Not long ago I had a gaffe on internal-l, by publicly expressing opinion what do I really think about Wiki Loves Monuments, although my intention was to send a private email. However, WLM has a number of good sides: Commons will be filled with photos, people will spend time together, it makes at least some parts of the movement more coherent. Besides the fact that making depictions of depictions is a classical European type of decadency. Anyway, if that's the worst thing in our movement, I could live with that.
But, it is not.
If Board doesn't intervene *now*, it could be easily concluded that the worst thing ever happened to our movement has started these days.
Up to the end of the so called "referendum", everything was as usual: Because of <I promised to myself that won't use at this point phrase "Jimmy's sexually impaired rich friends"> Board articulated something in opposition of majority of editors (yes, majority of editors; I really don't care what one sexually impaired member of Concerned Women for America with 17 edits thinks about Wikipedia [1][2]); then it wanted to implement it anyway, including bizarre questionnaire called "referendum"; then heated discussion sparked; then results came; then results from German Wikipedia came, as well.
Logically, we have the solution: If Board really cares what Concerned Women for America think, let it, please, implement that filter on English Wikipedia and leave the rest of the projects alone -- if they don't ask for the filter explicitly. As members of that organization probably don't know any other language except English, everybody will be happy. Except the core editors of English Wikipedia, of course. But Board doesn't care about them, anyway; which means that English Wikipedia is reasonable scapegoat for Wikimedia movement to please sexually impaired Americans and others.
But, we have one much more serious problem in front of us. Instead of going toward the solution, we are going in opposite direction. Instead of concluding this three years long drama, Censorship Committee and Board want to "analyze" the numbers and prolong agony for another three years. And if that agony has something useful, important at the end, I could even say that we need to make reasonable sacrifice (in my area it would be solved by slaughtering pig or goat or whatever, which is more reasonable than wasting three more years, by the way).
But, it doesn't have.
The most important reason for this bizarre expression of mismanagement is to please, as mentioned before, sexually impaired Americans. If that's the main reason, please, please them *now* or forget everything.
Like WLM, this Board's pet project is expression of decadency. This time American. However, unlike WLM, this project won't fill Commons with photos. Quite opposite, this project will make significant problems to the Commons community. People will spend time together indeed, but in arguing who is right and who's not. It already divides the movement on a couple of lines.
I realized that I started to participate in this madness when I asked for some data from the results. And now, community is asked to participate into the "Next steps" [3]! Holy Thing! That will produce much more sexual content than any "porn" photo on Commons. In Serbian we say for that "fucking in healthy brain". If not exterminated at the beginning, that brainfuck (unfortunately, not programming language [4]) will produce much more problems than any image filter or any Fox News scam.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer#Internet_censorship [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerned_Women_for_America. [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Next_steps/en [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck
Logically, we have the solution: If Board really cares what Concerned Women for America think, let it, please, implement that filter on English Wikipedia and leave the rest of the projects alone -- if they don't ask for the filter explicitly. As members of that organization probably don't know any other language except English, everybody will be happy. Except the core editors of English Wikipedia, of course. But Board doesn't care about them, anyway; which means that English Wikipedia is reasonable scapegoat for Wikimedia movement to please sexually impaired Americans and others.
I think this moves beyond just one organization. As a "concerned feminist" who "lives in America" the idea of calling the women who support the referendum, aren't into bad porn on Commons, and tacky use of sexualized images on articles as "educational" when they really aren't, "sexually impaired" - is beyond sexist. Unless, perhaps, I'm mis-understanding your post.
I realized that I started to participate in this madness when I asked
for some data from the results. And now, community is asked to participate into the "Next steps" [3]! Holy Thing! That will produce much more sexual content than any "porn" photo on Commons. In Serbian we say for that "fucking in healthy brain". If not exterminated at the beginning, that brainfuck (unfortunately, not programming language [4]) will produce much more problems than any image filter or any Fox News scam.
Voices are being heard who are against tacky bad sexualized images. The group of people who support this "Commons is the dump of the sum of crappy free photos for the world" way of thinking might be the loudest, but they are the smallest in numbers, when it comes to English landscapes, from my understanding. If people want to bombard us with more sexualized images, we'll just keep fighting back. I can pay for my porn, I don't need it on Commons.
The majority of the women (and men) who participate in this anti-sexualized environment are generally liberal left-wing political individuals. Many are pro-sex and embrace liberal sexual lifestyles or are open minded to what other people do in their bedrooms. Some don't even live in America. I think you need to rethink your statements before you go around accusing supporters, including women, of this referendum as sexually dysfunctional conservatives.
Sarah
On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 15:54, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com wrote:
I think this moves beyond just one organization. As a "concerned feminist" who "lives in America" the idea of calling the women who support the referendum, aren't into bad porn on Commons, and tacky use of sexualized images on articles as "educational" when they really aren't, "sexually impaired" - is beyond sexist. Unless, perhaps, I'm mis-understanding your post.
I am feminist as well and contrary to my previous examples -- which were male-exclusive -- I intentionally gave example of one female organization. I see no problem in being sarcastic toward any gender while it is consistent.
Voices are being heard who are against tacky bad sexualized images. The group of people who support this "Commons is the dump of the sum of crappy free photos for the world" way of thinking might be the loudest, but they are the smallest in numbers, when it comes to English landscapes, from my understanding. If people want to bombard us with more sexualized images, we'll just keep fighting back. I can pay for my porn, I don't need it on Commons.
We don't talk here about crappy images, but about *any* image which depicts nude body or sexual act for *educational* purposes.
The majority of the women (and men) who participate in this anti-sexualized environment are generally liberal left-wing political individuals. Many are pro-sex and embrace liberal sexual lifestyles or are open minded to what other people do in their bedrooms. Some don't even live in America. I think you need to rethink your statements before you go around accusing supporters, including women, of this referendum as sexually dysfunctional conservatives.
Does your feminism excludes necessity for sexual education?
Does your feminism excludes necessity for sexual education?
No, but, I can send you some pictures on Commons that have been "speedy keeps" of strippers with their legs spread wide because they are "educational and high quality."
My boss, who is bound to have a baby any day now, can't open the pregnancy article at work because the intro is NSFW our workplace. I can't open the [[vagina]] article at work either, because of the really in your face photo of a vagina when you open it up, however, I can totally read the intro to [[penis]] since there isn't a big giant penis in one's face upon opening it. I work in an educational environment (a museum institution, which has exhibits on sexuality, gender, etc) and I can't even look at these articles at work, take that as you will.
Sarah who is totally grossed out by that photo on the vagina article, gahhhhhhhhhhh, surely she can't be the only one!
On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 5:15 PM, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.comwrote:
Does your feminism excludes necessity for sexual education?
No, but, I can send you some pictures on Commons that have been "speedy keeps" of strippers with their legs spread wide because they are "educational and high quality."
You're saying that a picture of a stripper with her legs wide open can in no way be educational and high quality? The undertone from this statement is that "It would be better and less offensive if her legs were closed" which to me highlights the censorship problem precisely.
My boss, who is bound to have a baby any day now, can't open the pregnancy article at work because the intro is NSFW our workplace. I can't open the [[vagina]] article at work either, because of the really in your face photo of a vagina when you open it up, however, I can totally read the intro to [[penis]] since there isn't a big giant penis in one's face upon opening it. I work in an educational environment (a museum institution, which has exhibits on sexuality, gender, etc) and I can't even look at these articles at work, take that as you will.
This raises twin issues. First, it raises the presumption that you and your boss's workplace ought to be the model for how people around the world determine what they should or shouldn't see -- at home OR at work.
Second, it echoes my first paragraph that it makes a judgment call about the appropriateness of a specific image based on the perceived "immoralness" or "embarassment" of that image.
"The majority of the women (and men) who participate in this anti-sexualized environment are generally liberal left-wing political individuals. Many are pro-sex and embrace liberal sexual lifestyles or are open minded to what other people do in their bedrooms. Some don't even live in America. I think you need to rethink your statements before you go around accusing supporters, including women, of this referendum as sexually dysfunctional conservatives."
The above paragraph is one massive "Citations Needed", but that aside, it misses the point.
"Many are...." carries with it that "some aren't." "Some don't" implies that "some do."
In criticizing Milos for generalizing the opinions of one population, you yourself are doing the exact same thing. We don't have that data, and I'm sure if there WERE any it could be easily picked apart on methodological issues. The broader lesson is that attempting to generalize a view on morality to any populace is doomed to inaccuracy and failure. -Dan
The question shouldn't be about who is right - whether it is good that certain images are not considered "safe for work" - we are not in a position to change the opinion of society, and we shouldn't want to be in such position either.
The discussion however should be, if at all, about whether we want to offer people the option to view content in such environments without being constantly on their guard for what content might pop up. Do we want to offer people to tweak the images of Wikipedia in such a way that it suits their life style, that they can use Wikipedia where and when they would want to?
The board clearly answered that question with yes. Do you think it is better to force people to choose between watching an article with an image they do not want to see, and not seeing the article at all?
Lodewijk
Am 6. September 2011 16:44 schrieb Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com:
On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 5:15 PM, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch@gmail.com
wrote:
Does your feminism excludes necessity for sexual education?
No, but, I can send you some pictures on Commons that have been "speedy keeps" of strippers with their legs spread wide because they are "educational and high quality."
You're saying that a picture of a stripper with her legs wide open can in no way be educational and high quality? The undertone from this statement is that "It would be better and less offensive if her legs were closed" which to me highlights the censorship problem precisely.
My boss, who is bound to have a baby any day now, can't open the
pregnancy
article at work because the intro is NSFW our workplace. I can't open the [[vagina]] article at work either, because of the really in your face
photo
of a vagina when you open it up, however, I can totally read the intro to [[penis]] since there isn't a big giant penis in one's face upon opening it. I work in an educational environment (a museum institution, which has exhibits on sexuality, gender, etc) and I can't even look at these
articles
at work, take that as you will.
This raises twin issues. First, it raises the presumption that you and your boss's workplace ought to be the model for how people around the world determine what they should or shouldn't see -- at home OR at work.
Second, it echoes my first paragraph that it makes a judgment call about the appropriateness of a specific image based on the perceived "immoralness" or "embarassment" of that image.
"The majority of the women (and men) who participate in this anti-sexualized environment are generally liberal left-wing political individuals. Many
are
pro-sex and embrace liberal sexual lifestyles or are open minded to what other people do in their bedrooms. Some don't even live in America. I think you need to rethink your statements before you go around accusing supporters, including women, of this referendum as sexually dysfunctional conservatives."
The above paragraph is one massive "Citations Needed", but that aside, it misses the point.
"Many are...." carries with it that "some aren't." "Some don't" implies that "some do."
In criticizing Milos for generalizing the opinions of one population, you yourself are doing the exact same thing. We don't have that data, and I'm sure if there WERE any it could be easily picked apart on methodological issues. The broader lesson is that attempting to generalize a view on morality to any populace is doomed to inaccuracy and failure. -Dan _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Tue, Sep 06, 2011 at 05:51:40PM +0200, Lodewijk wrote:
The question shouldn't [...] be about whether we want to offer [...] people [...] Wikipedia? [*]
Do you think it is better to force people to choose between watching an article with an image they do not want to see, and not seeing the article at all?
Well, if you put it that way, then yes, very much better. ;-)
sincerely, Kim Bruning
[*] Case in point. ;-)
On Tue, Sep 06, 2011 at 05:30:54PM +0200, Kim Bruning wrote:
On Tue, Sep 06, 2011 at 05:51:40PM +0200, Lodewijk wrote:
The question shouldn't [...] be about whether we want to offer [...] people [...] Wikipedia?
( just as a note: This "quote" is intended as an illustration of why it may be preferable to have an all-or-nothing policy for wikipedia articles, as opposed to we-hide-parts-of-the-article.
If part of a story is hidden, you can introduce very strong bias.
Obviously, it is not normally my intention to deliberately twist people's words. (Other than as an illustration here) )
sincerely, Kim Bruning
(as a side-respons: besides being quite rude of making your point this way; it is nonsensical, because in this case it is the broadcaster (you) who decides what to leave out, and not the receiver (me). Showing everything or showing only the parts people want to see have just as much chance for bias. You could even argue that forcing people to look at pictures and make them feel uncomfortable gives them in their specific interpretation a larger bias about the topic than you can ever induce by leaving the pictures out for that same group.
Lodewijk
Am 7. September 2011 20:38 schrieb Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl:
On Tue, Sep 06, 2011 at 05:30:54PM +0200, Kim Bruning wrote:
On Tue, Sep 06, 2011 at 05:51:40PM +0200, Lodewijk wrote:
The question shouldn't [...] be about whether we want to offer [...] people [...] Wikipedia?
( just as a note: This "quote" is intended as an illustration of why it may be preferable to have an all-or-nothing policy for wikipedia articles, as opposed to we-hide-parts-of-the-article.
If part of a story is hidden, you can introduce very strong bias.
Obviously, it is not normally my intention to deliberately twist people's words. (Other than as an illustration here) )
sincerely, Kim Bruning
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Thu, Sep 08, 2011 at 05:20:40PM +0200, Lodewijk wrote:
(as a side-respons: besides being quite rude of making your point this way;
Interesting; it's actually a fairly common depiction, eg. : http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JN5JdlnKd7g/Sp-5xSd6pKI/AAAAAAAAAUI/bXiSz5mhgao/s4... http://theresolute.net/files/2010/04/censored_text.jpg
Of course, if you don't like it, you could always filter it. :-)
it is nonsensical, because in this case it is the broadcaster (you) who decides what to leave out, and not the receiver (me).
Ah, you think I'm talking about the image filter here. That's not entirely true. As I have repeated many times, the category system required for the filter to work is the actual potential problem.
That said, even a self controlled filter can be problematic qua bias (especially if you're not sure entirely how to control it) [1]
Showing everything or showing only the parts people want to see have just as much chance for bias.
Strictly speaking, that would be statistically true if you were to block randomly. If you block non-randomly, then per definition (the statistical definition even!) you are introducing bias.
You could even argue that forcing people to look at pictures and make them feel uncomfortable gives them in their specific interpretation a larger bias about the topic than you can ever induce by leaving the pictures out for that same group.
I would hope that it would be a bias towards the truth. Reality and truth tend to be uncomfortable to people, they may have to step outside their comfort zone slightly. It's much more pleasant to believe that the earth is flat and does not extend outside your little village.
When I start to feel slightly uncomfortable, I know I'm probably getting closer to the reality of matters. This is not always entirely pleasant at first.
sincerely, Kim Bruning [1] http://www.thefilterbubble.com/ted-talk
On Thursday, September 8, 2011, Kim Bruning wrote:
That said, even a self controlled filter can be problematic qua bias (especially if you're not sure entirely how to control it) [1]
I'm not sure what I think about the image filter, but that's a pretty ropey comparison:
With the proposed image filter, the knowledge that a filter is in place would be quite obvious: there'd be a big gray box with "Image Removed" or something. And if you want to see them, you are only a click away from loading them.
And how is bias being introduced into my views by being able to go to [[Cock ring]] and not seeing a picture of a penis? I fail to see how being able to opt-out of saucy sex pics actually moves us in any significant way closer to a world where we live in "filter bubbles". The main problem stated by Eli Pariser is that the filter bubbles are created without consent or knowledge of the user - his example is of political conservatives whose posts disappeared from his Facebook stream and the same Google searches leading to different results for different people. The proposed image filter wouldn't have those problems: it's just when you go to a page which has, say, sexual content, you'd know exactly what had been left out.
Again, I'm not sure whether I support the image filter, but it's a rubbish argument to say that it creates filter bubble-type scenarios.
On Fri, Sep 09, 2011 at 09:24:36AM +0100, Tom Morris wrote:
On Thursday, September 8, 2011, Kim Bruning wrote:
That said, even a self controlled filter can be problematic qua bias (especially if you're not sure entirely how to control it) [1]
I'm not sure what I think about the image filter, but that's a pretty ropey comparison:
With the proposed image filter, the knowledge that a filter is in place would be quite obvious: there'd be a big gray box with "Image Removed" or something. And if you want to see them, you are only a click away from loading them.
This is true With the proposed image filter and only with the proposed image filter -provided that the entire connection between you and the wiki is transparent- (Which it need not be.)
If there are filters in between, it need not be true today. If your browser is not under your control, it need not be true today.
That's today. A little while after the filter is introduced, we will have 2 sets of effects, political and technical.
* Politically, people will see wikipedia as endorsing filters (it seems quite unlikely that they will take note of the subtle properties of our filter that make it tolerable to us) so more filters will come into circulation, increasing the chance that there is a filter not-under-your-control between you and the wiki. This will change the way the filter works. * Technically, a new set of categories is created, or categories will be pressed into the new role. These categories are invaluable to filter makers. This means again there will be more filters (as above), but also that the little grey box will not be there to remind you that something is missing.
After that, we get back to the side effects of regular (non-wikipedia kind) filters. This information is well documented all over the net. You'll discover that not just images, but also the pages those images are on will not be reachable. We've been told on this list that this already happens to some people today. It seems pretty obvious that the effect will be much multiplied once the categories are available to third parties.
And how is bias being introduced into my views by being able to go to [[Cock ring]] and not seeing a picture of a penis? I fail to see how being able to opt-out of saucy sex pics actually moves us in any significant way closer to a world where we live in "filter bubbles".
I just provided you with 2 steps in that direction, pretty much the first moves on the blue-team and red-team sides.
On or around move 2 (6-12 months) we can start seeing people either deliberately or accidentally start filtering things that are nothing to do with sex or drugs at all, up to and including censoring of civic information.
This has happened with filters in the past. I don't yet see why our filters wouldn't follow the same playbook. So far, there is nothing to differentiate our history from existing history.
"But ours will be different" is not an argument. ;-)
Again, I'm not sure whether I support the image filter, but it's a rubbish argument to say that it creates filter bubble-type scenarios.
Seriously? That's pretty definitive. [citation needed] Show me a filter scenario where it *hasn't* happened!
sincerely, Kim Bruning
On 9 September 2011 12:54, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
After that, we get back to the side effects of regular (non-wikipedia kind) filters. This information is well documented all over the net. You'll discover that not just images, but also the pages those images are on will not be reachable. We've been told on this list that this already happens to some people today. It seems pretty obvious that the effect will be much multiplied once the categories are available to third parties.
Note that this is what the Internet Watch Foundation does to block images. (Thus, they blocked Wikipedia article text, but not the image itself, which was on a different server.)
Censors tend not to worry about collateral damage.
Is the WMF claiming the filter will be free of side-effects?
[ ] yes [ ] no
If yes, then how so?
If no, then "just don't use the feature" is a nonsense.
And how is bias being introduced into my views by being able to go to [[Cock ring]] and not seeing a picture of a penis? I fail to see how being able to opt-out of saucy sex pics actually moves us in any significant way closer to a world where we live in "filter bubbles".
I just provided you with 2 steps in that direction, pretty much the first moves on the blue-team and red-team sides. On or around move 2 (6-12 months) we can start seeing people either deliberately or accidentally start filtering things that are nothing to do with sex or drugs at all, up to and including censoring of civic information. This has happened with filters in the past. I don't yet see why our filters wouldn't follow the same playbook. So far, there is nothing to differentiate our history from existing history. "But ours will be different" is not an argument. ;-)
Indeed. Substantive answers to these points would be welcomed. From the board, since they've determined the filter is happening.
- d.
On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 12:44 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 5:15 PM, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.comwrote:
Does your feminism excludes necessity for sexual education?
No, but, I can send you some pictures on Commons that have been "speedy keeps" of strippers with their legs spread wide because they are "educational and high quality."
You're saying that a picture of a stripper with her legs wide open can in no way be educational and high quality? The undertone from this statement is that "It would be better and less offensive if her legs were closed" which to me highlights the censorship problem precisely.
This is the point of the image filter. There are images that, notwithstanding their being educational and high quality, I don't necessarily want to see without warning. Even if I'm looking up 'vagina' for whatever reason.
It's about taking into account the visual preferences of readers (click to show images like that to avoid being surprised) while still recognising that such images are usually of high quality and have a valid educational use.
On Fri, Sep 09, 2011 at 03:54:46PM +1000, Andrew Garrett wrote:
This is the point of the image filter. There are images that, notwithstanding their being educational and high quality, I don't necessarily want to see without warning. Even if I'm looking up 'vagina' for whatever reason.
Are there any issues with the current article, then?
sincerely, Kim Bruning
On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 16:15, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com wrote:
No, but, I can send you some pictures on Commons that have been "speedy keeps" of strippers with their legs spread wide because they are "educational and high quality."
I really don't care about strippers. However, it would be quite educationally to have short movies at least for the basic sexual concepts. That includes hygiene of reproductive organs for example, but some basic sexual positions, as well. And that would be much more unacceptable to pro-censorship people than strippers.
My boss, who is bound to have a baby any day now, can't open the pregnancy article at work because the intro is NSFW our workplace. I can't open the [[vagina]] article at work either, because of the really in your face photo of a vagina when you open it up, however, I can totally read the intro to [[penis]] since there isn't a big giant penis in one's face upon opening it. I work in an educational environment (a museum institution, which has exhibits on sexuality, gender, etc) and I can't even look at these articles at work, take that as you will.
[[penis]] is the wrong artcile. [[human penis]] is the right one ;) Note that depictions of penises are the most numerous in the future "sexual content" category. Our editor base is ~85% male and there are plenty of them willing to show their sexual organ.
I understand that access to nudity is a problem in many occasions. That's one of the problems of our civilization which sexual education should fix. In the mean time, we have to find some solutions for that. If you need it, contact me and I'll setup proxy for you and your boss to freely watch Wikipedia articles without images. ... Here is, actually, a number of options: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Options_to_not_see_an_image
*My boss (...) can't open the pregnancy article at work because the intro is NSFW our workplace.
I'm sorry but i don't find the problem in this article.
*I can't open the [[vagina]] article at work either, because of the really
in your face photo of a vagina when you open it up
The article is about vagina. The only picture there who might be "NSFW" is this one: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Azvag.jpg who only shows what are the anatomy of a vagina. I find very educational.
And BTW, if you don't want to see a vagina, don't open the article.
*who is totally grossed out by that photo on the vagina article,
gahhhhhhhhhhh, surely she can't be the only one!
No it was not. There are in fact a category in commons ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Vagina ) and in that category i found the image who replaced the Image you dislike so muchhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Human_vulva_with_visible_vaginal_opening.jpg. But not because you don't like, because the one in the article now is more clear. _____ *Béria Lima* http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484
*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. É isso o que estamos a fazer http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Nossos_projetos.*
On 6 September 2011 15:15, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com wrote:
Does your feminism excludes necessity for sexual education?
No, but, I can send you some pictures on Commons that have been "speedy keeps" of strippers with their legs spread wide because they are "educational and high quality."
My boss, who is bound to have a baby any day now, can't open the pregnancy article at work because the intro is NSFW our workplace. I can't open the [[vagina]] article at work either, because of the really in your face photo of a vagina when you open it up, however, I can totally read the intro to [[penis]] since there isn't a big giant penis in one's face upon opening it. I work in an educational environment (a museum institution, which has exhibits on sexuality, gender, etc) and I can't even look at these articles at work, take that as you will.
Sarah who is totally grossed out by that photo on the vagina article, gahhhhhhhhhhh, surely she can't be the only one!
-- GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for the Wikimedia Foundationhttp://www.glamwiki.org Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Arthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch and Sarah Stierch Consulting
*Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.*
http://www.sarahstierch.com/ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I think it is obvious that some people will have a problem with those images, and others don't. Apparently Sarah is (justified or not - that doesn't matter) under the impression that it would not be appreciated at her work if she would open such images there. That she has this impression is a fact. That she is because of that unable to access the textual contents of the article is also a fact.
The question in place is now - should Sarah, if she wants to, be enabled to selectively filter out images so that she can browse on Wikipedia without worrying too much about whether the next page will contain an image that people on her workplace would find inappropriate?
Of course people are allowed to have all kind of opinions on this - I heard Kim (and others of an alledged vocal minority) saying very clearly "no", even though he found it necessary to twist my words for that. And the board clearly said yes.
Lodewijk
Am 6. September 2011 22:45 schrieb Béria Lima berialima@gmail.com:
*My boss (...) can't open the pregnancy article at work because the intro is NSFW our workplace.
I'm sorry but i don't find the problem in this article.
*I can't open the [[vagina]] article at work either, because of the really
in your face photo of a vagina when you open it up
The article is about vagina. The only picture there who might be "NSFW" is this one: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Azvag.jpg who only shows what are the anatomy of a vagina. I find very educational.
And BTW, if you don't want to see a vagina, don't open the article.
*who is totally grossed out by that photo on the vagina article,
gahhhhhhhhhhh, surely she can't be the only one!
No it was not. There are in fact a category in commons ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Vagina ) and in that category i found the image who replaced the Image you dislike so much< http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Human_vulva_with_visible_vaginal_open...
.
But not because you don't like, because the one in the article now is more clear. _____ *Béria Lima* http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484
*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. É isso o que estamos a fazer http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Nossos_projetos.*
On 6 September 2011 15:15, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com wrote:
Does your feminism excludes necessity for sexual education?
No, but, I can send you some pictures on Commons that have been "speedy keeps" of strippers with their legs spread wide because they are "educational and high quality."
My boss, who is bound to have a baby any day now, can't open the
pregnancy
article at work because the intro is NSFW our workplace. I can't open the [[vagina]] article at work either, because of the really in your face
photo
of a vagina when you open it up, however, I can totally read the intro to [[penis]] since there isn't a big giant penis in one's face upon opening it. I work in an educational environment (a museum institution, which has exhibits on sexuality, gender, etc) and I can't even look at these
articles
at work, take that as you will.
Sarah who is totally grossed out by that photo on the vagina article, gahhhhhhhhhhh, surely she can't be the only one!
-- GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for the Wikimedia Foundationhttp://www.glamwiki.org Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Arthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch and Sarah Stierch Consulting
*Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.*
http://www.sarahstierch.com/ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 15:54, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com wrote:
Logically, we have the solution: If Board really cares what Concerned Women for America think, let it, please, implement that filter on English Wikipedia and leave the rest of the projects alone -- if they don't ask for the filter explicitly. As members of that organization probably don't know any other language except English, everybody will be happy. Except the core editors of English Wikipedia, of course. But Board doesn't care about them, anyway; which means that English Wikipedia is reasonable scapegoat for Wikimedia movement to please sexually impaired Americans and others.
I think this moves beyond just one organization. As a "concerned feminist" who "lives in America" the idea of calling the women who support the referendum, aren't into bad porn on Commons, and tacky use of sexualized images on articles as "educational" when they really aren't, "sexually impaired" - is beyond sexist. Unless, perhaps, I'm mis-understanding your post.
Thanks to Fred, I've realized that it seems that you misread my email. My sarcastic example related to particular organization, not to "concerned women/feminists from America". The organization is called "Concerned Women for America" [1]. They started the whole drama in 2008 [2].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerned_Women_for_America [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer#Internet_censorship
On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 17:30, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 15:54, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com wrote:
I think this moves beyond just one organization. As a "concerned feminist" who "lives in America" the idea of calling the women who support the referendum, aren't into bad porn on Commons, and tacky use of sexualized images on articles as "educational" when they really aren't, "sexually impaired" - is beyond sexist. Unless, perhaps, I'm mis-understanding your post.
Thanks to Fred, I've realized that it seems that you misread my email. My sarcastic example related to particular organization, not to "concerned women/feminists from America". The organization is called "Concerned Women for America" [1]. They started the whole drama in 2008 [2].
And to be more precise: I can't have a position about your position if I don't know it; thus I can't be sarcastic toward your position. However, the position of the Concerned Women for America is well described and I can be sarcastic about it. That doesn't include just their position toward sexually explicit content.
Hey Milosh,
I think we all say things in private mails that we wouldn't post on public lists. If I posted any of a number of my private emails to our office mailing list I'd be at risk of getting fired. I think highly of you, and I'm sure most of the people here do, even when they disagree with you.
Anyway, to the issue:
I understand the attitude of being against censorship at any costs - it is a very important fight. But as H.L. Mencken said:
"Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority ..."
The thing is, even if a lot of Wikipedia is written by a disreputable minority, we want it to go to the great masses. I completely get what Sarah is saying here: not everyone wants that hard uncompromising focus on uncensored liberty: it's inconvenient in "polite society".
Sure, the image hiding feature is a compromise, but it's not a bad one. It's not intended to remove any images from Wikipedia, just to allow users to make Wikipedia SFW (or SFL, depending on who you are) as required, and is totally reversible, so I support it.
On Tue, Sep 06, 2011 at 05:31:52PM +0200, David Richfield wrote:
and is totally reversible, so I support it.
Yeah... about that. I propose a challenge to you too then.
I'm proposing to run a wiki server, emulating different scenarios with the image filter and category system. The filter itself actually is likely Mostly Harmless; at worst it'll likely stochastically reduce admin effectivity. So for at least some of the scenarios, we won't even run a filter on-wiki. ;-)
Now... the category scheme used by the filter, that's where life gets interesting.
If you're convinced nothing can go wrong, you can join blue team. Of course, I'll be playing on red team. }:-)>
#include evil_laughter.h;
Afterwards, we can swap, to see if the other team can hold blue.
sincerely, Kim Bruning
On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 1:41 AM, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
On Tue, Sep 06, 2011 at 05:31:52PM +0200, David Richfield wrote:
and is totally reversible, so I support it.
Yeah... about that. I propose a challenge to you too then.
I'm proposing to run a wiki server, emulating different scenarios with the image filter and category system. The filter itself actually is likely Mostly Harmless; at worst it'll likely stochastically reduce admin effectivity. So for at least some of the scenarios, we won't even run a filter on-wiki. ;-)
Now... the category scheme used by the filter, that's where life gets interesting.
If you're convinced nothing can go wrong, you can join blue team. Of course, I'll be playing on red team. }:-)>
#include evil_laughter.h;
Afterwards, we can swap, to see if the other team can hold blue.
I find this argument very unconvincing.
wikis are predicated on the belief that there are more people willing to do good than bad, that they are highly protective of their collective work, they are smarter and better organised, and all they need to win the battles (as well as the war ..) is slightly more advanced tools... like the block button.
add a mix of abusefilter, flagged revs, semi-protection, etc., and we can slow down changes to the categorisation system and respond quickly to attacks. It wont be much different than template vandalism.
in short, game on Kim. ;-)
-- John Vandenberg
On Wed, Sep 07, 2011 at 02:55:43AM +1000, John Vandenberg wrote:
wikis are predicated on the belief that there are more people willing to do good than bad, that they are highly protective of their collective work, they are smarter and better organised, and all they need to win the battles (as well as the war ..) is slightly more advanced tools... like the block button.
Right! And IMHO the image filter introduces novel elements for which those beliefs need not hold. I think there are ways to get a crowbar in.
in short, game on Kim. ;-)
I like your attitude! :-D
sincerely, Kim Bruning
On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 17:31, David Richfield davidrichfield@gmail.com wrote:
I understand the attitude of being against censorship at any costs - it is a very important fight. But as H.L. Mencken said:
"Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority ..."
The thing is, even if a lot of Wikipedia is written by a disreputable minority, we want it to go to the great masses. I completely get what Sarah is saying here: not everyone wants that hard uncompromising focus on uncensored liberty: it's inconvenient in "polite society".
Sure, the image hiding feature is a compromise, but it's not a bad one. It's not intended to remove any images from Wikipedia, just to allow users to make Wikipedia SFW (or SFL, depending on who you are) as required, and is totally reversible, so I support it.
There are two separate issues: The first one, with which I agree, is that image filter is not a big deal.
The second one is a meta question and it's related to our position inside of the contemporary civilization.
Modern Western civilization has been built on the premise that just particularly harmful works should be censored, if any at all; and if censored, they are usually accessible in libraries, but couldn't be [re]printed.
We are living in the age significantly different to just ~10-15 years ago; exactly because internet and Wikipedia. Even "particularly harmful works" could be found on internet. Consequently, the question for us is: should we define Wikipedia as encyclopedia/library of classical modernity or we should define it as unique global phenomenon, just [remotely] connected to the concepts of encyclopedia and library.
Those are, actually, two confronted concepts behind this debate. Those who want to keep Wikipedia inside of its encyclopedic and librarian, modernist frame, oppose to censorship, even in lite form, as this image filter. Others, who see Wikipedia as unique (better, "not defined phenomenon, yet") and treat it as contemporary postmodernist project without clear borders -- tend to accept various ways of social influences in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.
While both positions seem legitimate, the problem with the second one is that Wikipedia is by definition an encyclopedia, which ideologically belongs to the modern period. There is no such thing as "postmodern encyclopedia" as well as there is no "postmodern science". There are postmodern art, postmodern concepts, postmodern philosophy, but there is no postmodern science, as science requires exact methods, which is opposite to the conceptual relativism (i.e., there are no many truths, there could be just different positions toward some issue; not counting possible sophisms and scientifically unknown).
The other, "the unique", "the unknown" thing is not Wikipedia nor Wikisource etc.; the other thing is our movement. And it could incorporate many different cultures, as well as it could be postmodern by nature. That's the social issue and social relations are not necessarily exact, scientific; quite opposite, they usually have strong irrational color. And that's good and normal, as that irrational part of us gives meaning to our lives.
In relation to those concepts, the question is where the border between our rational and irrational is. For example, user interface doesn't belong to the rational (although it has to be constructed rationally). It should be easy to use, which could be quantified, but which is not our rational choice, but our irrational feeling.
Because of that I don't oppose to the image filter, as it belongs to the irrational part of the content (unlike deleting images, for example). I would like to see the world full of bold people who don't afraid to take a look into some image because of religious prejudices, but I am not the person who should decide that instead of them. So, without the context, image filter sounds acceptable to me.
However, the main part of the problem is not about freedom of choice, but about mismanagement which tends to be spread into the chronic movement agony.
I was serious when I asked the Board to take the action *now*. If they were bold enough to make decision opposed by majority of core editors, they should be bold enough to conclude it. Let them implement it ASAP on English Wikipedia and conclude this drama. The present question is not how to avoid confrontation -- as confrontation already exists -- the question is what's better: to have mid-level confrontation for years or to push the issue as soon as possible, have higher level of drama for a short period of time and to have low to insignificant level of confrontation in the future. I think that prolonged mid-level confrontation for more than a couple of months (and it already lasts for a couple of months) would be very harmful for the community and movement. The only other non-harmful (or not a lot harmful) option is to forget everything.
Counting that Board wants to go forward with this, it should ASAP make the resolution consisted of this or similar sentence: Board has decided to implement image filter on English Wikipedia and give the option to other projects to adopt the filter if they want it.
That's not so hard and it's on the line of Board's wishes.
On 06/09/2011 3:19 AM, Milos Rancic wrote:
I realized that I started to participate in this madness when I asked for some data from the results. And now, community is asked to participate into the "Next steps" [3]
Milos, I think you're stepping out to the backyard there. I'm probably one of the more vocal (and arguably acerbic) opponents of that entire filter idea, and the fact that (at least some members of) the board is actually willing to now listen to concerns is a _good_ thing.
-- Coren / Marc
On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 03:34, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
On 06/09/2011 3:19 AM, Milos Rancic wrote:
I realized that I started to participate in this madness when I asked for some data from the results. And now, community is asked to participate into the "Next steps" [3]
Milos, I think you're stepping out to the backyard there. I'm probably one of the more vocal (and arguably acerbic) opponents of that entire filter idea, and the fact that (at least some members of) the board is actually willing to now listen to concerns is a _good_ thing.
I think that damage produced by this <whatever> should be localized. The target is English Wikipedia, Board is not especially interested in other Wikipedia editions and other projects in English; which means that it should be localized on English Wikipedia.
By stating that it will affect just English Wikipedia and just other projects which explicitly said that they want that filter, many concerns would be addressed.
After that, significant period of time will have to pass up to the filter implementation and there will be plenty of time for discussing about particular details.
Without that localization, we have now serious problems: * It is not yet clear would that filter be implemented or not. Board said "yes", but, obviously, Censorship committee didn't recommend its implementation. That question requires simple yes/no answer and someone should make that decision. Note that even the most moderate regulations of sexually explicit images doesn't have chance to pass any community confidence [1]. At the other side, Board wants that and there are just two options for the Board: to say yes or to say no. Any of the answers is better sooner than later: "no" would finish the drama; "yes" would intensify it for a couple of days and then the discussion about details could be continued. Otherwise, more emotions would be involved and as "yes" is likely to be the answer, just more people would be more frustrated with the outcome. * Strong opposition inside of the second-largest community. If not addressed immediately, referendums like that one on German Wikipedia could be sparked all over the projects and we would have just more problems. * Note that the whole thing around image filter is not well understood out of US and Australia. The most of the world knows to live with "rouge images" and censorship isn't usually imposed by people themselves, but by governments. Including others in internal issues of US society triggers just more emotional reactions.
We need to stop wasting time and energy on personal wishes of two Board members. As it isn't about removing the content, any solution is better than wasting willingness on one nonconstructive and decadent project. If that time and energy was spent on rewriting Parser, we would have WYSIWYG editor a year or two ago.
[1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content/Archive_6#Seco...
On 7 September 2011 09:15, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
We need to stop wasting time and energy on personal wishes of two Board members. As it isn't about removing the content, any solution is better than wasting willingness on one nonconstructive and decadent project. If that time and energy was spent on rewriting Parser, we would have WYSIWYG editor a year or two ago.
Although I broadly agree with the rest of your message, I disagree with the Parser bit on the end - basically, the parser rewrite had to pass muster with someone at Brion or Tim level, as there's not really anyone else who would be able to say "these bits of syntax are out" and have it stick; and since I suspect Tim would rather spork his eyes out than read the words "parser rewrite" ever again, getting Brion in to work on it was the only way to make it go forward. Developer effort is not fungible in the face of politics :-)
- d.
On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 10:22, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 7 September 2011 09:15, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
We need to stop wasting time and energy on personal wishes of two Board members. As it isn't about removing the content, any solution is better than wasting willingness on one nonconstructive and decadent project. If that time and energy was spent on rewriting Parser, we would have WYSIWYG editor a year or two ago.
Although I broadly agree with the rest of your message, I disagree with the Parser bit on the end - basically, the parser rewrite had to pass muster with someone at Brion or Tim level, as there's not really anyone else who would be able to say "these bits of syntax are out" and have it stick; and since I suspect Tim would rather spork his eyes out than read the words "parser rewrite" ever again, getting Brion in to work on it was the only way to make it go forward. Developer effort is not fungible in the face of politics :-)
I had in my mind organizational efforts, mostly. However, I saw that at least one tech employee is against the filter, as well as Tim is in favor. So, they already waste their time. (Said so, I think that important value of WMF is exactly the fact that their employees are able to freely express their positions.)
On 9/7/11 9:15 AM, Milos Rancic wrote:
I think that damage produced by this<whatever> should be localized. The target is English Wikipedia, Board is not especially interested in other Wikipedia editions and other projects in English; which means that it should be localized on English Wikipedia.
Milos, you are way out of line here. The board is not especially interested in English Wikipedia, and indeed, very little of our discussion of this feature has any particular relevance to English Wikipedia.
Your ongoing campaign about this would be much more powerful if it acknowledged the actual facts rather than making up slurs against good people.
-> This has nothing in particular to do with English Wikipedia, any more than it has to do with all languages
-> This has nothing whatsoever to do with the United States
-> This has nothing whatsoever to do with "Jimmy's rich friends"
If you don't like the feature, then don't use it.
--Jimbo
On 9 September 2011 12:44, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
If you don't like the feature, then don't use it.
This statement implies it will not affect the encyclopedia's contents in any way at all - that the implementation will be provably free of side-effects.
Are you guaranteeing this? If so, then based on what?
(This attitude of "we've done something potentially severely problematic, now love it or leave it" is severely problematic in itself, and this message is a seriously bad move in WMF interaction with the community concerning the feature. WMF has power, Milos doesn't; if he says something appalling it has no consequences, if a board member says something appalling it has *considerable* consequences.)
- d.
On 9 September 2011 12:44, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
If you don't like the feature, then don't use it.
In the unhappy event that this filter is enabled, will it be possible/allowed for a community to make its use mandatory and to "punish" readers who turn it off?
Sir48/Thyge
No. Same as you can't tell most preferences a user has set, or which articles they watch. In simple terms, the filter code only filters content when user prefs say so, and other users can't tell what filter prefs a user has or what code is executed client-side (ie in their browser not at the server) without actual access to their computer.
FT2
On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 7:09 PM, dex2000@pc.dk wrote:
In the unhappy event that this filter is enabled, will it be possible/allowed for a community to make its use mandatory and to "punish" readers who turn it off?
Sir48/Thyge
Wouldn't the filter use the preferences system for registered users? In that case, the preferences are stored in the database.
~K
On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 2:44 PM, FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
No. Same as you can't tell most preferences a user has set, or which articles they watch. In simple terms, the filter code only filters content when user prefs say so, and other users can't tell what filter prefs a user has or what code is executed client-side (ie in their browser not at the server) without actual access to their computer.
FT2
2011/9/9 FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com:
No. Same as you can't tell most preferences a user has set, or which articles they watch. In simple terms, the filter code only filters content when user prefs say so, and other users can't tell what filter prefs a user has or what code is executed client-side (ie in their browser not at the server) without actual access to their computer.
FT2
That is not entirely true. It is theoretically feasible to get the categories from the api and then call the code that "hides" the images for the images that match a category. How practical it is remains to be seen.
Strainu
On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 13:44, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
On 9/7/11 9:15 AM, Milos Rancic wrote:
I think that damage produced by this<whatever> should be localized. The target is English Wikipedia, Board is not especially interested in other Wikipedia editions and other projects in English; which means that it should be localized on English Wikipedia.
Milos, you are way out of line here. The board is not especially interested in English Wikipedia, and indeed, very little of our discussion of this feature has any particular relevance to English Wikipedia.
Your ongoing campaign about this would be much more powerful if it acknowledged the actual facts rather than making up slurs against good people.
-> This has nothing in particular to do with English Wikipedia, any more than it has to do with all languages
-> This has nothing whatsoever to do with the United States
-> This has nothing whatsoever to do with "Jimmy's rich friends"
If you don't like the feature, then don't use it.
So, you want to implement on German Wikipedia despite the fact that 84% of editors rejected it?
2011/9/9 Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com:
If you don't like the feature, then don't use it.
Every single proposal I've seen on this feature from the staff assumed that the filter will be enabled by default and could (perhaps) be disabled. Did I miss something?
Strainu
2011/9/9 Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com:
If you don't like the feature, then don't use it.
Every single proposal I've seen on this feature from the staff assumed that the filter will be enabled by default and could (perhaps) be disabled. Did I miss something?
Could just be misreading; I see that as saying "so the feature will be there to use, but if you don't like it don't use it".
Nothing implying enabled by default...
Tom
On 9 September 2011 13:31, Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
2011/9/9 Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com:
If you don't like the feature, then don't use it.
Every single proposal I've seen on this feature from the staff assumed that the filter will be enabled by default and could (perhaps) be disabled. Did I miss something?
My understanding is that the filter *software* will be enabled for all wikis. The default *setting* for that software will be to display all images, and then any individual user can choose their own settings apart from that default.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/FAQ/en
"All Wikimedia content loads on all user browsers by default. The feature is activated only after all content has been loaded, and then only when specifically requested by a user."
(A comparison: user email is enabled on all wikis. But users have to individually turn it on for it to work.)
2011/9/9 Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com:
If you don't like the feature, then don't use it.
You talk like the filter existence is fait accompli, a matter already decided, and there is nothing people can do about it. The referendum also gave this impression, by asking things about its details and overall importance, but not asking if it should be implemented (like normal referenda).
Do I understand it right?
Jimmy Wales wrote:
On 9/7/11 9:15 AM, Milos Rancic wrote:
I think that damage produced by this<whatever> should be localized. The target is English Wikipedia, Board is not especially interested in other Wikipedia editions and other projects in English; which means that it should be localized on English Wikipedia.
Milos, you are way out of line here. The board is not especially interested in English Wikipedia, and indeed, very little of our discussion of this feature has any particular relevance to English Wikipedia.
It's not out of line to suggest that Wikimedia is especially interested in the English Wikipedia. It's _indisputable_ at the Wikimedia Foundation level. Whether it's as true at the Wikimedia Board level is a bit more arguable, though there's a good deal of evidence to suggest that it's equally true there. A cursory look at the Wikimedia Board resolutions is pretty damning.
When the Wikimedia Foundation places the English Wikipedia on a pedestal and treats all other wiki projects/families as peripheral, it's not at all unexpected that occasionally people will vent frustration at this.
MZMcBride
On 9/9/2011 3:37 PM, MZMcBride wrote:
It's not out of line to suggest that Wikimedia is especially interested in the English Wikipedia. It's _indisputable_ at the Wikimedia Foundation level. Whether it's as true at the Wikimedia Board level is a bit more arguable, though there's a good deal of evidence to suggest that it's equally true there. A cursory look at the Wikimedia Board resolutions is pretty damning.
The resolutions are more a reflection of what issues the board is able to reach a consensus on, as opposed to what it is interested in. From my experience, there was a fair bit of discussion about various concerns involving, say, Wikinews or Wikiversity, but we had difficulty agreeing on what the solutions were, and sometimes whether interventions were necessary or even what the problems were. I don't mean to suggest that the board lacks the ability to deal with other issues and focuses on Wikipedia as a result - I think it reflects the uncertain position of the community generally, which hasn't coalesced much around any particular answer to those questions. I do hope the board continues working on some of those issues.
--Michael Snow
On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 00:59, Michael Snow wikipedia@frontier.com wrote:
The resolutions are more a reflection of what issues the board is able to reach a consensus on, as opposed to what it is interested in. From my experience, there was a fair bit of discussion about various concerns involving, say, Wikinews or Wikiversity, but we had difficulty agreeing on what the solutions were, and sometimes whether interventions were necessary or even what the problems were. I don't mean to suggest that the board lacks the ability to deal with other issues and focuses on Wikipedia as a result - I think it reflects the uncertain position of the community generally, which hasn't coalesced much around any particular answer to those questions. I do hope the board continues working on some of those issues.
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...
MZMcBride wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
On 9/7/11 9:15 AM, Milos Rancic wrote:
I think that damage produced by this<whatever> should be localized. The target is English Wikipedia, Board is not especially interested in other Wikipedia editions and other projects in English; which means that it should be localized on English Wikipedia.
Milos, you are way out of line here. The board is not especially interested in English Wikipedia, and indeed, very little of our discussion of this feature has any particular relevance to English Wikipedia.
It's not out of line to suggest that Wikimedia is especially interested in the English Wikipedia. It's _indisputable_ at the Wikimedia Foundation level. Whether it's as true at the Wikimedia Board level is a bit more arguable, though there's a good deal of evidence to suggest that it's equally true there. A cursory look at the Wikimedia Board resolutions is pretty damning.
When the Wikimedia Foundation places the English Wikipedia on a pedestal and treats all other wiki projects/families as peripheral, it's not at all unexpected that occasionally people will vent frustration at this.
MZMcBride
I think it's more the case that Wikipedia is the most prominent project within the WM umbrella, and therefore, it attracts commensurate attention. Whereas I have only slight experience of other language WPs than en:wp, my take is that when local problems arise, the natural focus for complaint seems to be Jimbo's en:wp Talk page rather than a Meta page. en:wp editors quite rightly have directed those complaints to more appropriate venues. Whether this is due to local wp problems, I cannot tell.
Whether en:wp should be regarded as a paragon of virtue w.r.t. WM seems to me to be extremely moot; being the most trafficked project within the WM umbrella, it clearly is going to be the cockpit for some disputes, perhaps more those based on policy rather than content, and it is, like any sub-project, self-governing, and the Foundation does not step in, in either an advisory, administrative, admonitory, or judicial capacity, and perhaps nor should it.
It would be wonderful if en:wp could be *the* model of behaviour, structure, review, and "how to write an online encyclopedia", but, sadly, it ain't. I'd amplify, but I'm tired; of more or less everything. I didn't come here to fight for the obvious, because it should be simply that: obvious. I'm glad in a way, that I am banned from Wikipedia, because it no longer stresses me as it did- unfortunately for the world, I can no longer add to the sum total of human knowledge, as Jimmy so optimistically offered. I keep a list of articles suitable for en:wp, but missing; but it doesn't shrink in the current circumstances. What a waste of an opportunity!
On Tue, 6 Sep 2011 09:19:07 +0200, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Not long ago I had a gaffe on internal-l, by publicly expressing opinion what do I really think about Wiki Loves Monuments, although my intention was to send a private email. However, WLM has a number of good sides: Commons will be filled with photos, people will spend time together, it makes at least some parts of the movement more coherent. Besides the fact that making depictions of depictions is a classical European type of decadency. Anyway, if that's the worst thing in our movement, I could live with that.
Hi Milos,
could you may be briefly summarize your arguments against WLM, I think they belong here rather than to internal-l.
Whereas I am not a fan of competitions and believe that they should not belong to the wiki culture, in my opinion WLM still fills Commons with pictures which are (i) relevant and some of them are good quality (ii) are immediately used (iii) get attention, i.e. properly categorized etc . I do not see immediately any bad sides (except for the usual fact thing some people work, and others get credit, but this is unavoidable for the organization of this size).
Cheers Yaroslav
On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 17:50, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
could you may be briefly summarize your arguments against WLM, I think they belong here rather than to internal-l.
Whereas I am not a fan of competitions and believe that they should not belong to the wiki culture, in my opinion WLM still fills Commons with pictures which are (i) relevant and some of them are good quality (ii) are immediately used (iii) get attention, i.e. properly categorized etc . I do not see immediately any bad sides (except for the usual fact thing some people work, and others get credit, but this is unavoidable for the organization of this size).
There are no bad sides per se, it's just about my authoritarian worldview.
And my authoritarian worldview tells to me that it is not the time to discuss about my authoritarian worldview, as the WLM has positive outcome, after all and we have more important issues now.
Off topic alert:
I haven't given a closer look to your main topic, Milos, so I cannot give a responsible statement in any way. But your reference to Wiki Loves Monuments, while I agree it's heavily Europe-focused, I strongly disagree with you on its decadency, as an (retired) aesthetic. While the determination what artworks are heavily depends on the community to appreciate, so partly I understand your concern, if WLM is carried on only by European chapter people, it can hardly of NPOV at some future moment, but artworks belong to the critical part of "the sum of human knowledge" along with the information who created them and then have appreciated or rejected them.
Recording those things always inherits its own systematic bias, to some extent. It may seem bored and look a certain culture's hegemonical promotion. But it might be only to the contemporary, and the coming age may have a different view and even would appreciate such records. Here I'd like you to recall on two series of exhibitions in Germany in the late 1930s, that is, Entartete Kunst and the other (really propaganda) one. Records on those exhibitions let us have a deep insight what then happened and people thought, and, on the unfortunately lost works, what they could be.
I have no foresight on WLM and its future. But archival approach for artworks per se, it matches our mission and thus we support it.
Cheers,
On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 4:19 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Not long ago I had a gaffe on internal-l, by publicly expressing opinion what do I really think about Wiki Loves Monuments, although my intention was to send a private email. However, WLM has a number of good sides: Commons will be filled with photos, people will spend time together, it makes at least some parts of the movement more coherent. Besides the fact that making depictions of depictions is a classical European type of decadency. Anyway, if that's the worst thing in our movement, I could live with that.
But, it is not.
If Board doesn't intervene *now*, it could be easily concluded that the worst thing ever happened to our movement has started these days.
Up to the end of the so called "referendum", everything was as usual: Because of <I promised to myself that won't use at this point phrase "Jimmy's sexually impaired rich friends"> Board articulated something in opposition of majority of editors (yes, majority of editors; I really don't care what one sexually impaired member of Concerned Women for America with 17 edits thinks about Wikipedia [1][2]); then it wanted to implement it anyway, including bizarre questionnaire called "referendum"; then heated discussion sparked; then results came; then results from German Wikipedia came, as well.
Logically, we have the solution: If Board really cares what Concerned Women for America think, let it, please, implement that filter on English Wikipedia and leave the rest of the projects alone -- if they don't ask for the filter explicitly. As members of that organization probably don't know any other language except English, everybody will be happy. Except the core editors of English Wikipedia, of course. But Board doesn't care about them, anyway; which means that English Wikipedia is reasonable scapegoat for Wikimedia movement to please sexually impaired Americans and others.
But, we have one much more serious problem in front of us. Instead of going toward the solution, we are going in opposite direction. Instead of concluding this three years long drama, Censorship Committee and Board want to "analyze" the numbers and prolong agony for another three years. And if that agony has something useful, important at the end, I could even say that we need to make reasonable sacrifice (in my area it would be solved by slaughtering pig or goat or whatever, which is more reasonable than wasting three more years, by the way).
But, it doesn't have.
The most important reason for this bizarre expression of mismanagement is to please, as mentioned before, sexually impaired Americans. If that's the main reason, please, please them *now* or forget everything.
Like WLM, this Board's pet project is expression of decadency. This time American. However, unlike WLM, this project won't fill Commons with photos. Quite opposite, this project will make significant problems to the Commons community. People will spend time together indeed, but in arguing who is right and who's not. It already divides the movement on a couple of lines.
I realized that I started to participate in this madness when I asked for some data from the results. And now, community is asked to participate into the "Next steps" [3]! Holy Thing! That will produce much more sexual content than any "porn" photo on Commons. In Serbian we say for that "fucking in healthy brain". If not exterminated at the beginning, that brainfuck (unfortunately, not programming language [4]) will produce much more problems than any image filter or any Fox News scam.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer#Internet_censorship [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerned_Women_for_America. [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Next_steps/en [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck
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On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:51:33 +0900, KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
Off topic alert:
I haven't given a closer look to your main topic, Milos, so I cannot give a responsible statement in any way. But your reference to Wiki Loves Monuments, while I agree it's heavily Europe-focused, I strongly disagree with you on its decadency, as an (retired) aesthetic. While the determination what artworks are heavily depends on the community to appreciate, so partly I understand your concern, if WLM is carried on only by European chapter people, it can hardly of NPOV at some future moment, but artworks belong to the critical part of "the sum of human knowledge" along with the information who created them and then have appreciated or rejected them.
Only countries which have lists of monuments compiled by the government and having the status of the law are eligible for WLM. This is in some sense POV but no more POV than say writing articles of members of parliament who were elected by direct vote. If Japan has such a list (I hope it does) next year it would be eligible to participate. My understanding is that somehow the organizers did not expect such interest and did not try to contact chapters outside Europe. Presumably next year they will do. On the other hand, by the next year some of the European countries may exhaust their monuments (in the sense that the most of the pictures will be taken and the articles written or judged to be impossible to write). Thus, NPOV does not seem to be a problem to me.
I do see two other problems with WLM, which are (i) competition format, which implicitly stimulates certain strategies we normally do not want to stimulate; (ii) involvement of the chapters as a precondition - some countries do not have chapters, some chapters showed no interest, some were unable to organize anything in the end. But I am not sure such discussion belongs to this thread.
Cheers Yaroslav
On 12 September 2011 06:49, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
Only countries which have lists of monuments compiled by the government and having the status of the law are eligible for WLM. This is in some sense POV but no more POV than say writing articles of members of parliament who were elected by direct vote. If Japan has such a list (I hope it does) next year it would be eligible to participate. My understanding is that somehow the organizers did not expect such interest and did not try to contact chapters outside Europe. Presumably next year they will do. On the other hand, by the next year some of the European countries may exhaust their monuments (in the sense that the most of the pictures will be taken and the articles written or judged to be impossible to write). Thus, NPOV does not seem to be a problem to me.
It would be systemic bias rather than a NPOV problem as such.
- d.
It would be systemic bias rather than a NPOV problem as such.
- d.
Right, but we do have this systemic bias already in place: in ALL our projects, the articles on localities in Sweden are longer and better written (and better illustrated) than the articles on localities in Burkina Faso. We could indeed initiate smth like an effort to improve articles on localities in Burkina Faso (which may be combined with the outreach effort in the global South or whatever keywords are currently used), but it is clear to me that the overlap between users participating in WLM and users capable of writing articles on Burkina Faso is close to zero if it at all exists.
Cheers Yaroslav
*I do see two other problems with WLM, which are (...) involvement of the chapters as a precondition
Be organized by a Chapter is *not* a condition. The Andorra WLM is organized by Amicalhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Associaci%C3%B3_Amical_Viquip%C3%A8dia(who is not a chapter). If any country want to participate next year, you people don't want to have a chapter to organize it. _____ *Béria Lima* http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484
*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. É isso o que estamos a fazer http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Nossos_projetos.*
On 12 September 2011 06:49, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:51:33 +0900, KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
Off topic alert:
I haven't given a closer look to your main topic, Milos, so I cannot give a responsible statement in any way. But your reference to Wiki Loves Monuments, while I agree it's heavily Europe-focused, I strongly disagree with you on its decadency, as an (retired) aesthetic. While the determination what artworks are heavily depends on the community to appreciate, so partly I understand your concern, if WLM is carried on only by European chapter people, it can hardly of NPOV at some future moment, but artworks belong to the critical part of "the sum of human knowledge" along with the information who created them and then have appreciated or rejected them.
Only countries which have lists of monuments compiled by the government and having the status of the law are eligible for WLM. This is in some sense POV but no more POV than say writing articles of members of parliament who were elected by direct vote. If Japan has such a list (I hope it does) next year it would be eligible to participate. My understanding is that somehow the organizers did not expect such interest and did not try to contact chapters outside Europe. Presumably next year they will do. On the other hand, by the next year some of the European countries may exhaust their monuments (in the sense that the most of the pictures will be taken and the articles written or judged to be impossible to write). Thus, NPOV does not seem to be a problem to me.
I do see two other problems with WLM, which are (i) competition format, which implicitly stimulates certain strategies we normally do not want to stimulate; (ii) involvement of the chapters as a precondition - some countries do not have chapters, some chapters showed no interest, some were unable to organize anything in the end. But I am not sure such discussion belongs to this thread.
Cheers Yaroslav
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I didn't participate in the referendum. I understood from the beginning that this was going to be implimented, the matter of community opinion is nice to ask for but didn't really matter, and ultimately the only thing that comes of this is help answering Islamic users questioning us showing depictions of Mohammed.
The conversation in this thread has been engaging in helping me decide my opinion on a personal level: I'll go with the filter as responsible concept.
Milos, you state that Americans see everything involving nudity under the label as porn and offensive, and filtering with that mindset is a bad idea. You're correct about Americans acting that way in general. I could pull a juvenile prank and replace someone's computer background with the image of a penis, and it will be called porn. It's not, it's an image of a penis, but that's the feeling we evoke.
We're growing and developing in Islamic countries and countries with a high percentage of Islamic population. A highly held principle is not seeing, publishing, or distributing depictions of Mohammed. This is a deeply felt belief, one which makes any claims to offending morals seem trivial. We had a massive problem at the Arabic Wikipedia over providing content that depicted Mohammed. From our standpoint in customer relations on OTRS and on Wikimedia projects in general, we could do little but provide information on how the hide all images with the disclaimer of NOTCENSORED, NPOV, you should be more cultured than to believe that's actually what Mohammed looked like/be more open minded...the list goes on.
Now, when we choose to point to cultural trends as a reason something is bad, the argument will die. If you inform most of the Western readers that you are offended by images of Mohammed, at some point someone will have the same reaction that happens when talking about Americans and sexual images. Americans might have the same argument used against them with Muslems. The point is that we have to respect cultural norms and see why they are what they are. We can disagree, but the first step for globalization is the ability to say "Oh, I see where you're coming from."
What is fundamentally ingrained in a culture is part of the root of that culture. We're global, but culture is not. Which leads to...
On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 2:58 AM, Fajro faigos@gmail.com wrote:
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
-- Fajro
I fundamentally disagree. If the content can be managed to be culturally sound, that is effective to disseminate globally. If Islamic countries do not want to see images of Mohammed, that is effect in maintaining other content without blocking the site. Same applies to other religious imagery, political imagery, sexual imagery, and whatever else. The filter is for images, and while pictures are louder than words, we can at least have the words while maintaining cultural integrity.
On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 07:39, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Milos, you state that Americans see everything involving nudity under the label as porn and offensive, and filtering with that mindset is a bad idea. You're correct about Americans acting that way in general.
Just a short note: No, I didn't say that "Americans see everything..."; I said that it's about particular part of American society. Majority of Americans which I know are sane.
I fundamentally disagree. If the content can be managed to be culturally sound, that is effective to disseminate globally. If Islamic countries do not want to see images of Mohammed, that is effect in maintaining other content without blocking the site. Same applies to other religious imagery, political imagery, sexual imagery, and whatever else. The filter is for images, and while pictures are louder than words, we can at least have the words while maintaining cultural integrity.
The end game for this strategy of giving every (sub-) culture their own subset of the images and/or text (when every medium agrees all at once), and where everyone lives past each other is actually well known and well studied: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillarization
Due to my knowing the historical context, I would actually prefer that people were confronted by cultural differences and have a healthy dialogue about them, to prevent or mitigate pillarization.
Then again, that's a deeply held cultural belief in the part of the world that I live in, and you might not share it. ;-)
sincerely, Kim Bruning
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 8:17 AM, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
I fundamentally disagree. If the content can be managed to be culturally sound, that is effective to disseminate globally. If Islamic countries
do
not want to see images of Mohammed, that is effect in maintaining other content without blocking the site. Same applies to other religious
imagery,
political imagery, sexual imagery, and whatever else. The filter is for images, and while pictures are louder than words, we can at least have
the
words while maintaining cultural integrity.
The end game for this strategy of giving every (sub-) culture their own subset of the images and/or text (when every medium agrees all at once), and where everyone lives past each other is actually well known and well studied: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillarization
Due to my knowing the historical context, I would actually prefer that people were confronted by cultural differences and have a healthy dialogue about them, to prevent or mitigate pillarization.
Then again, that's a deeply held cultural belief in the part of the world that I live in, and you might not share it. ;-)
sincerely, Kim Bruning
Besides your acknowledged bias towards confronting people with their bias and forcing a discussion, it is also not very practical that we be the host for discussions on talk pages continuously with large groups of people. It fatigues our established users when discussions are repeated continuously on article talk pages. Sometimes it is needed to address content decisions. But comments are frequently not responded to in a timely manner perhaps leaving people feeling that no one cares about their views.
And lots of people want to look up information or edit an interesting topic without having a consciousness raising discussion. There are many opportunities for people to interact and learn from each other without us placing them in a position where they feel like they need to do it or stay away.
So, I don't think that pushing people to see material that they are not comfortable seeing is necessarily beneficial to WMF projects or the person.
Sydney Poore User:FloNight
On 14 September 2011 14:45, Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:
Besides your acknowledged bias towards confronting people with their bias and forcing a discussion, it is also not very practical that we be the host for discussions on talk pages continuously with large groups of people. It fatigues our established users when discussions are repeated continuously on article talk pages. Sometimes it is needed to address content decisions. But comments are frequently not responded to in a timely manner perhaps leaving people feeling that no one cares about their views. And lots of people want to look up information or edit an interesting topic without having a consciousness raising discussion. There are many opportunities for people to interact and learn from each other without us placing them in a position where they feel like they need to do it or stay away. So, I don't think that pushing people to see material that they are not comfortable seeing is necessarily beneficial to WMF projects or the person.
You appear to be confusing editor fatigue with reader fatigue.
Doing stuff because it reduces editor conflict has, so far, been an effective way to reduce value to the readers. This is why we don't have POV forked articles: they solve a problem for the editors at the expense of the readers.
You are also putting forward pretty much the same excuse for POV forks that Microsoft did in pushing POV forking for Encarta editions: where they wanted to make something marketable that would play nice and not risk upsetting people, rather than because the content was actually neutral, accurate or authoritative. That is: something for the convenience of the publisher, at the expense of the reader.
The real world is holistic - everything links to everything else, and I'd have thought it *really obvious* that carving out chunks of that, particularly in the cause of making your own life easier over that of the reader, is POV-pushing.
- d.
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 9:52 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 14 September 2011 14:45, Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:
Besides your acknowledged bias towards confronting people with their bias and forcing a discussion, it is also not very practical that we be the
host
for discussions on talk pages continuously with large groups of people.
It
fatigues our established users when discussions are repeated continuously
on
article talk pages. Sometimes it is needed to address content decisions.
But
comments are frequently not responded to in a timely manner perhaps
leaving
people feeling that no one cares about their views. And lots of people want to look up information or edit an interesting
topic
without having a consciousness raising discussion. There are many opportunities for people to interact and learn from each other without us placing them in a position where they feel like they need to do it or
stay
away. So, I don't think that pushing people to see material that they are not comfortable seeing is necessarily beneficial to WMF projects or the
person.
You appear to be confusing editor fatigue with reader fatigue.
Doing stuff because it reduces editor conflict has, so far, been an effective way to reduce value to the readers. This is why we don't have POV forked articles: they solve a problem for the editors at the expense of the readers.
You are also putting forward pretty much the same excuse for POV forks that Microsoft did in pushing POV forking for Encarta editions: where they wanted to make something marketable that would play nice and not risk upsetting people, rather than because the content was actually neutral, accurate or authoritative. That is: something for the convenience of the publisher, at the expense of the reader.
The real world is holistic - everything links to everything else, and I'd have thought it *really obvious* that carving out chunks of that, particularly in the cause of making your own life easier over that of the reader, is POV-pushing.
I see nothing about this image filter that hides images that is POV-pushing.
Not when all that you are doing is putting in place an image filter that does not remove images but hides them, and still allows you to click through and see the image.
Some people need it in place because the place they read articles prohibits controversial images.
Other people want it because of a desire to keep controversial content out of their home. Giving these user control over image selection may bring * more* people to Wikipedia, and an article with controversial content. Intellectual curiosity may entice them to click through and see the image now or later. That is a Good Thing.
Sydney Poore
Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:
Other people want it because of a desire to keep controversial content out of their home. Giving these user control over image selection may bring * more* people to Wikipedia, and an article with controversial content. Intellectual curiosity may entice them to click through and see the image now or later. That is a Good Thing.
May or may not. Did you ever live in a politically restrictive country?
//Saper
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 10:49 AM, Marcin Cieslak saper@saper.info wrote:
Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:
Other people want it because of a desire to keep controversial content
out
of their home. Giving these user control over image selection may bring * more* people to Wikipedia, and an article with controversial content. Intellectual curiosity may entice them to click through and see the image now or later. That is a Good Thing.
May or may not. Did you ever live in a politically restrictive country?
//Saper
Hello Saper,
Could you explain how that you think an user controlled image filter would make a difference to a person who lives on a country politically restricted country? Do you think that it would hurt or help, or make no difference?
Sydney Poore User:FloNight
Other people want it because of a desire to keep controversial content
out
of their home. Giving these user control over image selection may bring * more* people to Wikipedia, and an article with controversial content. Intellectual curiosity may entice them to click through and see the image now or later. That is a Good Thing.
May or may not. Did you ever live in a politically restrictive country?
//Saper
Hello Saper,
Could you explain how that you think an user controlled image filter would make a difference to a person who lives on a country politically restricted country? Do you think that it would hurt or help, or make no difference?
Can you help me in understanding in why such a user control feature may possibly bring more people to Wikipedia? I am especially interested in countries where access to information is restricted by the environment, for example by governments, whether the same reasoning applies to them as to less restrictive regions.
I am asking this because I happened to grow up and have first 8 years of my education in such an environment and I still remember those times and how we approached the limited access to information.
//Saper
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 10:37, Marcin Cieslak saper@saper.info wrote:
Hello Saper,
Could you explain how that you think an user controlled image filter would make a difference to a person who lives on a country politically restricted country? Do you think that it would hurt or help, or make no difference?
Can you help me in understanding in why such a user control feature may possibly bring more people to Wikipedia? I am especially interested in countries where access to information is restricted by the environment, for example by governments, whether the same reasoning applies to them as to less restrictive regions.
I am asking this because I happened to grow up and have first 8 years of my education in such an environment and I still remember those times and how we approached the limited access to information.
//Saper
Saper, the feature (as I understand it) would allow you sitting at your computer to turn off certain images. But it would not allow you to make the existence of those images disappear. You would see that an image was on the page. You would be able to click on it to make it visible. See mock-up -- http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PIF-Proposal-Workflow-Anon-FromImage-Ste...
We already do something similar. Certain templates in articles are presented in a collapsed state. You have to click on them to see them.
It would not be possible (as I understand it) for the filter to make the presence of an image disappear entirely.
Some people would welcome not being forced, as a first option, to see certain images simply because other people have decided they must. It's the idea of "my freedom ends where your nose begins."
The hope is that reading and editing Wikipedia will appeal to a broader range of people if they are given more personal options over what they see when they first look at a page.
Sarah
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 6:37 PM, Marcin Cieslak saper@saper.info wrote:
Can you help me in understanding in why such a user control feature may possibly bring more people to Wikipedia?
By giving people who do not want to run the risk of seeing certain images that they disagree with one less reason to _not_ go to Wikipedia.
I am especially interested in countries where access to information is restricted by the environment, for example by governments, whether the same reasoning applies to them as to less restrictive regions.
Probably, although there might be additional cases where they want to block images, not because they themselves disagree with them, but because possession on their computer might be illegal for them.
I am asking this because I happened to grow up and have first 8 years of my education in such an environment and I still remember those times and how we approached the limited access to information.
What was that approach and why does it have to do with the issue at hand? I don't suppose that you approached it by shying away from any source of information that offered you the option of either getting everything you were still allowed or voluntarily constricting yourself even further.
2011/9/14 Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com:
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 6:37 PM, Marcin Cieslak saper@saper.info wrote:
I am especially interested in countries where access to information is restricted by the environment, for example by governments, whether the same reasoning applies to them as to less restrictive regions.
Probably, although there might be additional cases where they want to block images, not because they themselves disagree with them, but because possession on their computer might be illegal for them.
My understanding is the images WILL be downloaded, just as collapsed tables are downloaded. So with or without the filter would not make much of a difference for the people Saper is talking about.
Strainu
Unfortunately the proposed mechanism (which cannot with integrity be disentangled from the proposal, for juts such reasons as this) would download the images regardless, the filter would merely affect the display. It is possible that even a smarter mechanism might suffer the same drawback if a web accelerator is in use.
On 14/09/2011 18:17, Andre Engels wrote:
Probably, although there might be additional cases where they want to block images, not because they themselves disagree with them, but because possession on their computer might be illegal for them.
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 09:45:38AM -0400, Sydney Poore wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PillarizationDue to my knowing the historical context, I would actually prefer that people were confronted by cultural differences and have a healthy dialogue about them, to prevent or mitigate pillarization.
Besides your acknowledged bias towards confronting people with their bias and forcing a discussion,
Yes, and this bias against bias has a name, it's called "NPOV".
If someone is POV pushing, then hell yes I'm going to confront them, NameTheProblem, and attempt force a discussion. If they don't want to talk after 3 such attempts (warnings), they can be blocked, or even banned permanently.
We know many non self-preserving versus preserving systems:
*lawlessness versus rule of law *bsd versus gpl *wordpress (1POV) versus wikipedia (NPOV).
If wikipedia is to not merely be a collection of opinions, NPOV is rather important.
And the combination of NPOV and consensus forces people to confront their biases, discuss them, and resolve them, and in that way reach the closest approximation to the truth that we can achieve.
You may have heard of this process. ;-) It's what we use to write an encyclopedia.
it is also not very practical that we be the host for discussions on talk pages continuously with large groups of people.
Fortunately, this doesn't happen in most of the encyclopedia. Consensus has worked rather well for 10 years and counting.
It fatigues our established users when discussions are repeated continuously on article talk pages.
That's clearly pathological. Repeated discussions and positions fall under [[WP:3RR]].
The long consensus loop (also documented in [[WP:BRD]] for particular applications) applies.
Sometimes it is needed to address content decisions.
There is no other reason for talk page discussions. Wikipedia is [[WP:NOT]] a discussion board.
But comments are frequently not responded to in a timely manner perhaps leaving people feeling that no one cares about their views.
[Citation needed]. The rule of thumb is that if your concerns are not addressed on the talk page for 24 hours (enough time for every time zone to respond), you may go ahead and be [[WP:BOLD]] and apply your content change.
And lots of people want to look up information or
This group I can sympathize with, somewhat, and I'm willing to discuss the upsides and downsides to catering to this group. My position here is that -in general- giving people the ability to hide within their own culture leads to pillarization in the long term. This is a most unpleasant state of affairs.
If you have a rotten tooth, do you go to the dentist to have it pulled (even though this is briefly very unpleasant) or do you leave the tooth to rot further (where at some point, you will suffer pain all day) ?
[people want to] edit an interesting topic without having a consciousness raising discussion.
You mean edit an interesting topic using only their own POV, and not taking other POVs or NPOV into account?
That's POV pushing. That's not permitted. Either reach consensus and adhere to NPOV, or leave. That's a founding issue. It is non-negotiable.
There are many opportunities for people to interact and learn from each other without us placing them in a position where they feel like they need to do it or stay away.
The point of any wiki is to allow people to interact and learn from each other. Some of the things you will learn might be uncomfortable.
If you can't deal with this, then yes you might want to stay away. Fortunately there are not many people who are like that in the 21st century. (Though more than I thought)
So, I don't think that pushing people to see material that they are not comfortable seeing is necessarily beneficial to WMF projects or the person.
Participants/Editors are going to have to see all pages unmodified or they cannot judge the page for POV issues, vandalism, or etc.
Pillarization among *participants* always leads to internal strife. That must be prevented.
Non-participants are an interesting problem. We really want them to become participants, rather than passive fence-sitters.
A wiki usually serves its participants first, (with the world at large being a secondary goal; after all - the entire world is invited and welcome to participate if they want to). I can't ASSUME things about non-participants. For all I know anything we do (including filtering) might hurt them. If they don't speak up, we don't know.
sincerely, Kim Bruning
A wiki usually serves its participants first, (with the world at large being a secondary goal; after all - the entire world is invited and welcome to participate if they want to).
I've commented at length already on why this is the wrong approach; and forces us into an even more insular community with greater biases (you only have to look at the different ways that different language Wiki's present topics to understand how little "neutrality" we have. There is a bias; it's just that each community agrees on it).
This is a vicious circle that ignores our readers (who are a much wider cross section) and leaves a somewhat close minded and inaccessible community that believes it is the pillar of neutrality :)
I can't ASSUME
things about non-participants. For all I know anything we do (including filtering) might hurt them. If they don't speak up, we don't know.
And this takes us full circle to just about my first question on this long thread.... has anyone actually asked our consumers what they would like to see?
I am going to guess this will again go unanswered and un-actioned :)
Tom
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 10:50:55PM +0100, Thomas Morton wrote:
A wiki usually serves its participants first, (with the world at large being a secondary goal; after all - the entire world is invited and welcome to participate if they want to).
I've commented at length already on why this is the wrong approach; and forces us into an even more insular community with greater biases
Initially, this is how the system worked exclusively, and we got more and more participation. Since 2005, people have slowly been making things harder for new participants, and the trend reversed itself.
So your conclusion does not match the statistics. The inverse conclusion is warrented. A stronger emphasis on anonymous participation and greater ease of access to talk pages (perhaps through tools such as liquid threads) will likely improve our situation considerably. I certainly doubt it will harm it :-P
(you only have to look at the different ways that different language Wiki's present topics to understand how little "neutrality" we have. There is a bias; it's just that each community agrees on it).
The fact that we have different language wikis working past each other is actually a form of (inadvertant) pillarization.
As a thought experiment:
In fact, if culture issues are the reason for this filter, couldn't we just terminate commons? Then each project could keep images that are ok in their culture, and discard images that they are 'uncomfortable' with.
If you have reasons why we shouldn't terminate commons, those reasons are likely to overlap with some reasons why we shouldn't filter.
This is a vicious circle that ignores our readers (who are a much wider cross section) and leaves a somewhat close minded and inaccessible community that believes it is the pillar of neutrality :)
There is a vicious circle happening, but I really doubt that steps such as more openness, more outreach, clearer and easier editing, and more prominent access to talk pages are part of that circle. :-P
The vicious circle I see is as follows:
*START: Wikipedia works by having amateurs work together using a tight, rapid feedback cycle for editing. (More mistakes are made, but they're caught as quickly)
* People start 'raising the bar for quality' * some people fall below the bar * more discussion is requested, and more pre-study is required. * It takes longer to make an edit to an article * less mistakes are made, but less mistakes are caught too. * Netto less articles are written, although only slightly higher quality quality (diminishing returns)
* END: You practically have to write an article fully-formed in userspace. a lot of work done in mainspace ends up deleted or reverted.
I can't ASSUME things about non-participants. For all I know anything we do (including filtering) might hurt them. If they don't speak up, we don't know.
And this takes us full circle to just about my first question on this long thread.... has anyone actually asked our consumers what they would like to see?
Yes. We do. That's why we have a discussion tab on every single page. Would you like it to be more prominent, in blinking letters 3 miles high? Perhaps we should do something like that (within reason) if you think it will help. But the community attitude will have to change a bit too. Right now the community is becoming more and more insular, and unwilling to "talk to strangers".
Outside participation is possible, permitted, and encouraged at page-level granularity. Where it is not, we have a problem with a known solution.
At the moment, very few people are going page-by-page and solving it though. We may need some new forms of patrol. :-)
sincerely, Kim Bruning
I can't ASSUME things about non-participants. For all I know anything we do (including filtering) might hurt them. If they don't speak up, we don't know.
And this takes us full circle to just about my first question on this
long
thread.... has anyone actually asked our consumers what they would like
to
see?
Yes. We do. That's why we have a discussion tab on every single page. Would you like it to be more prominent, in blinking letters 3 miles high? Perhaps we should do something like that (within reason) if you think it will help. But the community attitude will have to change a bit too. Right now the community is becoming more and more insular, and unwilling to "talk to strangers".
Outside participation is possible, permitted, and encouraged at page-level granularity. Where it is not, we have a problem with a known solution.
At the moment, very few people are going page-by-page and solving it though. We may need some new forms of patrol. :-)
Whilst the discussion tab is good for a small sub-section of our readers, it doesn't cover everyone.
A large swathe of people don't even notice those tabs. Or if they do they don't understand them.
This is why OTRS gets emails saying "I saw X mistake on Y article"; because emailing in a problem makes more sense to some people.
From the perspective of broader product development, getting people to
navigate the community discussion pages is non-trivial. In any decent organisation you go to your pool of passive users and force them to respond (i.e. pro-active surveys etc.)
The fact that we have different language wikis working past each other is actually
a form of (inadvertant) pillarization.
This was the point I was making. The extension being... we should be condensing all of these view points and then allowing cultural perspectives to modify the experience as you want.
Enforcing a cultural perspective on someone is one of the sneakiest forms of POV pushing.
Tom
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 1:28 PM, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 09:45:38AM -0400, Sydney Poore wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PillarizationDue to my knowing the historical context, I would actually prefer that people were confronted by cultural differences and have a healthy dialogue about them, to prevent or mitigate pillarization.
Besides your acknowledged bias towards confronting people with their bias and forcing a discussion,
Yes, and this bias against bias has a name, it's called "NPOV".
etc...
Yes yes, Kim, I enjoy your discussion but we all well got the thought you are provoking a long time ago. This piecemeal dissection of an email is the same sort of response many anons, registered (new and established) accounts get on talk pages all the time. And you wonder why it's discouraging.
The internet is a source of product- tangental, ephemeral, no matter- and customer base relies on the product. Wikipedia provides the encyclopedia as a product. Following that, 99.99% of the consumers don't know, or really want to know, how the sausage is made. If you want to wade into the English Wikipedia in 2011 the experience is likely to be the same as if it were 2005: you can get templated, nothing can happen, you can get a response from someone helpful, or you can get an asshole. It's really all the same, no matter how we color the glasses.
We attract intellectuals, and what we like is an argument. What we have, ten years into Wikipedia and 17 years into the internet boom is a new generation of young and old intellectuals who are unfamiliar with flame wars, USENET, email lists, old talk pages, and the concept that anyone can edit. Anyone can subscribe to this list- do you think they'd know what is going on in our group dynamic? The same applies, and has always applied to Wikipedia.
We make people scared to edit.
~Keegan
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 10:17 PM, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
The end game for this strategy of giving every (sub-) culture their own subset of the images and/or text (when every medium agrees all at once), and where everyone lives past each other is actually well known and well studied: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillarization
Due to my knowing the historical context, I would actually prefer that people were confronted by cultural differences and have a healthy dialogue about them, to prevent or mitigate pillarization.
I think you're taking the use of an image filter to a bizarre absolute. There *are* shades of grey here. My understanding of the proposal is that it people will voluntarily have certain images that have the potential to cause offense hidden by default, with a click-to-show. When somebody starts saying that they want meaningfully different article content for every country or point of view, then I think you'd be justified in bringing this up.
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 11:54:07PM +1000, Andrew Garrett wrote:
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 10:17 PM, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
The end game for this strategy of giving every (sub-) culture their own subset of the images and/or text (when every medium agrees all at once), and where everyone lives past each other is actually well known and well studied: ? ? ? ?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillarization
Due to my knowing the historical context, I would actually prefer that people were confronted by cultural differences and have a healthy dialogue about them, to prevent or mitigate pillarization.
I think you're taking the use of an image filter to a bizarre absolute. There *are* shades of grey here. My understanding of the proposal is that it people will voluntarily have certain images that have the potential to cause offense hidden by default, with a click-to-show. When somebody starts saying that they want meaningfully different article content for every country or point of view, then I think you'd be justified in bringing this up.
Well, when I ask people why they want the feature, that's what it comes down to. They say they want to be able to hide things that are offensive to their own culture. (Given that it would work) This method would allow them to do so, without imposing straight-out censorship on their fellow (wo)man.
Why else would you need to hide things from yourself, if not because somewhere in your past, you learned that it was "wrong" or "uncomfortable" to look at?
sincerely, Kim Bruning
On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 3:56 AM, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
Well, when I ask people why they want the feature, that's what it comes down to. They say they want to be able to hide things that are offensive to their own culture. (Given that it would work) This method would allow them to do so, without imposing straight-out censorship on their fellow (wo)man.
Why else would you need to hide things from yourself, if not because somewhere in your past, you learned that it was "wrong" or "uncomfortable" to look at?
I'll answer with an example.
I am very uncomfortable with medical images. It's not a cultural thing, you can get these things by in PG movies these days. But whenever I see an image of somebody being given an injection, or being seriously injured, or who is seriously injured, I am physically sick and in danger of passing out. It's called 'vasovagal syncope', if you're curious.
When I want to look up a medical term (that I often don't understand in the first place and have no idea what to expect of) on Wikipedia, I have to very quickly scroll down or look away if it's illustrated with a particularly graphic image. Obviously, I would like to view Wikipedia in such a way that I am warned before I'm shown something that is going to affect me in such a way. However, I realise that I am not everyone and there is no reason to remove thousands of high-quality, educational images from articles because I'm not comfortable with medical imagery. That really would be "censorship".
Therefore, it would be really nice if I could choose, just for my own sake and on my own behalf, to have these images hidden to start with, and if I want to see them I can click on them and have them shown to me.
Maybe you don't have any problems viewing any image whatsoever, but there are plenty of people for whom it's more than just a 'preference' based on some cultural norm that you don't agree with because you're modern and you transcend cultural taboos. But I'd wager that, in general, (if you get away from Wikipedians) you're in the minority.
—Andrew
On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 09:41:41AM +1000, Andrew Garrett wrote:
On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 3:56 AM, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
Well, when I ask people why they want the feature, that's what it comes down to. They say they want to be able to hide things that are offensive to their own culture. (Given that it would work) This method would allow them to do so, without imposing straight-out censorship on their fellow (wo)man.
Why else would you need to hide things from yourself, if not because somewhere in your past, you learned that it was "wrong" or "uncomfortable" to look at?
I'll answer with an example.
Therefore, it would be really nice if I could choose, just for my own sake and on my own behalf, to have these images hidden to start with, and if I want to see them I can click on them and have them shown to me.
And that's fine. Your user agent can do this for you in part. If you don't understand how your user agent works [1], we could certainly add some options to wikipedia to do this for you. There is exactly 0 problem with this.
The only problem is with people who make categories that say "this might be an offensive image". (They probably would miss medical anyway. The bias is against sex, nudity, and etc). It turns out that such categories are censorship tools, and should be avoided. Even if we don't use them to censor, others certainly can and will.
Clicking something to "Hide all images until I want them shown", is a standard function of your browser[2], or a plugin could be made to provide an extra button in the wikipedia UI.
Hmm, the default firefox image options are not that great actually. There's no way to tell that there were images there in the first place. HideImages plugin is close to what you want. Maybe we need a better firefox plugin. And maybe an extension could be written that does this function.
sincerely, Kim Bruning
[1] many people have never heard of F5 or CTRL-F, let alone suchd complex things as clicking in a menu. I don't understand this, but I've given up and am willing to work with it. [2] In firefox: Edit->Preferences [content] [X] Load images automatically
On 14/09/11 19:56, Kim Bruning wrote:
Why else would you need to hide things from yourself, if not because somewhere in your past, you learned that it was "wrong" or "uncomfortable" to look at?
Because somewhere in your past, you found out that it was wrong or uncomfortable to look at. You have never seen an image and felt uncomfortable?
On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 08:23:01AM +0200, Nikola Smolenski wrote:
On 14/09/11 19:56, Kim Bruning wrote:
Why else would you need to hide things from yourself, if not because somewhere in your past, you learned that it was "wrong" or "uncomfortable" to look at?
Because somewhere in your past, you found out that it was wrong or uncomfortable to look at. You have never seen an image and felt uncomfortable?
Oh definitely. I've also read posts on foundation-l and felt uncomfortable too. ;) (not yours, I'm sure! ) ` sincerly, Kim Bruning
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