(not responding to anyone in particular) I'm one of the people who tried to participate in the discussion without taking a strong standpoint (intentionally - because I'm quite nuanced on the issue, and open for good arguments of either side) and I have to fully agree with Ryan. I have yet been unable to participate in this discussion without either being ignored fully (nothing new to that, I agree) or being put in "the opposite camp". I basically gave up.
So I do have to say that I agree with the sentiment that the discussion is not very inviting, and is actually discouraging people who want to find a solution in the middle to participate. In that respect I do agree with Sue's analysis. However, considering the background and the 'German issue' I don't have the feeling it was particularly helpful in resolving that either.
Anyhow, about the filter issue. I think at this stage it is very hard to determine any opinion about "the filter" because everybody seems to have their own idea what it will look like, what the consequences will be and how it will affect their and other people's lives. I myself find it hard to take a stance based on the little information available and I applaud the visionaries that can. Information I am even more missing however (and I think it would have been good to have that information *before* we took any poll within our own community) is what our average 'reader on the street' thinks about this. Do they feel they need it? What parts of society are they from (i.e. is that a group we are representative of? Or one we barely have any interaction with?) What kind of filter do they want (including the option: none at all). Obviously this should not be held in the US, but rather world wide - as widely as possible.
With that information we can make a serious consideration how far we want to go to give our readers what they want - or not at all. I don't think we should be making that choice without trying to figure out (unless I missed a research into that) what they actually do want. We are making way too many assumptions here which don't strike me as entirely accurate (how do people get to an article page for example (by Béria), or how many people are offended by the image on the autofellatio article (by Erik)) - and we don't have to do that if we would just ask those people we're talking about - rather than talking about them on our ivory mountain.
One final remark: I couldn't help but laugh a little when I read somewhere that we are the experts, and we are making decisions for our readers - and that these readers should have to take that whole complete story, because what else is the use of having these experts sit together. (probably I interpreted this with my own thoughts) And I was always thinking that Wikipedia was about masses participating in their own way - why do we trust people to 'ruin' an article for others, but not just for themselves?
Hoping for a constructive discussion and more data on what our 'readers' actually want and/or need...
Lodewijk
No dia 30 de Setembro de 2011 11:40, Béria Lima berialima@gmail.comescreveu:
I'll go by pieces in your mail Erik.
*The intro and footer of Sue's post say: "The purpose of this post is not to
talk specifically about the referendum results or the image hiding
feature"
(...) So it's perhaps not surprising that she doesn't mention the de.wp
poll
regarding the filter in a post that she says is not about the filter. ;-)
It is quite surprise yes, since she gave half of the post to de.wiki main page "issue"[1]. And also, if we decide to ABFhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ABFof the other side (like that post pretty much does) I would say that she doesn't mention because would not help her case.
*Now, it's completely fair to say that the filter issue remains the elephant
in the room until it's resolved what will actually be implemented and
how.
You forgot the "*IF*": IF the elephant will be or not implemented.
*What Sue is saying is that we sometimes fail to take the needs and
expectations of our readers fully into account
Well, if we consider the "referendum" a good place to go see results[2] we can say that our readers are in doubt about that issue, pretty much 50%-50% in doubt - with the difference that our germans readers are not: They DON'T WANT it.
*Let me be specific. Let's take the good old autofellatio article (...) If
you visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Autofellatio , you'll notice that there are two big banners: "Wikipedia is not censored" and
"If
you find some images offensive you can configure your browser to mask
them",
with further instructions. (...) And yet, it's a deeply imperfect
solution.
The autofellatio page has been viewed 85,000 times in September. The associated discussion page has been viewed 400 times. The "options not
to
see an image" page, which is linked from many many of these pages, has
been
viewed 750 times. We can reasonably hypothesize without digging much
further
into the data that there's a significant number of people who are
offended
by images they see in Wikipedia but who don't know how to respond.
No we can not. With 85,000 views, would be childish to imagine that only 400 people could see the "Discussion" tab over the article. If they got to the article (and the article is not on MP) we need to assume that:
- They looked for "*autofellatio*" in Google - thefore they knew what they
would might find. 2. They placed that into the search box - thefore they know at least a bit how wikipedia works and know what is a discussion page and how to get there. 3. They got to the article by the links in another article. And by the links of "What Links here< http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Autofellatio...
"
feature there are no article no related with sex and sexuality that links to this one, so that reader would know what they would find - like the 1. - and knows how wikipedia works - like 2.
In any of the cases, I can only imagine that 1 has any reason to be offended and don't know how to find the talk page. Even in that case - if we divide by 3 the number of viewers (assuming here that 1, 2 and 3 has exactly the same contribution to the number, that is 28,333 people. Which means that - from the other 56,667 people - only 400 decided to check what is the talk page. Which is 0,7% of the readers. From those, I can only see 3 people complaining, which is 0,75% of everyone who goes in the talk page. Can you see the idea? Only ~0,7% of all people who say that article is offended by it. So, no, we can't assume that people get offended.
*An alternative would be, for example, to give Wikipedians a piece of wiki
syntax that they can use to selectively make images hideable on specific articles. Imagine visiting the article Autofellatio and seeing small
at the top that says:
"This article contains explicit images that some readers may find objectionable. [[Hide all images on this page]]."*
That would indeed be a better idea - to be implemented as a gadget to log in users. - and to be implemented in a way that prevents any kind of "censorship categories"
*Our core community is 91% male, and that does lead to obvious perception
biases (and yes, occasional sexism and other -isms). Polls and
discussions
in our community are typically not only dominated by that core group, they're sometimes in fact explicitly closed to people who aren't meeting sufficient edit count criteria, etc.*
Yes it is. That does not mean girls get more offend by that. The 9% of the girls are not screaming to tire apart all images, are they? In the opposite, we can see the same 50%-50% pro-oppose in the female community as well. (As example: the only 2 girls who commented here - phoebe and me - are in opposite sides. Have a vagina don't make us more or less offend for see one in the main page.
[1]: Note there a page who was elected featured article be in the main page is not a issue, whatever the subject is. [2]: I don't, for the very simple reason that was badly written, as several people already said. _____ *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 30 September 2011 09:44, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 11:45 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com
wrote:
The complete absence of mentioning the de:wp poll that was 85% against any imposed filter is just *weird*.
The intro and footer of Sue's post say: "The purpose of this post is not to talk specifically about the referendum results or the image hiding feature"
She also wrote in the comments: "What I talk about in this post is completely independent of the filter, and it’s worth discussing (IMO) on its own merits"
So it's perhaps not surprising that she doesn't mention the de.wp poll regarding the filter in a post that she says is not about the filter. ;-)
Now, it's completely fair to say that the filter issue remains the elephant in the room until it's resolved what will actually be implemented and how. And it's understandable that lots of people are responding accordingly. But I think it's pretty clear that Sue was trying to start a broader conversation in good faith. I know that she's done lots of thinking about the conversations so far including the de.wp poll, and she's also summarized some of this in her report to the Board:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Sue%27s_report_to_the...
The broader conversation she's seeking to kick off in her blog post _can_, IMO, usefully inform the filter conversation.
What Sue is saying is that we sometimes fail to take the needs and expectations of our readers fully into account. Whether you agree with her specific examples or not, this is certainly generally true in a community where decisions are generally made by whoever happens to show up, and sometimes the people who show up are biased, stupid or wrong. And even when the people who show up are thoughtful, intelligent and wise, the existing systems, processes and expectations may lead them to only be able to make imperfect decisions.
Let me be specific. Let's take the good old autofellatio article, which was one of the first examples of an article with a highly disputed explicit image on the English Wikipedia (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Autofellatio/Archive_1 ).
If you visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Autofellatio , you'll notice that there are two big banners: "Wikipedia is not censored" and "If you find some images offensive you can configure your browser to mask them", with further instructions.
Often, these kinds of banners come into being because people (readers and active editors) find their way to the talk page and complain about an image being offensive. They are intended to do two things: Explain our philosophy, but also give people support in making more informed choices.
This is, in other words, the result of reasonable discussion by thoughtful, intelligent and wise people about how to deal with offensive images (and in some cases, text).
And yet, it's a deeply imperfect solution. The autofellatio page has been viewed 85,000 times in September. The associated discussion page has been viewed 400 times. The "options not to see an image" page, which is linked from many many of these pages, has been viewed 750 times.
We can reasonably hypothesize without digging much further into the data that there's a significant number of people who are offended by images they see in Wikipedia but who don't know how to respond, and we can reasonably hypothesize that the responses that Wikipedians have conceived so far to help them have been overall insufficient in doing so. It would be great to have much more data -- but again, I think these are reasonable hypotheses.
The image filter in an incarnation similar to the one that's been discussed to-date is one possible response, but it's not the only one. Indeed, nothing in the Board resolution prescribes a complex system based on categories that exists adjacent to normal mechanisms of editorial control.
An alternative would be, for example, to give Wikipedians a piece of wiki syntax that they can use to selectively make images hideable on specific articles. Imagine visiting the article Autofellatio and seeing small print at the top that says:
"This article contains explicit images that some readers may find objectionable. [[Hide all images on this page]]."
As requested by the Board resolution, it could then be trivial to selectively unhide specific images.
If desired, it could be made easy to browse articles with that setting on-by-default, which would be similar to the way the Arabic Wikipedia handles some types of controversial content ( cf. http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D8%B6%D8%B9_%D8%AC%D9%86%D8%B3%D9%8A ).
This could possibly be entirely implemented in JS and templates without any complex additional software support, but it would probably be nice to create a standardized tag for it and design the feature itself for maximum usability.
Solutions of this type would have the advantage of giving Wiki[mp]edians full editorial judgment and responsibility to use them as they see fit, as opposed to being an imposition from WMF, with an image filter tool showing up on the page about tangential quadrilaterals, and with constant warfare about correct labeling of controversial content. They would also be so broad as to be not very useful for third party censorship.
Clearly, one wouldn't just want to tag all articles in this fashion if people complain -- some complaints should be discussed and resolved, not responded to by adding a "Hide it if you don't like it" tag; some should be ignored. By putting the control of when to add the tag fully in the hands of the community, one would also give communities the option to say "Why would we use this feature? We don't need it!" This could then lead to further internal and external conversations.
I don't think this would address all the concerns Sue expresses. For example, I think we need to do more to bring readers into conversations, and to treat them respectfully. Our core community is 91% male, and that does lead to obvious perception biases (and yes, occasional sexism and other -isms). Polls and discussions in our community are typically not only dominated by that core group, they're sometimes in fact explicitly closed to people who aren't meeting sufficient edit count criteria, etc. For good reasons, of course -- but we need to find ways to hear those voices as well.
Overall, I think Sue's post was an effort to move the conversation away from thinking of this issue purely in the terms of the debate as it's taken place so far. I think that's a very worthwhile thing to do. I would also point out that lots of good and thoughtful ideas have been collected at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Next_steps/en
IMO the appropriate level of WMF attention to this issue is to 1) look for simple technical help that we can give the community, 2) use the resources that WMF and chapters have (in terms of dedicated, focused attention) to help host conversations in the communities, and bring new voices into the debate, to help us all be the best possible versions of ourselves. And as Sue said, we shouldn't demonize each other in the process. Everyone's trying to think about these topics in a serious fashion, balancing many complex interests, and bringing their own useful perspective.
Erik
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.orgwrote:
(not responding to anyone in particular) I'm one of the people who tried to participate in the discussion without taking a strong standpoint (intentionally - because I'm quite nuanced on the issue, and open for good arguments of either side) and I have to fully agree with Ryan. I have yet been unable to participate in this discussion without either being ignored fully (nothing new to that, I agree) or being put in "the opposite camp". I basically gave up.
My personal reaction to the discussion: I followed it, found some implementation ideas useful, and also found the barrier to entry too high. Both the noise and the black and white-ness of the discussion.
So I agree that one of the unfortunate consequences of the 'either you are for or against' the filter discussion is that other points of view and voices are being, not 'censored', but silenced, perhaps unintentionally.
And that is where I think Sue's blog post is useful: in bringing in another dimension - the issue of editorial judgment, which is a more 'grey' or somewhat 'subjective' area. Whether one agrees with it or not, this is a dimension worth considering. While neutrality is no doubt a key project principle, editorial judgment or selectivity is exercised in the projects on a daily basis. (Even selecting an image to accompany a wikipedia is a selection or an editorial judgement of some sort, right?)
Given that this is the case, is it any different to exercise editorial judgment on this issue than it is to exercise editorial judgment on anything else? It may be productive to discuss this issue in the overall context of editorial discussions and selections on the project, rather than in a ghetto by itself.
I totally understand and get the anger emanating from the community. And, numbers apart, this does say something. But because of the anger, is this issue being 'exceptionalized' too much and being placed on a different pedestal, where no discussion beyond the black and white, on greys such as editorial judgement is possible?
In that broader sense, I agree with Sue that there is a need to go back to and discuss the underlying issue: "how to responsibly handle objectionable imagery." At the same time, as someone who works with images, I don't like the term 'objectionable imagery'. It's not necessarily an image, per se, that is objectionable, but a gaze that renders it such. (Two people can look at the same image, one finds it objectionable, the other does not).
**I am also dismayed at the use of the word 'censorship' in the context of a software feature that does not ban or block any images. But somehow there doesn't seem to be any other paradigm or language to turn to, and this is what is used as default, even though it is not accurate. It's been mentioned 1127 times in the comments, as per Sue's report to the board, and each time it is mentioned, it further perpetuates the belief that this is censorship.
Anyhow, about the filter issue. I think at this stage it is very hard to
determine any opinion about "the filter" because everybody seems to have their own idea what it will look like, what the consequences will be and how it will affect their and other people's lives. I myself find it hard to take a stance based on the little information available and I applaud the visionaries that can. Information I am even more missing however (and I think it would have been good to have that information *before* we took any poll within our own community) is what our average 'reader on the street' thinks about this. Do they feel they need it? What parts of society are they from (i.e. is that a group we are representative of? Or one we barely have any interaction with?) What kind of filter do they want (including the option: none at all). Obviously this should not be held in the US, but rather world wide - as widely as possible.
I agree. I don't think we really have sufficient data on what readers want
(or atleast I have not seen it) and this is another missing dimension. We are assuming we know, but we don't.
We are also not hearing back on how much of a problem this is from many of the projects.
Best Bishakha
Am 30.09.2011 17:06, schrieb Bishakha Datta:
... **I am also dismayed at the use of the word 'censorship' in the context of a software feature that does not ban or block any images. But somehow there doesn't seem to be any other paradigm or language to turn to, and this is what is used as default, even though it is not accurate. It's been mentioned 1127 times in the comments, as per Sue's report to the board, and each time it is mentioned, it further perpetuates the belief that this is censorship.
There are two issues why this word is used.
1. The word is used for actual censorship (restriction of access) and it is used in context with hiding/filtering features. What is really meant, is often hard to distinguish.
2. Categorizing content (images, videos, text, events, ...) as inappropriate for some (minors, believers, conservatives, liberals, extremists, ...) is instead seen as a "censors tool". That is one of the issues with a filter based on categories. It can be exploited by actual censors in many different ways. One hard way is to (mis)use the categories to restrict access. One soft way would be to influence the categorization itself, leaving the impression to the reader that a majority would share this view. To understand this issue, you have think about readers which see Wikipedia as a valid source for knowledge. If Wikipedia (they don't see or care for the single decisions, they trust us) labels such content as inappropriate (for some) it will inevitably lead to the believe that a vast majority sees it the same way, which doesn't need to be the case.
Since this risk is real (the Google image filter gets already exploited this way), it is also described as censorship. Not a single word could be found inside the introduction of the referendum, that mentioned possible issues. Thats why many editors think, that it was intentionally put that way, or that the board/WMF isn't capable to handle this situation.
It just left many open questions. For example: What would the WMF do, if they recognize that the filter, and the good idea behind it, is exploited?
-- Niabot
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 08:36:43PM +0530, Bishakha Datta wrote:
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.orgwrote: **I am also dismayed at the use of the word 'censorship' in the context of a software feature that does not ban or block any images. But somehow there doesn't seem to be any other paradigm or language to turn to, and this is what is used as default, even though it is not accurate. It's been mentioned 1127 times in the comments, as per Sue's report to the board, and each time it is mentioned, it further perpetuates the belief that this is censorship.
The term "censorship _tool_" -however- is correctly used in the context of any of the proposed prejudicial labelling systems.
In fact (in part due to the properties of prejudicial labelling) it is too easy to violate other aspects of the board resolution when implementing a form of labelling.
Fortunately, labelling is *not* actually required by the board resolution.
So, the solution going forward -imo- is to implement a software solution that doesn't depend on labelling.
At that point, your arguments hold water; and I agree with them wholeheartedly. :-)
sincerely, Kim Bruning
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.orgwrote:
Hoping for a constructive discussion and more data on what our 'readers' actually want and/or need...
Also, while we don't have reader data, we do have more than 20,000 answers
to the referendum or survey or whatever it should accurately be called.
As per Sue's report to the Board, which Erik referred to [1]: "The referendum did not directly ask whether respondents supported the idea of the filter. It did ask this question:
*On a scale of 0 to 10, if 0 is strongly opposed, 5 is neutral and 10 is strongly in favor, please give your view of the following: It is important for the Wikimedia projects to offer this feature to readers.*
24,023 people responded to that question, with 23,754 selecting a number on the scale. The result was mildly in favour of the filter, with an average response of 5.7 and a median of 6."
How do we understand this? And how should this be factored into making a decision?
Best
Bishakha [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Sue%27s_report_to_the...
On 30 September 2011 17:17, Bishakha Datta bishakhadatta@gmail.com wrote:
As per Sue's report to the Board, which Erik referred to [1]: "The referendum did not directly ask whether respondents supported the idea of the filter. It did ask this question:
*On a scale of 0 to 10, if 0 is strongly opposed, 5 is neutral and 10 is strongly in favor, please give your view of the following: It is important for the Wikimedia projects to offer this feature to readers.*
24,023 people responded to that question, with 23,754 selecting a number on the scale. The result was mildly in favour of the filter, with an average response of 5.7 and a median of 6."
This keeps coming up. Even if the median/average were useful (which they arguably aren't, with the high number of 0s), the question was not "do you support the idea of this filter".
The question was "do you think it is important Wikimedia projects should offer this feature".
Michel
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 08:47:43PM +0530, Bishakha Datta wrote:
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.orgwrote:
"24,023 people responded to that question, with 23,754 selecting a number on the scale. The result was mildly in favour of the filter, with an average response of 5.7 and a median of 6."
How do we understand this? And how should this be factored into making a decision?
The distribution is strongly bimodal. Describing it as "mildly in favor" is not accurate.
sincerly, Kim Bruning
On Sat, Oct 01, 2011 at 03:21:45AM +0200, Kim Bruning wrote:
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 08:47:43PM +0530, Bishakha Datta wrote:
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.orgwrote:
^- apologies for leaving this quote-line in. I was replying to a quote by Bishaka Datta.
The MUA generated indent and In-Reply-To (threading) headers are correct, so many MUA's show me as replying to Bishaka. (including mine) so I didn't notice I'd missed a line.
sincerely, Kim Bruning
On 09/30/11 3:34 AM, Lodewijk wrote:
One final remark: I couldn't help but laugh a little when I read somewhere that we are the experts, and we are making decisions for our readers - and that these readers should have to take that whole complete story, because what else is the use of having these experts sit together. (probably I interpreted this with my own thoughts) And I was always thinking that Wikipedia was about masses participating in their own way - why do we trust people to 'ruin' an article for others, but not just for themselves?
It's always dangerous to believe one is an expert, and worse to proclaim that view. It's even a bit arrogant. How did we get there? Mass participation and crowd sourcing are not about becoming or being experts. The content stands for itself. This is not to say that these processes are without fault, nor that at times they can't go terribly wrong. In the larger context the contents are still pretty good, and in some areas more comprehensive than what can be found elsewhere.
Wikipedia's sense of inferiority with its passion to be broadly accepted by the educational community, to be more legal than God and to be so protective of brand and reputation projects the image of a neurotic character better than Woody Allen could ever portray.
Ray
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 5:34 AM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.orgwrote:
(not responding to anyone in particular) I'm one of the people who tried to participate in the discussion without taking a strong standpoint (intentionally - because I'm quite nuanced on the issue, and open for good arguments of either side) and I have to fully agree with Ryan. I have yet been unable to participate in this discussion without either being ignored fully (nothing new to that, I agree) or being put in "the opposite camp". I basically gave up.
Yeah, tell me about it. I've commented a couple times in public and in private to no avail, since I don't want to talk about what they want to focus on. Post a link to a blog, and the thread has 95 replies. Go figure.
So I do have to say that I agree with the sentiment that the discussion is not very inviting, and is actually discouraging people who want to find a solution in the middle to participate... ...Hoping for a constructive discussion and more data on what our 'readers' actually want and/or need...
Lodewijk
I agree.
No dia 30 de Setembro de 2011 11:40, Béria Lima <berialima@gmail.com
escreveu: *Now, it's completely fair to say that the filter issue remains the elephant
in the room until it's resolved what will actually be implemented and
how.
You forgot the "*IF*": IF the elephant will be or not implemented.
Wrong thread, but there is no if.
The problem with the whole Censorship or not debate is... People want "Just slightly pregnant, but not really.." And the problem there is, either you are pregnant, or ya ain't. There isn't a "slightly" variant to pregnancy.
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org