On Wed, Jun 01, 2011 at 01:17:15PM -0700, phoebe ayers wrote:
This week, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees unanimously passed a resolution addressing the issue of controversial content on the projects. The Board also unanimously passed a resolution addressing images of identifiable, living people on the projects. The resolutions are posted at:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Controversial_content
Re:
# We ask the Executive Director, in consultation with the # community, to develop and implement a personal image hiding # feature that will enable readers to easily hide images hosted on # the projects that they do not wish to view, either when first # viewing the image or ahead of time through preference settings. # We affirm that no image should be permanently removed because of # this feature, only hidden; that the language used in the # interface and development of this feature be as neutral and # inclusive as possible; that the principle of least astonishment # for the reader is applied; and that the feature be visible, # clear and usable on all Wikimedia projects for both logged-in # and logged-out readers.
At the time this point looked pretty uncontroversial, especially in context. However, I feel that most currently proposed mecahnisms for implementation of this point actually (indirectly) violate the other points in the resolution.
To wit, the proposed implementation of a category system for controversial content (required for many plausible implementations of this point) is exploitable by 3rd parties and/or can lead to in-community conflicts; depending on the exact chosen implementation.
Such exploits and/or conflicts could indirectly end up censoring wikipedia, and/or end up violating the Neutral Point Of View founding principle.
Also, the consultation with the community is currently rather heavy handed; by which I mean that the power balance might not be in favor of those who are most influenced by the implementation.
This is something that should certainly be watched carefully, and perhaps further amendment, clarification, or retraction by the foundation might be needed.
sincerely, Kim Bruning