As this debate has ploughed on I've become less likely to use this feature myself. But am still utterly unconvinced by the opposition arguments.
Re: Demagogy of "multiculturalism" when it means "pushing POV by right-wing US". As long as the image filter would enable Moslems to opt out of seeing a certain set of cartoons, then this to me is about globalisation not about appeasing Conservapedia and its fans. Actually one of the most predictable risks of implementing this is that we will be attacked by our American critics "Wikipedia enables censorship, Moslems now allowed to censor images they dislike, but naturally no "block all porn" option for Christians" (all porn is bound not to be an option because definitions of porn are so divergent. But if it were they'd pick another unimplemented option such as "swimsuit" or "respectable swimsuit").
As for Kim's Red team Blue team shenanigans, why would anyone bother? I can understand why spammers try to subvert our processes and add their links and spamcruft - they see us as a free source of advertising worth their time to try and sneak their message in. But if devout Bahais decide to use this filter to screen out certain images, how likely is it that there will be an opposing team trying to sneak those images past their filter? Especially if the filters are personal options that other editors can't see.
WereSpielChequers
Board is filled with a bunch of amateurs (not derogatory meaning!) --
including yourself in the past and hypothetically including myself if I passed last election -- which position is the product of political will (community, chapters, Board will itself).
Any sane body -- which is aware that it is there because of political will and not because of their expertise (no, Stu and Jan-Bart are not in the Board as experts when they act as apologists of Jimmy's deletion of artworks on Commons [1][2]) -- knows that it should delegate responsibilities to those who know the matter better.
However, Wikimedia Foundation Board acts dilettantish whenever one of the Board member (or a friend of that Board member) has strong position toward some issue.
For example, Wikipedia in Tunisian Arabic has been rejected by the Board, although relevant international institutions (and reality, as well) recognize it as a separate language [3]. Just after long discussion (in short period of time) between two Board members and Language committee, it was threw under the carpet as "waiting" [4] with the excuse to wait for non-existent initiative to create North African Arabic Wikipedia (it was my initiative at the end, just to end with grotesque Board's dilettantism, by claiming that their members are better introduced in linguistic diversity than relevant international bodies and Language committee as well; which I see as humiliating for the Board, but Board members don't think so).
I didn't want to open this issue; but the flow of discussion -- claiming that Board *really* knows what it is doing -- forced me to give it as an example.
While I am sure that at least Arne cares about German Wikipedia and Bishakha cares about Hindi Wikipedia -- collectively, Board reacts just if someone points to their POV related to English Wikipedia. Everything else, including Serbian Wikipedia in 2005 and including Kazakh Wikipedia in 2011, are just safari-like care about interesting and strange species. Yes, Board cares when some project dares to question Jimmy's authority, like when Wikinews did it well and Wikiversity badly.
If the Board members would be more honest in their intentions, not to hide behind demagogy of "multiculturalism" when it means "pushing POV by right-wing US" and similar phrases with similar opposite meanings, we could start to have real discussion. Not to mention that it is obvious that some of the motivations of some of the Board members are not even politically motivated, but very personally (and "very" has the meaning inside of the phrase).
[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/058026.html [2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057795.html [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requests_for_new_languages%2FWik... [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requests_for_new_languages%2FWik...
Can anyone explain me how this Image Filter is not against the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation?
Letting some users to block Wikipedia content is NOT a good way to "disseminate it effectively and globally" as stated in the mission statement.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission_statement
Since I moved to an internet connection that doesn't cripple my connection speed after 1 GB of traffic/month, I probably won't use this feature either.
But, as I to and fro have tried to follow the debate over the last week, I got curious about the feasibility of one possible solution that *I think* would sidestep some of the issues which has been presented concerning the categorization that has been deemed necessary:
What if the user has a default switch "show images?" [on/off] (as someone else already suggested somewhere - sorry, I don't remember in which post), and in every place where a picture is shown (or supposed to be shown), the user would have the ability to toggle the visibility of that particular image.
Kim Bruning: if these settings are stored server-wise, and given the lack of indications on any page about any ban-worthiness, do you think it still would be possible for a third party to create a list of "banned images"/"banned pages" and impose it on anyone? I mean, besides what is already possible by looking at category names such as "sex", "religion", "people from country X" etc.
Obviously, this would emphatically not be a "think of the children" or "if you are a good <insert-belief-here> you should use our special filter" tool, and it would be a pain in the neck to maintain for the user if he or she would like any kind of fine grained control - but quite purposefully so. (An image wouldn't - couldn't - be blocked until the user got to a page where the image is called for and actively blocked it for him/herself, i.e. no manual editing of the raw blacklist or whitelist.)
The reason I ask is that I'm no programmer, and have no clue about the technical feasibility of such a solution, how tampering-resistant this could be made (I *guess* the "red team" would have a harder time destroying this than a system based on a publicly visible categorization, but would it be in some sense "sufficiently" hard?) nor whether this would require too much of the servers, keeping track of settings of x million users times y million images.
I'd be happy to be educated in this.
\Mike
On 10/09 2011 09:35, WereSpielChequers wrote:
As this debate has ploughed on I've become less likely to use this feature myself. But am still utterly unconvinced by the opposition arguments.
Re: Demagogy of "multiculturalism" when it means "pushing POV by right-wing US". As long as the image filter would enable Moslems to opt out of seeing a certain set of cartoons, then this to me is about globalisation not about appeasing Conservapedia and its fans. Actually one of the most predictable risks of implementing this is that we will be attacked by our American critics "Wikipedia enables censorship, Moslems now allowed to censor images they dislike, but naturally no "block all porn" option for Christians" (all porn is bound not to be an option because definitions of porn are so divergent. But if it were they'd pick another unimplemented option such as "swimsuit" or "respectable swimsuit").
As for Kim's Red team Blue team shenanigans, why would anyone bother? I can understand why spammers try to subvert our processes and add their links and spamcruft - they see us as a free source of advertising worth their time to try and sneak their message in. But if devout Bahais decide to use this filter to screen out certain images, how likely is it that there will be an opposing team trying to sneak those images past their filter? Especially if the filters are personal options that other editors can't see.
WereSpielChequers
Board is filled with a bunch of amateurs (not derogatory meaning!) --
including yourself in the past and hypothetically including myself if I passed last election -- which position is the product of political will (community, chapters, Board will itself).
Any sane body -- which is aware that it is there because of political will and not because of their expertise (no, Stu and Jan-Bart are not in the Board as experts when they act as apologists of Jimmy's deletion of artworks on Commons [1][2]) -- knows that it should delegate responsibilities to those who know the matter better.
However, Wikimedia Foundation Board acts dilettantish whenever one of the Board member (or a friend of that Board member) has strong position toward some issue.
For example, Wikipedia in Tunisian Arabic has been rejected by the Board, although relevant international institutions (and reality, as well) recognize it as a separate language [3]. Just after long discussion (in short period of time) between two Board members and Language committee, it was threw under the carpet as "waiting" [4] with the excuse to wait for non-existent initiative to create North African Arabic Wikipedia (it was my initiative at the end, just to end with grotesque Board's dilettantism, by claiming that their members are better introduced in linguistic diversity than relevant international bodies and Language committee as well; which I see as humiliating for the Board, but Board members don't think so).
I didn't want to open this issue; but the flow of discussion -- claiming that Board *really* knows what it is doing -- forced me to give it as an example.
While I am sure that at least Arne cares about German Wikipedia and Bishakha cares about Hindi Wikipedia -- collectively, Board reacts just if someone points to their POV related to English Wikipedia. Everything else, including Serbian Wikipedia in 2005 and including Kazakh Wikipedia in 2011, are just safari-like care about interesting and strange species. Yes, Board cares when some project dares to question Jimmy's authority, like when Wikinews did it well and Wikiversity badly.
If the Board members would be more honest in their intentions, not to hide behind demagogy of "multiculturalism" when it means "pushing POV by right-wing US" and similar phrases with similar opposite meanings, we could start to have real discussion. Not to mention that it is obvious that some of the motivations of some of the Board members are not even politically motivated, but very personally (and "very" has the meaning inside of the phrase).
[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/058026.html [2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057795.html [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requests_for_new_languages%2FWik... [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requests_for_new_languages%2FWik...
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 09:35, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Re: Demagogy of "multiculturalism" when it means "pushing POV by right-wing US". As long as the image filter would enable Moslems to opt out of seeing a certain set of cartoons, then this to me is about globalisation not about appeasing Conservapedia and its fans. Actually one of the most predictable risks of implementing this is that we will be attacked by our American critics "Wikipedia enables censorship, Moslems now allowed to censor images they dislike, but naturally no "block all porn" option for Christians" (all porn is bound not to be an option because definitions of porn are so divergent. But if it were they'd pick another unimplemented option such as "swimsuit" or "respectable swimsuit").
Motivation is one thing, product is another. Motivation behind image filter wasn't to allow Muslims to filter Mohammad depiction. That was included just because of arguments that filtering sexually explicit images and not Mohammad depictions would be American cultural imperialism. (Google for "cultural imperialism" on foundation-l; check Robert Harris' suggestions, as well.)
And while I think that such tool would include other cultures as well (there are other cultures in the world, besides Christian and Muslim right-wingers), motivation for this filter didn't come from Muslims or indigenous people of Australia, but from American right-wingers [1]: moron Sanger and Fox News swill. Although we have Muslims on this list, *no* Muslim commented this thread. Although we have many cultures on this list, Americans are around 100% of supporters, while a number of people from other cultures oppose (including, of course, majority of Americans).
Note that I am not trying to convince you not to use the filter. I am even not against the filter as idea, because the only thing which has been done well in the whole saga is the design of the filter for user side. (As it is opt-in filter, I would be content even with stricter rules.) The problem is everything else: motivation, management of every phase of the process, arrogance of Board members, demagogy, tactical and strategic failure because of personal wishes.
[1] http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/27/wikipedia-child-porn-larry-sanger-...
On 10 September 2011 12:14, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
And while I think that such tool would include other cultures as well (there are other cultures in the world, besides Christian and Muslim right-wingers), motivation for this filter didn't come from Muslims or indigenous people of Australia, but from American right-wingers [1]: moron Sanger and Fox News swill. Although we have Muslims on this list, *no* Muslim commented this thread. Although we have many cultures on this list, Americans are around 100% of supporters, while a number of people from other cultures oppose (including, of course, majority of Americans).
This is a good question, actually:
What are the use cases people see for *themselves*? Not for hypothetical others, but *themselves*?
(And will the people presenting use cases largely be American?)
Were use cases gathered beforehand?
- d.
On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 08:35:00AM +0100, WereSpielChequers wrote:
As for Kim's Red team Blue team shenanigans, why would anyone bother?
But if devout Bahais decide to use this filter ...
Heh, I never thought about trolling devout Bahai. ;-) I wouldn't use a filter though. I'm sure smart *categorisation* could have interesting effects all by itself.
I can understand why spammers try to ...
On the other hand, those spammers definitely would have some neat ways to exploit synergies between the new *category system* and 3rd party filters. Similar filters already exist, it would only be logical for them to incorporate high quality curated data.
I can also think of ways to mess with the *category system* that would help spammers, even in an otherwise unfiltered internet.
The one thing most of the proposed red vs blue simulations would NOT include ... is an on-wiki filter.
I am proposing something ...errr... categorically different from that. ;-)
sincerely, Kim Bruning
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org