David Levy writes:
Agreed. As some predicted, Fox News has cited Jimbo's actions as validation that its earlier claims were correct. And because any "graphic images" remain, this means that we're aware of an egregious problem and have made only a token effort to address it.
Essentially, we've gone from alleged smut peddlers pleading our innocence to self-acknowledged smut peddlers flaunting our guilt.
It was an enormous mistake to respond to this "news" organization as though it possessed a shred of credibility or integrity.
The hidden assumption here -- an incorrect assumption, in my view -- is that there is some universe of possibilities in which Fox News would not have cited Jimbo's *inaction* as validation that it was correct. I infer from this comment that you imagine that if Jimbo had not intervened as he did, there would be no such story from Fox News. My response is, if you think this, then you don't know Fox News.
Fox News (or at least this reporter and her editors) have dedicated themselves to damaging Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects. This is a given, and it is evident from their behavior. *Any* followup story would have demonstrated what these days in the U.S. we are calling "epistemic closure" -- all results will be interpreted as validation of cherished theories.
It is perfectly appropriate, it seems to me, for the community to second-guess Jimmy (or me, or anyone else working to protect the projects). But I don't think we should implicitly or explicitly embrace the theory that, had Jimmy not intervened, there would be no story, or a better story. My personal view is that the story Fox News wanted to tell would have been worse, but even if you disagree about that, let's not pretend there would have been no story at all.
--Mike
Mike Godwin wrote:
The hidden assumption here -- an incorrect assumption, in my view -- is that there is some universe of possibilities in which Fox News would not have cited Jimbo's *inaction* as validation that it was correct. I infer from this comment that you imagine that if Jimbo had not intervened as he did, there would be no such story from Fox News. My response is, if you think this, then you don't know Fox News.
No, that isn't my assumption at all. I'm quite certain that Fox News would have attempted to spin any response (or lack thereof) in a manner injurious to the Wikimedia Foundation's reputation.
The key difference is that in the other scenario, it would have continued to be their word vs. ours (with an opportunity to reach out to responsible media and explain our position).
Instead, Jimbo has essentially announced to the world that Fox News was correct. And until we purge our servers of every "graphic image," we knowingly retain our self-acknowledged state of indecency.
David Levy
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:23 PM, David Levy lifeisunfair@gmail.com wrote:
Instead, Jimbo has essentially announced to the world that Fox News was correct. And until we purge our servers of every "graphic image," we knowingly retain our self-acknowledged state of indecency.
Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion that "Fox News was correct"?
This statement strikes me as identifying a theoretical hazard rather than an actual outcome.
--Mike
Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion that "Fox News was correct"?
I'm referring to the conclusion that one, in my assessment, would draw upon encountering Jimbo's remarks first-hand, with or without reading Fox's subsequent reports on the matter.
David Levy
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:31 PM, David Levy lifeisunfair@gmail.com wrote:
Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion
that
"Fox News was correct"?
I'm referring to the conclusion that one, in my assessment, would draw upon encountering Jimbo's remarks first-hand, with or without reading Fox's subsequent reports on the matter.
Did you draw that conclusion?
--Mike
On 10 May 2010 22:32, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:31 PM, David Levy lifeisunfair@gmail.com wrote:
Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion
that
"Fox News was correct"?
I'm referring to the conclusion that one, in my assessment, would draw upon encountering Jimbo's remarks first-hand, with or without reading Fox's subsequent reports on the matter.
Did you draw that conclusion?
Your equivocation on this point is wearisome. Jimbo's actions were ridiculously damaging for *no gain whatsoever*.
- d.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Is anyone here really concerned by Fox News actions? From the beginning it seemed to me that what they were barking about were of no impact: they would confirm the WMF's opponents in their opinions and obtain an indifferent or amused shrug from the rest of the world. Am I wrong? Should we really panic as the Board and Mr. Wales did? (ok, not panic, but feel the gravity and urgency of the situation?)
On 10/05/2010 18:36, David Gerard wrote:
On 10 May 2010 22:32, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:31 PM, David Levy lifeisunfair@gmail.com wrote:
Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion
that
"Fox News was correct"?
I'm referring to the conclusion that one, in my assessment, would draw upon encountering Jimbo's remarks first-hand, with or without reading Fox's subsequent reports on the matter.
Did you draw that conclusion?
Your equivocation on this point is wearisome. Jimbo's actions were ridiculously damaging for *no gain whatsoever*.
- d.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Noein wrote:
Is anyone here really concerned by Fox News actions? From the beginning it seemed to me that what they were barking about were of no impact: they would confirm the WMF's opponents in their opinions and obtain an indifferent or amused shrug from the rest of the world. Am I wrong? Should we really panic as the Board and Mr. Wales did? (ok, not panic, but feel the gravity and urgency of the situation?)
What's especially damaging isn't the absurd reporting from Fox News, but our founder's proclamation that the reports are accurate.
David Levy
Sure Mike, we were going to get bad press from Fox News no matter what we did. You're clearly right about that, and I don't think anyone would disagree with you. I'm not seeing how you go from that position to endorsing (or at least defending against criticism) the panicked response from Jimmy and the board. Reason would suggest that if we can't change the message from Fox News, urgent action that earns universal condemnation (as opposed to just condemnation from Fox) is the wrong way to go. Now, instead of just further bad press from Fox, we've got Jimmy giving up his founder status, a large group of angry contributors, *and* more bad press from Fox. How is that defensible, given that the outcome was predictable?
Nathan
Let us assume for a minute that would not have taken any action whatsoever. Seeing Fox's habit of stretching and turning the truth upside down i would not be surprised if the next headline would have been "Wikipedia or Pedopedia? - Online encyclopedia endorses child pornography". Eventually the Foundation would have to respond to this in some way, if only to counter a web of lies being spun. Again, no matter what, we would have gotten a negative response. Had Jimbo released a written statement or open letter to the community the headline would have been "Failing Founders - Wikipedia founder fails to take decisive action". Fox was out to burn and pillage, and no matter what, they would have done so.
Also keep in mind that Fox news was actively pursuing large Wikimedia donors with a clear intend to make them "Guilty by association" of child porn. Hence, the truth is irrelevant in this case. No company wants to be associated with anything negative and therefor Wikipedia itself could have taken even more damage if we just headed to a shelter and waited for the storm to pass. If i would blame Jimbo for something, it would be the complete lack of communication and the removal of content which was in use and valid. Had Jimbo kept his deletion spree to unused sexual images the community response would have been more limited, while the breaking story would have been largely the same.
Even so, we are starting to beat a horse that is dead and buried, with the Jimbo discussion going round and round in circles. Jimbo relinquished his founder flag and apologized. What else can we do? Ban him altogether? I would say it is best to lay the Jimbo issue to rest unless someone suggest that we need to take further actions - complaints won't change history.
~Excirial
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 11:59 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Sure Mike, we were going to get bad press from Fox News no matter what we did. You're clearly right about that, and I don't think anyone would disagree with you. I'm not seeing how you go from that position to endorsing (or at least defending against criticism) the panicked response from Jimmy and the board. Reason would suggest that if we can't change the message from Fox News, urgent action that earns universal condemnation (as opposed to just condemnation from Fox) is the wrong way to go. Now, instead of just further bad press from Fox, we've got Jimmy giving up his founder status, a large group of angry contributors, *and* more bad press from Fox. How is that defensible, given that the outcome was predictable?
Nathan
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On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:36 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 10 May 2010 22:32, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:31 PM, David Levy lifeisunfair@gmail.com wrote:
Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion
that
"Fox News was correct"?
I'm referring to the conclusion that one, in my assessment, would draw upon encountering Jimbo's remarks first-hand, with or without reading Fox's subsequent reports on the matter.
Did you draw that conclusion?
Your equivocation on this point is wearisome. Jimbo's actions were ridiculously damaging for *no gain whatsoever*.
I saw this whole thing starting and took the weekend off to avoid stress.
That said, now that it's fairly unavoidable -
As far as I can tell, major mainstream media coverage of the original Fox stories was minimal.
Followup in major mainstream media to Jimmy's actions has been limited at best - The BBC has a decent story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10104946.stm
...And the aforementioned Vanity Fair blog, and something on Huffington Post. There seems to be a widespread disbelief in the underlying child porn accusation, other than at Fox.
In retrospect, attempting to some degree to read Jimmy's mind as of four days ago, I think we "jumped" to try and get ahead of negative press that did not develop. I think it was reasonably predictable that it wouldn't develop, but I understand why the mistake was made there.
In response to the wider use/abuse of power issues; I think it's wise anytime a very bold action is taken, to consider beforehand whether the underlying issue is "worth it" - worth, if everything goes completely sideways in the ensuing event / discussion, the loss of the power or authority that was invoked to try and take the bold action.
I can't help but think that this was a tremendously worthless underlying issue to go and melt the Founder Bit over. That bit has been extremely useful at times, used more carefully.
It also has dragged down a number of people's perceptions (within the community) of "the board" and several individual members, again extremely useful things we had to work with and have now lost.
One of the most important features and functions of a wider community input is to calibrate responses. Even if you do not change your underlying opinion on an issue, if others say consistently or loudly "This isn't worth it", then perhaps it's not worth being bold about.
It's not a function of leadership to ignore such input; it's sometimes a function of leadership to override such input.
I think a bunch of people forgot the difference between override and ignore, in the leadup to the events of Friday/Saturday, and we're all much poorer for it.
I would like to say thanks to those who maintained AGF and fought to seek and engage on community input throughout this.
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:36 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Did you draw that conclusion?
Your equivocation on this point is wearisome.
I don't know what you mean by "equivocation" here. I'm not equivocating, so far as I know. Perhaps I'm just not understanding what you mean by "this point."
Jimbo's actions were ridiculously damaging for *no gain whatsoever*.
I understand that you believe this. But it depends on what you mean by "damage" and on what you mean by "no gain." The thesis has been advanced here that Jimmy's actions somehow damaged us in the view of "the whole world." I'm only questioning that particular thesis. Whether "the whole world" would have had a higher opinion of Wikipedia if Fox had run the story they were trying to manufacture -- instead of the lame stories they have run -- is also an interesting proposition, but I hope you will understand why I don't find that proposition particularly credible.
--m
On 05/10/2010 02:57 PM, Mike Godwin wrote:
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:36 PM, David Gerarddgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Jimbo's actions were ridiculously damaging for *no gain whatsoever*.
I understand that you believe this. But it depends on what you mean by "damage" and on what you mean by "no gain." The thesis has been advanced here that Jimmy's actions somehow damaged us in the view of "the whole world." I'm only questioning that particular thesis. Whether "the whole world" would have had a higher opinion of Wikipedia if Fox had run the story they were trying to manufacture -- instead of the lame stories they have run -- is also an interesting proposition, but I hope you will understand why I don't find that proposition particularly credible.
Counterfactual predictions are always tricky, but my guess is there would at least have been less total news coverage. Almost all the news coverage is currently being driven by the power dispute and the question of whether we're giving in to Fox or not, not anybody actually caring about the original allegations.
See, e.g., this BBC News article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10104946.stm
Or the left-ish New Statesman (UK) calling our actions the result of a "Fox News effect": http://www.newstatesman.com/digital/2010/05/sexually-explicit-images-news
-Mark
http://www.newstatesman.com/digital/2010/05/sexually-explicit-images-news
On 10 May 2010 22:57, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
Jimbo's actions were ridiculously damaging for *no gain whatsoever*.
I understand that you believe this. But it depends on what you mean by "damage" and on what you mean by "no gain." The thesis has been advanced here that Jimmy's actions somehow damaged us in the view of "the whole world." I'm only questioning that particular thesis. Whether "the whole world" would have had a higher opinion of Wikipedia if Fox had run the story they were trying to manufacture -- instead of the lame stories they have run -- is also an interesting proposition, but I hope you will understand why I don't find that proposition particularly credible.
We were going to have nonsense articles in Fox whatever we do - that's the way Fox is. Now we have an article on the BBC News website (a very respected news outlet, unlike Fox) saying there is infighting in Wikipedia which we wouldn't have had if Jimmy hadn't acted. I'm far more concerned about the BBC article than I would be any Fox story.
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 8:11 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:
We were going to have nonsense articles in Fox whatever we do - that's the way Fox is. Now we have an article on the BBC News website (a very respected news outlet, unlike Fox) saying there is infighting in Wikipedia which we wouldn't have had if Jimmy hadn't acted. I'm far more concerned about the BBC article than I would be any Fox story.
BBC got the story from Fox. There would have been a Fox story regardless, and I wouldn't assume that BBC would not have picked up the more sensationalistic story that Fox was hoping to run.
--Mike, who's been doing this media-ecology stuff for a couple of decades now ;)
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 10:15 PM, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 8:11 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com
wrote:
We were going to have nonsense articles in Fox whatever we do - that's the way Fox is. Now we have an article on the BBC News website (a very respected news outlet, unlike Fox) saying there is infighting in Wikipedia which we wouldn't have had if Jimmy hadn't acted. I'm far more concerned about the BBC article than I would be any Fox story.
BBC got the story from Fox. There would have been a Fox story regardless, and I wouldn't assume that BBC would not have picked up the more sensationalistic story that Fox was hoping to run.
--Mike, who's been doing this media-ecology stuff for a couple of decades now ;) _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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On 11 May 2010 04:15, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
BBC got the story from Fox. There would have been a Fox story regardless, and I wouldn't assume that BBC would not have picked up the more sensationalistic story that Fox was hoping to run.
The BBC heard about the story from Fox. They then went and did their own research and produced a factually accurate article. It's not a good article for us because the facts are bad - infighting always is. Had Jimmy done nothing, the BBC may still have picked up the Fox story but they would have still done their own research and produced a factually accurate article. In that case, the facts would have been reasonably good (most people are in favour of NOT:CENSORED) and we would have ended up with a good article for us.
Mike Godwin wrote:
Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion that "Fox News was correct"?
I'm referring to the conclusion that one, in my assessment, would draw upon encountering Jimbo's remarks first-hand, with or without reading Fox's subsequent reports on the matter.
Did you draw that conclusion?
No. I'm not referring to the tiny percentage of Earth's population possessing a substantial degree of familiarity with the Wikimedia Foundation and its work. I'm referring to anyone taking Jimbo's comments at face value, as I would expect the vast majority of persons to do.
David Levy
Mike Godwin wrote:
Do you mean "the vast majority of persons" in "Earth's population"? I don't imagine much of "Earth's population" is even aware of the story, much less Jimmy's actions.
Of course not. I mean "the vast majority of persons encountering Jimbo's statements."
David Levy
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 5:26 PM, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
Can you point me to major media entities....
--Mike
well for a slightly more entertaining news version you could see : http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/05/child-pornography-at-the-cent...
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/05/child-pornography-at-the-center-of-intra-wikipedia-warfare.htmlI particularly liked "Sanger took his casehttp://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/27/wikipedia-child-porn-larry-sanger-fbi/ to Fox News, a sort of people’s encyclopedia of dispassionate cynicism"
well then again this is the same group that wrote http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/04/whats-the-point-of-having-a-s... where it decided that it had to put [sic] on “added move [sic] protection.” since obviously we meant more (yes they did indeed add move protection).
James Alexander james.alexander@rochester.edu jamesofur@gmail.com 100 gmail invites and no one to give them to :( let me know if you want one :)
Hello,
2010/5/10 Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com:
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:23 PM, David Levy lifeisunfair@gmail.com wrote:
Instead, Jimbo has essentially announced to the world that Fox News was correct. And until we purge our servers of every "graphic image," we knowingly retain our self-acknowledged state of indecency.
Can you point me to major media entities that have accepted the notion that "Fox News was correct"?
This statement strikes me as identifying a theoretical hazard rather than an actual outcome.
--Mike
Reading this http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:News_regarding_the_sexual_content_... I think that you are wrong, and that David and others are right.
Regards,
Yann
Fox News (or at least this reporter and her editors) have dedicated themselves to damaging Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects. This is a given, and it is evident from their behavior. *Any* followup story would have demonstrated what these days in the U.S. we are calling "epistemic closure" -- all results will be interpreted as validation of cherished theories.
--Mike
Yeh, and there is not a thing we can do about it, because under our editing policies our article on Foz News will be very unpleasant reading for them.
I do think we need to sort out some of these issues:
One: are any of them actually illegal?
Two: Do we need legal documentation with respect to pictures of people?
Three: Is there legal material we should not host?
Four: Should we offer a sanitized version for children? Or anyone else?
Fred
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org