Sorry to top-post.
Google and Flickr actually handle this quite differently though, I think, Andreas. Going
from memory -- I think that Google defaults to a "moderate" setting, but allows
users to easily switch to an unfiltered setting. As long as they allow cookies, users
don't need to be registered, and there's no other impediment to switching that
I'm aware of.
Flickr also defaults to moderate, but in order to get unfiltered results you need to be
registered, and I think you might also have to make some kind of statement about how old
you are. So, you can't see unfiltered results on Flickr without jumping through some
hoops. And, users in a small number of countries (going from memory I think they include
Singapore, India, Korea and Germany) do not have the option to see unfiltered results.
Plus, I believe that certain types of content are disallowed entirely throughout Flickr,
although I don't know what they are or how that is policed.
So the devil is very much in the details :-)
Thanks,
Sue
-----Original Message-----
From: Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)yahoo.com>
Sender: foundation-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 17:28:33
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Discussion Questions for
Potentially-Objectionable Content
Thanks Alec. I wouldn't like to see Wikipedia fork either.
Excirial's suggestion -- which I understand to mean enabling readers to self-censor
the type of content that offends them, or that they don't want their children to see
-- strikes me as the way we can have our cake and eat it.
It's also in line with what people like google, YouTube and flickr are doing. If you
want to see certain types of content, you are asked to set up an account, and/or change
your default preference.
In practice, this could mean --
- That I don't see images I don't want to see in Wikipedia articles.
- That I can click on a grayed image if, in an exceptional case, I do want to see it.
- That I can set up my child's Wikipedia account in such a way that my child can NOT
click to display the image I don't want them to see.
- That I can set up my or my child's Wikipedia account in such a way that Wikipedia
will not display articles I do not want it to display.
- That IPs are shown a mildly "censored" version, and that seeing the uncensored
version of Wikipedia requires registering an account and setting the preferences up
accordingly.
This requires a lot of thought and work behind the scenes to categorise content. But it is
surely the best approach to make Wikipedia the encyclopedia for everyone.
And that's an encyclopedia that can happily host the goatse image, too, for those who
want to see it.
A.
--- On Sat, 24/7/10, Alec Conroy <alecmconroy(a)gmail.com> wrote:
From: Alec Conroy <alecmconroy(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Discussion Questions for Potentially-Objectionable Content
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Date: Saturday, 24 July, 2010, 15:47
I have no idea whether anything in
here is productive or just
reiteration of the same old themes. I
doubt it will be coherent or
persuasive, but this discussion is too important not to try
to say
something. Opinions were solicited, so
here's such an opinion.
I don't really know if a discussion at this point is wise,
particularly from me and my verbosity. :). So
skip if skeptical, and
abort if you start finding my words, well, unproductive.
:)
-Alec
----
What I find not convincing is the slogan
"No
censorship". I think this
is a bad argument.
Okay, I think that's my cue. I'm
definitely in "No Censorship" camp,
so let my try to explain why that argument has such pull
for some of
us.
-
To begin with, please consider that NOTCENSORED has
been the law of
the land for many years and Wikipedia has prospered under
it. It's
not a new idea.
What's new is this idea that "potential offensiveness" is a
threat to
us, and thus, a valid criterion for making editorial
decision. That
would be a huge deviation from our very successful status
quo.
Maybe you think it would be a good change, maybe you think
would be a
bad change, but I think we can all agree it would be
a very
CONTROVERSIAL change among Wikimedians.
And when you stop and think about it, of course any such
proposal is
_bound_ to be very very controversial among those
very individuals
who are already deeply invested in a NPOV/NON-CENSORED
project.
After all, we've spent years explaining NPOV / NOTCENSORED
to Muslims
over Muhammad images, for example, and to Christians over
Piss-Christ.
We've defended racist imagery, we've defended
neo-nazi hate-sites.
We've committed to not-censored, we've worked for
NOTCENSORED, we've
offended totally innocent people so wikipedia could be
NOTCENSORED,
and it was even theoretically possible somebody might
have died over
NOTCENSORED.
We did this because Wikipedia successfully convinced us
that an
uncensored encyclopedia was a wonderful thing. And we've
grown very
attached to it and the principles it espoused.
Maybe we do need a "potentially non-offensive" project in
addition.
But if there is to be a "Brave New Encyclopedia" that
promises freedom
from potential offense, shouldn't it be started as a NEW
project with
a NEW userbase and a NEW editing community that's committed
to these
NEW principles?
I'm skeptical that that a "potential offfense" can actually
work, even
as its own project. But, no harm in trying.
Meanwhile, our
Wikipedia, the "NPOV/NOTCENSORED" Wikipedia, does
work! And It
continues to work!
Wikipedia ain't broke-- don't fracture the community into
bits by
trying to impose a "fix".
--
Some say: "What's the difference between deleting
offensive material
and deleting anything else? REALLY, isn't
ANY deletion, on some
level, censorship?"
Well, no. :)
Normal run-of-the-mill deletions (e.g. of nonsense,
etc) HELP our
mission by preserving our limited computing
resources. Censorship
HURTS our mission by intentionally making it harder for our
readers to
find legal, legitimate information they themselves are
actively trying
to access.
Normal decisions are justified using terms like
"usefulness" and
"notable." Censorship is justified using terms like
"potential-offensiveness", "pornographic", "a threat
to children", or
"immoral".
Normal decisions are democratic, culture-neutral, and are
based on
verifiable facts. Censorship is beyond debate, it's
not
culture-neutral, it's imposed rather than accepted, and
it's based on
unstated emotional biases and prejudices.
(And if those distinctions don't help determine which is
which--
Censorship is the one that's really, really controversial
around here.
:) )
--
Let me take some example. Ar-wp decides per
community
concensus not
to use Mohammed images. Seen in the light of
en-wp rules, this is a censorship.
If we maintain "no censorship" then
ar-wp must remove
that concensus. If not,
we cannot maintain the "no censorship"
slogan.
Admittedly, "free-information" people can be very black and
white--
but even I'm not quite THIS black and
white. :)
I, for one, am not at all troubled that WMF might host a
project that,
via TRUE consensus, decides to be, by my standards,
censored. (I
actually really wish we had a few censored english-language
projects
lying around, so people would be less tempted to try to
co-opt
EnWiki.)
I don't oppose people 'censoring' themselves if that's
truly their
choice-- what I oppose is someone censoring US against our
consent.
What I oppose is WMF trying take a NONCENSORED project swap
out
NPOV/NOTCENSORED in favor of a fiat-imposed
"potential-offensiveness"
standard.
Maybe a user is against every political
censorship but
is uncomfortable about
having religious insulting images. Is he
"for"
or "not for" censorship?
There's nothing wrong with wanting to avoid offending
people. I have
a LOT of sympathy and patience for people who think that
wikipedia
should be censored, ESPECIALLY with the Muhammad issue
where issues of
culture, religion, race, and violence are superimposed over
issues of
NPOV and NOTCENSORED.
Being uncomfortable is a understandable and laudable
response.
Sincerely. Many many great minds throughout history
have reached the
conclusion that some sub-populations need "protection"
from
"potentially offensive" information, and I certainly can't
prove them
wrong.
So if somebody undergoes a 'conversion experience' and
realizes that
what we've been doing here these many years,
providing free access to
potentially-offensive information, is actually morally
wrong-- well
that's okay with me. Maybe they're right and
I'm wrong. A change
of heart isn't a sin.
But if that individual really feels strongly about stance,
then maybe
they should reconsider serving in a capacity that requires
them to
help provide "Free Access to All The World's Information".
Cause the world's information is really very
offensive. And providing
that information, offensive or not, is what we do here.
--
If "No porn or other potential offensive material"
this had been the
rule all along, that'd be one thing. But that's not
what our social
contract has been.
Our social contract included NPOV, its corollary
NOTCENSORED, and a
strong commitment to the consensus process. Now, ten years
in, these
rules suddenly aren't good enough
anymore? The clock has struck
Midnight, the coach has turned back into a pumpkin, and
wikipedians
are no longer able to form consensus on any tough
issues? Nonsense.
I thought we all agreed EnWiki/WMF wasn't going to be
child-safe (or
conservative-safe, or liberal-safe, or muslim-safe,
work-safe or
nudity-safe or anythingelse-safe). In fact, I thought
we all agreed
on that years ago. I thought that was what we stood
for.
So, in May, it felt a little "slap-in-the-face"-ish when
WMF, having
spent years collecting our edits and our dollars under the
banners of
"NPOV", "NOTCENSORED" and "CONSENSUS",
suddenly surrendered at the
first sign of trouble from Fox.
It seems naive now, but I think most of us had assumed
that, when
inevitable US-based pressure against our content
arose, the board
members would all side WITH the projects and AGAINST
FoxNews.
I don't think anyone foresaw our then-leader publicly
confirming Fox's
allegations and insisting that not only DO we have too much
porn, but
that we have so much "hard code" pornography that required
an
emergency fiat deletion campaign. I definitely
never EVER expect to
see such individuals deleting in-use images over literally
scores of
objections.
To put this into perspective if free-information isn't
essential to
you-- this was a little bit like being a volunteer at
your local
library for years-- helping the staff, donating your
valuable time and
limited funds, etc. Then one day, you come
in and see that someone
from Fox News has come to your public library while you
were gone and
managed to convinced half the librarians that they need to
start
burning through the stacks.
Yeah, it's intense experience.
--
#"A 'Thought' Experiment"
What if we did actually allow "potential
offensiveness" as a
criterion? What does that kind of a debate
look like?
Suppose, for instance that an admin showed up and demanded
that a
notable work of art be deleted on the ground that it was
"potentially
offensive". How do you defend against that
charge?
"Offensiveness" isn't really a NPOV-Verifiable fact, so
it's up to
personal opinion. No matter what you say,
somebody else can always
say "Well, I don't care if this IS a famous work of art--
to me it's
just old porn. And old porn is still porn. I
still find this content
to be offensive and I still want it deleted and I'm going
to delete it
myself and i'll block you if you try to stop me!"
What does kind of a deletion debate that look like??
Is it civil?
Does it encourage mutual respect? Does it promote the
free exchange
of information?
No no.. This approach was tried and it failed miserably:
http://tinyurl.com/2fuo3eq
And it was destined to fail, because no one can fairly play
the role
of moral censor for a population as diverse as
Wikipedia. Not me, not
you, not Jimmy, nobody. No one can fairly decide what
is "too
offensive for 12 million people spread across the
globe". Can't be
done.
All such a censor can do is decide what's "too offensive to
me". So
if you're asked to be a censor, you do what you know-- you
delete
stuff that offends you but other people think is important,
and you
keep stuff you think is important but that other people
find
offensive.
And once you start down that road, it's little more than
modern-day
bigotry that ultimately makes the judgments.
Deleting "offensive art" may not be how you guys meant for
things to
go, but it is where things ended up, and quickly too.
You slid right
down the slippery slope-- just than like we free-speechers
always said
you would only, only far faster than anyone could have
predicted.
Before anyone could believe it, the art was being
taken down off the
walls and heaped on the fire.
Jimbo demonstrated he was utterly unable to responsibly
use
"potential-offensiveness" as a deletion
criterion. For us now to ask
ALL of our editors to use a similar criteria would only
bring far, far
worse results.
The "potentially offensive" approach just plain doesn't
work. (And
even if it DID work-- it's not the approach we signed up
for. )
--
Searching for a community consensus cannot work
in
such black
and white manner.
That's quite a bold statement. (or at least, I've
seen some bold
statements on this subject)
I don't think our current projects are fundamentally
flawed.
I see no sign that consensus can't work here. On the
contrary, May
seemed to demonstrate that not only CAN consensus form in
these
situations, but sometimes the consensus can be quite
deafening.
I think the real issue is that that consensus HAS been
reached on the
NOTCENSORED / NPOV/Sexual Content policies issues--
the community
consensus just match the pre-designated conclusion, and so
it was thus
ruled to be the outcome of a "broken and flawed" process,
something
the community just can't handle on its own, not
without grown-up
help.
--------
# Spot the Difference
What difference is this
agree-with-me-or-I-will-boycott-you position
to the ace-wp template of boycotting Wikipedia
because
it contains Mohammed image?
Great question. Turns out there's a really really
simple difference.
Wikipedia never promised anyone that "Wikipedia
Doesn't Show Muhammad
Pictures"!
But Wikipedia promised everyone "Wikipedia Is Not Censored"
and
"Wikipedia is written from a NPOV"
Allowing Muhammad images doesn't involve any breach of
promise.
But allowing censorship and non-neutral POV does involve a
breach of trust.
So a better analogy is this:
Suppose a very conservative mosque, after years of
forbidding images
of Muhammad, suddenly reversed itself, and started
distributing the
offensive cartoons of Muhammad. Its
members would, rightly, feel
betrayed.
Wikipedia isn't a mosque, but we have unique culture of our
own.
Seeing 19th century art deleted as "old porn"-- well
that's as
disrespectful of OUR traditions, just as offensive images
of Muhammad
might would be disrespectful in the context of a
mosque.
I think NOTCENSORED is fundamental and inseparable from
Wikipedia's
mission. But-- even if we can't convince you that
NOTCENSORED is
fundamentally important to Wikipedia, at least recognize
that it's
very important to many many many Wikipedians.
Refusing every discussion, no compromise at all,
I
find this a very strange
stance for a Wikimedian.
Indeed:
http://tinyurl.com/2w2ayy2
Things work better via traditional consensus
building. Even I,
free-speecher that I am, would very sincerely abide, in
relative
silence, by a TRUE consensus to repeal NOTCENSORED.
In May, it seems like some people got the idea that since
the
discussion wasn't producing the results they wanted, they'd
just stop
all discussion and start enforcing instead.
And If ever you want to kill civil discussion, just say "We
can
discuss later after I'm done implementing it"
Once that happened, the time for discussion was basically
over and the
time for revising roles had begun. When
someone is done listening
but not yet done acting, the only remaining options are
blocks and
boycotts. I'm not happy about that, but
there was no alternative.
--
If we seem fundamentalist, perhaps we are a
little. But this sort of
free-information advocacy is a part of Wikipedia's very
DNA-- from
our open-source platform to our free-licensed content, from
our open
community anyone can join to the open protocols that
our internet
runs on. It may be an annoying and
pseudo-fundamentalist stance, but
it is part of how we got
here. Free-information advocacy built
Wikipedia.
Many of us thought that, via projects like Wikimedia, we
were helping
to eliminate censorship from the rest of the world.
Many of us write
software, to make free laptops, for kids we'll never ever
meet, just
so that people all around the world can have a chance to
see what free
speech is really like. Some of us are here because
help STOP
censorship around the world, not to help perpetuate
it, and certainly
not to subjected to it ourselves.
--
In our early days, when we had nothing to lose, no big
media
interviews, and no way to be blackmailed, NOTCENSORED
seemed to work
just fine for us. Now that we are more successful and
independent
than ever, now, in our finest houst, NOW suddenly this
long-cherished
principle has to go?
Now, some faction of our community, Jimmy first among them,
has
decided that after years of success, we should trade in our
"Not
Censored" Wikipedia for a swiss-cheesed encyclopedia in the
hopes of
making a "potentially non-offensive" project??
I have no idea what the purpose or cause of this is-- a
personal
religious conversion? an acquired distaste for
negative press? The
promise of more donations from a conservative big-money
donor or a
prominent university? The influence of Russian
spies? Contact from
an extraterrestrial intelligence in the form of a
monolith? A
windfall for Wikia if our projects substantially narrow
their scope?
All of these? Something else entirely? Or
maybe no reason at all.
I have no idea what shiny new bauble we hope to obtain, if
only we'd
renounce a few of our core principles. But I
really hope we don't
take the deal.
Is there something different about the world of 2010 that
makes 2009's
"Wikipedia is Not Censored" policy suddenly unfeasible?
Have we been spending nine years destroying the minds of
the youth
worldwide to such an extent that an immediate 180-degree
change of
course is necessary?
--
What also made me very sad in this thread is to
see
that some community
members obviously had taken a very
foundamentalistic
position. Either
you agree with me, otherwise I will quit and
fork.
Well, I'm probably the biggest offender of anyone here on
this one,
because I think it's ESSENTIAL that we fork if WMF adopted
a scope
that excluded material on the grounds of
"potential-offense".
But our motivation isn't malicious. It's not:
"You're guys are evil
and we should all quit rather than associate with
you." Not in the
slightest.
Instead, our motivation stems from wanting to protect
Wikipedia and
its current policies: "We love Wikipedia the way it
is! So if
wikipedia does get deleted ,if it's replaced with an
identically-named
but "potentially-non-offensive" project , our first
priority should be
restore the uncensored Wikipedia and continue working on
it."
However, I'm infinitely glad that the foundation appears to
be
stepping away from the brink. The best home for a
free, uncensored
wiki remains the Wikimedia Foundation.
But ultimately, the greatest protection Wikipedia has is
that there
are other homes out there for a free, uncensored collection
of the
world's information, where everyone gets offended equally
and "I find
this offensive" carries no weight. After all,
Wikipedia has already
shown us just how wonderful it is to have such a project!
No matter what WMF does, there will always a place for
Wikipedia-as-it-currently-is. A lot of us want such a
project to
continue, a lot of us want to improve THAT project, and a
lot of us
want to protect that project. If fact, one of the
main reasons so
many of us gave money last year to WMF was because,
ironically enough,
we were told those funds would help PROTECT that very same
Wikipedia
from outside pressures. But ultimately, not even
millions in
donations was really able to truly "protect" a free,
uncensored
Wikipedia, it seems.
(Indeed, in the back of my mind, I sometimes worry
that our new-found
fund-raising success might somehow be part of the
problem. Perhaps
we've seen these unilateral actions precisely because
funding is now
so secure that whole swaths of our content and our
community can now
be considered "expendable". Heck, perhaps some
fanatic with very deep
pockets is offering to hire the entire board, en masse,
with
high-paying salaries, if only they'll delete the right
paintings.
Those are just pulled from thin-air, of course, but
clearly,
something is going on now that wasn't going on from
2001-2009-- and
the amazingly successful fund raising is one of the few
big
differences I can think of.)
Fortunately, where $10 million fails, Creative Commons
succeeds. IT
DOES protect Wikipedia, because foundations and servers can
come and
go, but Wikipedia will endure.
And there is no good reason for it not to endure right
here. It's
done really here, these past 9 years, after all.
Let's go for 20, and
in the mean time, let's give the green light to people who
might like
to try their hand at making a non-offensive
english-language
encyclopedia here at Wikimedia.
Alec "been writing this for WAY too long" Conroy
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: