Hi all,

I thought I'd note for those interested in the latest from the community side of the 'controversial content' discussions - the Commons 'Sexual Content' proposal has just gone into a polling stage for the second time;

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Second_poll_fo...

Hard to tell at this early stage how it's going to go, but I find the general level of quality of comment at the poll to be a little wanting in some ways (oh well).

I hope Phoebe doesn't mind me copying her in on this email, but I'd also like to follow up an enquiry about the working group she mentioned last month - it's here; http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Phoebe#G.27day_Phoebe

cheers,

Peter, PM.

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 3:46 AM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:

On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 2:55 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:

...

The "controversial content" study by Robert Harris and Dory Carr-Harris was completed a few weeks ago.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Wikimedia_Study_of_Controversial_Content

What is the board's view of the recommendations that resulted from the study?

Dear Andreas, and all,

I'm sorry we've been soooo slow to answer this -- it's a busy time. We have been planning to post an update about the current status of the controversial content discussion anyway, so thank you for asking the question.

Here is what happened at the last board meeting regarding controversial content, and our planned next steps.

==Background== At the last in-person Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees meeting in October, Robert and Dory Harris presented the study and its 11 recommendations to the Board. The Board expressed appreciation for the thorough report and thanked them warmly for their work and for soliciting community input throughout the process. Three hours of the meeting agenda was devoted to this topic, and there was a lot of discussion, with every board member expressing their reactions before moving to open discussion.

For those who don't know what the recommendations are, the 11 recommendations made are listed in Part II of the study. The recommendations fall into three types: recommendations involving statements of principle (including the background principles), recommendations requiring technical and Foundation support as well as community support (such as those to code image show/hide functions), and recommendations requiring community action (such as those to review content).

In detail, Robert and Dory recommended that no changes be made to the manner in which text-based “controversial” content is handled in the Wikimedia projects, because the definitions and procedures currently in place to deal with this content are working. They also made a number of recommendations for action that falls within the bailiwick of the Wikimedia community, including recommending that Wikimedia consider development of a Wikijunior project and that Commons admins consider how to improve implementation of some policies and how they are applied. And they recommended that the Wikimedia Foundation staff begin developing a new feature to allow Wikimedia project users to opt into a system that would allow them to easily hide classes of images from their own view.

In general, the Board welcomed many of these recommendations and the care taken with this report, particularly the highlighting of some of the fundamental unresolved questions about Commons mission, scope, and growth rate.

==Next steps== Here are the next steps the Board is taking:

The Board did not pass a resolution on controversial content or take other action on the suggested recommendations at this meeting. However, the Board has formed a working group around controversial content, led by Board members Jan-Bart (as group Chair), Phoebe and Kat, to work with Robert and Dory to identify next steps.

The working group will be examining the recommendations more closely, soliciting Board member feedback on each of the recommendations to a greater degree than there was time for in the in-person meeting, working with the community and finally making a report to the full Board. The working group is expected to recommend next steps, including providing fuller analysis of the recommendations, which recommendations (if any) there is consensus to move forward on and noting what would be required to put them into practice.

Right now the working group is getting Board member feedback to see what Board consensus exists around the resolutions, and after finishing this process will probably move on to analysis. We realize that some of the recommendations are much more controversial than others, and some are much more technically difficult than others.

==How to help==

We recognize that this issue has been discussed to death in many forums over a long time. And the Board has been reading those discussions :) However, we need further support. Please join us in:

• summarizing -- for those who are feeling ambitious, summaries of

discussions so far (from the lists and the wiki, particularly summaries of discussions related to the specific recommendations) would be amazing. There is a section added to the talk page of Part II to summarize thoughts related to each recommendation: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:2010_Wikimedia_Study_of_Controversial_Co...

• analyzing -- further analysis of the recommendations would also be

great. Feasibility analysis (both social and technical) would be wonderful as well as analysis of underlying principles and ideas. Please put analysis on the wiki above (and let's refactor if it gets unmanageable).

• working on the process -- is there a better way to come to community

consensus and to develop the best possible outcome, both practically and philosophically, on this issue? Please share your thoughts.

• joining the group -- especially if you are interested in

facilitating these discussions, or in the above process question, join the working group! Please write Jan-Bart, Phoebe or Kat if you are interested. If you are interested but don't have much time, participating in one of the above ways would be great.

These recommendations are made, ultimately, to the community -- so please help decide what to do with them.

Let me/us know if you have questions.

best, Phoebe

---

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On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 17:41, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

On 6 December 2010 09:02, private musings thepmaccount@gmail.com wrote:

...

I thought I'd note for those interested in the latest from the community side of the 'controversial content' discussions - the Commons 'Sexual Content' proposal has just gone into a polling stage for the second time; http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Second_poll_fo... Hard to tell at this early stage how it's going to go, but I find the general level of quality of comment at the poll to be a little wanting in some ways (oh well).

Holy crap, PM and I just agreed on something relating to this topic. (We both voted "support".) That'll be about the ninth or tenth seal

Same feelings here. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

I'm sorry we are putting more energy into what should be banned from commons instead of searching for mechanisms to protect those readers who would prefer to stay away from such content.

I mean, I understand the problem with paedophilia, and why it needs to be kept outside wikimedia projects, but I think it is equally important to provide with the means to present the content to users in their desired level of exposure; tagging, collapsing and hiding graphic content would do the trick, and it is technologically straightforward.

Cheers, MarianoC

--- El lun 6-dic-10, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com escribió:

De: phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com Asunto: Re: [Foundation-l] 2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content Para: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: lunes, 6 de diciembre de 2010, 17:09 On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 1:02 AM, private musings thepmaccount@gmail.com wrote:

...

Hi all,

I thought I'd note for those interested in the latest

from the

...

community side of the 'controversial content'

discussions - the

...

Commons 'Sexual Content' proposal has just gone into a

polling stage

...

for the second time;

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Second_poll_fo...

thanks for sending this out, and I am glad to see the discussion/vote ongoing and hope to see lots of participation in it.

...

I hope Phoebe doesn't mind me copying her in on this

email, but I'd

...

also like to follow up an enquiry about the working

group she

...

mentioned last month - it's here; http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Phoebe#G.27day_Phoebe

And thanks for the prod... we've been slow to put together the working group that I mentioned in my last message, but it is still happening. In the meantime comments on the recommendations are certainly welcome. More soon, I hope!

best, Phoebe

---

foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

--- El jue 9-dic-10, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com escribió:

De: Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com Asunto: Re: [Foundation-l] 2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content Para: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: jueves, 9 de diciembre de 2010, 22:46 --- On Mon, 6/12/10, Mariano Cecowski marianocecowski@yahoo.com.ar wrote:

...

Date: Monday, 6 December, 2010, 19:40 I'm sorry we are putting more energy into what should be banned from commons instead of

searching

...

for mechanisms to protect those readers who would

prefer to

...

stay away from such content.

I mean, I understand the problem with paedophilia, and

why

...

it needs to be kept outside wikimedia projects, but I

think

...

it is equally important to provide with the means to

present

...

the content to users in their desired level of

exposure;

...

tagging, collapsing and hiding graphic content would

do the

...

trick, and it is technologically straightforward.

Cheers, MarianoC

Such a system was indeed among the recommendations put forward by the 2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content, paralleling similar systems in place at major sites such as Google, youtube and flickr.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Wikimedia_Study_of_Controversial_Content...

As for the Commons sexual content policy poll: there are currently 144 editors in support, and 138 opposing adoption of the policy. The community is almost exactly split down the middle.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Second_poll_fo...

Andreas

Problem is, Controlled Viewing is an option to deletionism, but is not being seen as it. The current poll is to set a criteria for the exclusion of material from commons, whereas content hiding is [generally speaking] against it.

Why do we have to decide what we delete before we decide what we hide (acording to user preferences) ?

MarianoC.-

jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:

--- On Fri, 10/12/10, Mariano Cecowski marianocecowski@yahoo.com.ar wrote:

...

Problem is, Controlled Viewing is an option to deletionism, but is not being seen as it. The current poll is to set a criteria for the exclusion of material from commons, whereas content hiding is [generally speaking] against it. =

...

Why do we have to decide what we delete before we decide what we hide (acording to user preferences) ? =

...

MarianoC.-

Apart from summarising COM:PORN*, all that the draft sexual content policy

was meant to do, actually, was to address two cases:

• Material that is illegal to host for the Foundation under Florida law
• Sexual images of people uploaded without their knowledge and consent

The first is simply a requirement to comply with the law, while the second is a moral issue; we shouldn't host an image of a woman giving a blowjob for example if the woman has not given her consent to have the image upload= ed, and is unaware of its presence on Commons. Excluding those types of cases has nothing to do with the viewer experience; it has to do with protecting the foundation, and the privacy of the people depicted.

You'll never get the weenies to vote give up images of blowjobs, so don't expect any consensus there. Also the Ethnographic get out will allow all the images of naked kids and adolescents that that the pervs can upload and FT2 will be there to defend. I bounced 8 accounts to flickr yesterday that were simply naked kids in 3rd world countries intermixed with Adult porn. All of which were deleted within an hour of the report.

The "Study of Controversial Content" lost the plot and is pretty much dead. No good will come from it.

And thanks for the prod... we've been slow to put together the working group that I mentioned in my last message, but it is still happening. In the meantime comments on the recommendations are certainly welcome. More soon, I hope!

Yes please. Greg has predicted that this study and its recommendations will die a quiet bureaucratic death. As it stands, if I had to bet my house on him being wrong, I'd be keeping an eye out for thermal sleeping bags just in case. It's freezing outside.

Andreas