it, then there can be just a strike the solution. Even Bunga Bunga Silvio is not as igorant as our Foundation and Board.
Ting and the others, leave the Board. You are not anymore taking care of the interests of Wikipedia, but of expanding palns that never were discussed with those who mainly write the Wikipedia.
Julius Redzinski (de:Julius1990)
Hi everyone,
Just a quick note that this Friday (Oct 14th) at 17:00 UTC, Sue Gardner will
be in #wikimedia-office to have an open discussion. As usual, instructions
and time conversion links are on Meta.[1]
Also, for those of you who have asked about office hours with someone *other
* than Sue, we heard you. The next meeting after Sue's this week is with
Chief Community Officer Zack Exley, in order to discuss the annual
fundraiser. After that, myself or Community Liason Maggie Dennis
(User:Moonriddengirl) are happy to take requests for other senior staff.
--
Steven Walling
Community Organizer at Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org
1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
> Andreas Kolbe jayen466 at yahoo.com
> Mon Oct 10 11:16:21 UTC 2011
>
> But when it comes to discussing whether a specific illustration or media file should be added
> to an article, the one criterion nobody seems to raise is whether this is the type of image or
> video a reliably published educational source would include. Instead, we often hear that
> because Wikipedia is not censored, we *must* keep an image or media file in the article,
> *especially so* if it is controversial.
Quite on the contrary:
To include a specific image in a specific article is part of the editing process.
Everyone can follow this process in the history of the article.
To filter it away without regard of the context is still regarded as censorship by serious journalists.
It doesn't make much difference if the censor is part of the government or the owner of the publishing house.
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