An editor on the German Wikipedia has proposed an alternative approach to the personal image filter -- I provided a translation here
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Diskussion:Kurier#.C3.9Cbersetzung
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1. There is no central categorisation of all images in different filter categories.
2. Instead, a new "hidden" attribute is introduced in Mediawiki when adding an image. "hidden" has the following effects:
- Unregistered users see the image "hidden", meaning it is not visible.
- One click on a show/hide button displays the image, another click renders it invisible again.
3. For registered users, there is a new option for "hidden images" in the user preferences: a) invisible, b) visible.
4. There are no separate categories.
5. One and the same image can be "hidden" in one article, and "not hidden" in another (principle of least surprise).
6. The same image can be "hidden" in an article in one language version (e.g. Arabic Wikipedia) and "not hidden" in an article in another language version (e.g. French Wikipedia). Each language version has its own community and can determine the use of the attribute according to its own guidelines and policies. Cultural aspects can thus be given due consideration. This is exactly analogous to the current principles informing article illustration.
7. This solution would leave it to the individual wikis to decide which images are encyclopaedically relevant (informative, illustrative) – but still "critical/controversial" – in which articles. Images of spiders could be handled in the same way as images of Muhammad, sex or violence.
8. The presentation of images outside of the article context – e.g. in galleries for Commons categories or Commons search results – would require a separate solution, perhaps to be implemented in a subsequent phase.
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What I like about this proposal is its simplicity and elegance. It has the great benefit of leaving the communities and content writers in charge of where and to what extent they use the filter, and it also includes non-logged-in users.
Andreas
On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 1:40 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
What I like about this proposal is its simplicity and elegance. It has the great benefit of leaving the communities and content writers in charge of where and to what extent they use the filter, and it also includes non-logged-in users.
The simplicity is definitely a plus, but I also see a number of import minuses: * There is no possibility of using different subjects to filter, or different strictness of filtering. An image is either filtered or non-filtered. Anyone who wants to have any image filtered, will have to click a 'show me' any time they come across a filtered image * The default mode for people who are not logged in will be filtered. The principle of least astonishment would then say that the same holds for people who are logged in, but in that case it means we would be forcing action onto the (presumable) majority who does not want their Wikipedia filtered, rather than the (presumable) minority who does * No chance of using just factual criteria to decide which images are to be filtered
I also don't see how this resolves the objections brought forward in the discussion - if people consider "giving people a way to not look at certain images" too close to censorship, then why would they accept "not show certain images but give people a way to see them"? If people are of the opinion that "sexual images can be objectionable but we do not cater to those who find images about X objectionable" is insufficiently neutral, then why would they consider "this-and-that image are objectionable, but these and those are not" okay?
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org