After some thinking I come to the conclusion that this whole
discussion is a social phenomenon.
You probably know how some topics when mentioned in newspaper articles
or blogs spur wild arguments in the comments sections. When the
article mentions climate change commentators contest the validity of
the collected data, if it mentions religions commentators argue that
religion is the root of all evil in the world, if it is about
immigration commentators start to rant how immigrants cause trouble in
society, if it is about renewable energies commentators tell us how
blind society is to believe in its ecologicalness.
It's always the same pattern: the topic is perceived well in the
general society (most sane people think that climate change is real,
that renewable energies are the way to go, that religious freedom is
good and that most immigrants are people as everybody else who do no
harm), but a small or not so small minority experiences these
attitudes as a problem and tries to raise awareness to the problems of
the trend (usually exaggerating them). The scepticists give their
arguments and the non-scepticists answer them.
The non-scepticists usually have not much motivation to present their
arguments (because their position is already the mainstream, so not
much incentive to convince more people, just trying to not let the
scepticists' opinions stand unwithspoken) while the scepticists have
much motivation to present their arguments (if they don't society will
presumedly face perdition). This difference in the motivation leads to
a situation where both groups produce a similar content output leading
to the semblence that both groups represent equal shares of society.
I think the same is happening here. The majority of people probably
think that an optional opt-in filter is a thing that does no harm to
non-users and has advantages for those who choose to use it. (Ask your
gramma whether "You can hide pictures if you don't want to see them"
sounds like a threatening thing to her.) But the scepticists voice
their opinions loudly and point out every single imaginable problem.
I just want to point out that an idea like a free community-driven
everybody-can-edit-it encyclopedia with no editorial or peer-review
process would never have been created if a long discussion would have
preceded its creation. The scepticists would have raised so many
seemingly valid concerns that they'd buried the idea deep. I'm feeling
that a group of worst-case scenarioists are leading the discussion to
a point where the image filter is buried just because everybody is
bored about the discussion.
Marcus Buck
User:Slomox
PS: Please don't understand this as a longish version of "You guys
opposing my opinion are trolls!". I don't think that the points raised
by scepticists should be neglected. But I think that many people
reject the image filter because of very theoretical concerns for the
sake of it completely removed from pragmatical reasons and that the
length of the discussion is in no way indicative of the real
problematicness of the topic.