On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 9:38 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: Willing to know the same, as Jimmy's last action is too serious.

On 7 May 2010 20:45, Jan-Bart de Vreede <janbart(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: The board statement doesn't seem to be suggesting people take unilateral action. If that is what you meant, you should have made it explicit. The default in the Wikimedia movement is to discuss things before taking action, not after, so that is what most people will have interpreted your statement as meaning.

On 7 May 2010 20:56, Jan-Bart de Vreede <janbart(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: Well, there is currently no policy to allow the unilateral deletion of images like this on Commons, which is why I interpreted the statement as not supporting Jimmy's actions. I know it is human nature to be intentionally vague about controversial matters in order to leave yourself room to manoeuvre in the future, but it is really unhelpful. Can the board please explicitly say whether Jimmy's actions are done with board authorisation or not? If not, I think our policies are very clear: Jimmy should be blocked from Commons until he agrees to comply with policy and all the images should be undeleted pending consensus. That is what would happen to anyone else.

The primary reason that several weeks back I became involved in the Common's discussions about sexually explicit content is my work with the strategic planning process for WMF. During the strategic plannings discussions, I became acutely aware of the problems with the lack of diversity among WMF readers and editors. As I considered the topic, I came to the conclusion that WMF hosting an unlimited amount of sexually explicit content could be "one" of the barriers for WMF being more diverse. The manner that we display nudity and sexually explicit content makes it difficult to avoid. Currently, our policies and practices do not allow for special care when displaying the content (for deletion discussion, categorizing, or links to our sister projects, ...). So, people may unexpectedly see it. In my opinion, the current approach to managing the content is insensitive to many people in the world of many nationalities and religions, and people that access WFM projects through settings where sexually explicit content is inappropriate or not allowed. So, I see a policy that better manages the content as potentially making WMF projects open to more users. I support the clean up effort by Jimmy and the administrators on Commons for the images that have no significant educational value. I also understand that to some editors who are new to thinking about the issue that this may seem abrupt. So, I encourage good communication between all the stakeholders so that we can understand each others concerns and address them. I'm also hopeful that technical solutions will be implemented and will resolve the concerns about hosting images that have an educational value.but are not appropriate for all readers in all settings. Sydney Poore (FloNight) On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Jan-Bart de Vreede <janbart(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote:

But how should we see Jimbo's actions? Jimbo isn't a administrator on Commons, the community didn't vote about his adminship so he is using the Founder flag. That he can use the Founder flag for doing his thing we can see this as a staff / board action? Best regards, -- Huib "Abigor" Laurens Tech team www.wikiweet.nl - www.llamadawiki.nl - www.forgotten-beauty.com

On 7 May 2010 21:42, Amory Meltzer <amorymeltzer(a)gmail.com> wrote: 1) That argument doesn't apply to old artwork. 2) It is for the community to decide what is and isn't educational, not Jimmy. (The board acting collectively could overrule the community, but they don't seem to have done that.)

Amory Meltzer hett schreven: You really do think that? Write me off-list and I'll send you a list of pages that will greatly improve masturbation sessions! It will be a total explosion if you are used to masturbate to Commons material! Marcus Buck User:Slomox

On 7 May 2010 21:56, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: Consideration is good. Unilateral action with no authority is not.

On 7 May 2010 21:56, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: Given the statement would require the deletion of 99% of userpages I think it is best ignored. -- geni

On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 2:18 PM, David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote: Maybe we need a new motto for Commons: "just 'cause it's free, doesn't mean it's good." Given that: a) commons is not a host for people's personal photo collections b) some of the pr0nz is obviously part of a personal collection I don't actually see what the problem is necessarily in deleting it. It's called editorial judgment, and as I have been telling people for years and years on Wikipedia, editorial judgment =/= censorship. You may write the most awesome novel to ever have been written, but that doesn't mean it's fit for Wikipedia. Similarly, you may have the most righteous CC-BY pictures of naked people or your birthday party or your neighbor's cat or whatever, but that doesn't mean any of it needs to go -- or should go -- in Commons. I know, I know, my whitebread American puritan morals (ha!) shouldn't affect the sacred contents of the Commons, but seriously, no one objects when I edit articles to uphold the long-held editorial standards of Wikipedia, and I try hard to be NPOV when I edit there. Similarly, I think it is entirely possible to consider issues such as duplicative content, educational value, purpose of the image, use in the projects, technical quality, etc. and come to a very reasonable conclusion that not everything belongs in Commons and it needs a good weeding. We are not, after all, the interweb's fileserver for whatever. This is an entirely separate issue from whether Jimmy went about being bold in the correct manner, and it would probably be helpful to remember that. As a strict *user* of commons, rather than a contributor, I would personally like to have less junk to wade through when trying to find pictures of something! -- phoebe

On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 5:18 PM, David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote: Legally contain according to what laws?

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/thread.html Everything is archived. ~Amory

Amory Meltzer hett schreven: The thing that has changed is the fact that this was decided by the community, by admins who have earned their rights in a community vote, and according to policies. Take e.g. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F%C3%A9licien_Rops_-_Sainte-Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se.png>. That image is a 19th century artwork, a drawing, from an important artist. It was uploaded to Commons in 2006 and never questioned. But Jimbo didn't file a deletion request, he didn't even put a speedy delete. He just deleted it with a generic message given as reason. Two times the deletion was reverted by longstanding Commons admins who wanted to uphold Commons policy about deletions and two times Jimbo deleted it again, with the same generic reason. At the moment the file is again undeleted by a third Commons admin. (Jimbo is not online at the moment to overturn that decision.) I think this is a really obvious example how Jimbo breaks policies and why large parts of the Commons community are upset. Marcus Buck User:Slomox

Fred Bauder wrote: It does present an interesting theoretical question though; Saint Teresa did practise body mortification quite enthusiastically. Would it be okay to portray a religious person flagellating themself on commons, considering that it isn't sexualized, and apparently on the other hand, the strictest part of Jimbos new "order of the day" seems to relate to BDSM depictions on commons? Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 12:02 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen &lt;cimonavaro(a)gmail.com And what would that be? I expect someone will be adding article content explaining the historical significance of each of these works. If it's so horrible that they be deleted, it shouldn't be tough to add a paragraph or two which make it obvious why.

On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 4:42 PM, Amory Meltzer &lt;amorymeltzer(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: It's rather unfortunate that Jimbo went beyond deleting low-quality photographs of penises and deleted what are obviously works of art or educational illustrations. Had he stuck to the former, he would have had the support of a lot of people who are now upset. If he were to admit that it was a mistake to delete things that weren't clearly at the bottom of the barrel (rather than wheel-warring over them!), it would go a long way toward showing that this actually is about improving the quality of the project and not about PR or appeasing donors.

On Sat, May 08, 2010 at 09:46:02PM -0400, Aryeh Gregor wrote: I would prefer those ideals to be applied non-hypocritically. Isn't the whole concept of peacefully sharing knowledge (wikis) a byproduct of "western liberal provincialism"? sincerely, Kim Bruning -- [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment] gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key FEF9DD72 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A 01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72

Doing something good in the worst possible way. Is this not completely par for the course for Wikimedia? Few people should be surprised. MZMcBride

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 12:15 AM, Ting Chen &lt;wing.philopp(a)gmx.de&gt; wrote: Ting, this is your statement about sexually explicit content from the last elections [1]: "First of all I my position to this point had not changed since last year. I think content in Wikimedia projects should be educational, nothing more and nothing less. I think the communities of our major projects are meanwhile good enough to decide what is in scope and what not. This as overall principle. In most part of the world even pure educational content has some restriction of age, sometimes even per law. I think the Foundation should take this into account and give the community the possibility to act in accordance with the local laws if they decide to. From this point of view my suggestion is the following: The foundation should develop the MediaWiki software so that some content that are tagged with an age restriction would not be shown immediately if one comes to such an article. Only if the user confirms that he is above the age limit the content would be revealed. I believe this suggestion was already made by Erik a few years ago and I think we should do it. The board of trustees should issue a resolution in the form like the BPL resolution that announces the feature and call for the responsibility of the community to use this feature in accordance with the community consensus." I see here two things: * You didn't mention that sexually explicit content should be deleted. * You said that it is Board's responsibility to create a feature, not any kind of community's responsibility [out of the scope of particular legal systems]. In that sense, I want to ask you what did Board do except supporting Jimmy to delete many images of educational value? [1] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Candidates/Questions/1#…

Ting Chen wrote: Errors are understandable, but Jimmy deliberately cast aside the reasoned views of the community's most trusted users by continually wheel-warring with a generic deletion summary (an extraordinarily disrespectful method). Does this have your full support as well? David Levy

On 8 May 2010 11:17, Ting Chen &lt;wing.philopp(a)gmx.de&gt; wrote: They've been named in this thread repeatedly. - d.

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 10:54 AM, Ting Chen &lt;wing.philopp(a)gmx.de&gt; wrote: Ting, thanks for reply. This one has much more sense than your and Jan Bart's initial supports of Jimmy's action. By my opinion, the only urgency which WMF should do is to support Erik to fill a lawsuit against Larry Sanger ASAP. Also, if it is not possible to sue Fox and Larry Sanger on the basis of spreading lies about WMF in United States, I am sure that it is fully possible to sue them in Germany or France. John Vandenberg proposed a good solution, involving Internet Content Rating Association [1] methods. It is in relation to your proposal. Please, consider it. BTW, as mentioned before, Jimmy didn't make "some false decisions", but he made a small amount of right decisions and destroyed work of many volunteers. (There are complex problems related to recovering categorizations.) [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Content_Rating_Association

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 1:12 PM, Ting Chen &lt;wing.philopp(a)gmx.de&gt; wrote: Without being a lawyer, my point was: Find a way where and how to sue Fox and Larry for making public lies about WMF, which in turn affects its funds (and reputation) :)

Hoi, There has been a need to address these things. Let us be clear, there is no need for speedy deletions, there is time to have the ordinary deletion process. Let us be equally clear that there is no room for business as usual because not only have things gone bad and bans like the current Iranian one are not addressed but also because the board of the WMF has clearly indicated that things are out of kilter. Consequently, it does not help at all to argue about if you like or dislike the approach Jimmy has taken. He has clearly put this issue on the map and that is good. When we want to stabilise the situation by having the standard process, it has to be clear that the argument why something is to be kept has to be clear and strong. Nudity is in and of itself not an issue. The nature and the volume of many subjects is. What is needed is are criteria and they have to include the amount of images we need for the subjects under discussion. As I argued on my blog, a Maroon with a loincloth should not even feature in the category "nudity". Thanks, GerardM http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com On 8 May 2010 00:33, Mark Wagner &lt;carnildo(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

Marcus Buck wrote: I disagree with this. The Foundation has a mission, and the board has the duty to keep the Foundation, and the community on the rail for this mission. The board had always pushed the community, sometimes more soft, sometimes more harsh. In 2005 on the first Wikimania in Frankfurt the board called the community to take measure to improve the quality and reliability of Wikipedia. This is not the start of our quality offensive but it had trimendously strengthend the effort of the community. The resolution of BLP is another example for the board to give guidance to the community in handling certain topics. In many of our major projects we are facing declining new comer, the community is often regarded as harsh or even unfriendly to new comers. The board is trying to broaden our outreach and make our community and projects more welcome and more diverse. These are all examples where the board push the community into certain directions. What you wrote here is totally right, and this is also not the reason for the whole action. I wrote in my answer to Milos more detailed about the reason. Greetings -- Ting Ting's Blog: http://wingphilopp.blogspot.com/

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 10:07 PM, Samuel Klein &lt;meta.sj(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Let's talk about Jimmy's role, then. What happens now is that he has unlimited technical power over all projects, and everybody is of the impression that they are not permitted to remove or limit it, lest it be restored and their access similarly or more harshly curtailed. Community efforts to reverse actions taken by Jimmy with the assistance of his technical power have been immediately reversed by him without any further explanation, and occasionally threats or actual retaliation made against those reversing his actions. This isn't an ideal situation. We should have a situation in which Jimmy's technical power derives from the authority of the board of trustees or from a community mandate, or we should have a situation in which Jimmy does not have unlimited technical power. -- Andrew Garrett http://werdn.us/

Hello, 2010/5/8 Samuel Klein &lt;meta.sj(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: (...) I beg to disagree. I don't see why Jimmy, as project founder, should have 'unlimited technical power' on the projects, unless you think that the community is not able to reach and implement decisions by itself. It is not because this worked on English WP up to now that it should be the same on all WM projects. Regards, Yann

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 8:33 AM, Samuel Klein &lt;meta.sj(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: For what purpose? The purpose for which the developers have this "technical power" is obvious - they can't possibly do their work without it. With Wales, it's a power with no explicit purpose other than anachronistic deference. English Wikipedia has addressed this fluidly over the years: So long as the power of the founder flag includes control over that very page, anything written on that page can't possibly be taken seriously. (BTW, shouldn't Larry Sanger have a founder flag too?)

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 4:45 PM, Samuel Klein &lt;meta.sj(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Our categorisation system is mentioned in any W3C Recommendation. -- John Vandenberg

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 3:14 AM, John Vandenberg &lt;jayvdb(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I see what you mean. SJ

Andrew Garrett wrote: Is there really a presumption that after straining at a mouse -- trivial and clearly temporary -- limitations of Jimbo's technical powers, with great gusto and grand drama; the wikimedian community will kneel down and swallow an elephant. Content labeling is *HUGE*, much much much huger than a temporary and correctible loss of a few files, and a mild rebuke that Jimbo can live down and rise from the ashes again, after a suitable time. I will also state for the record that content labeling is a bad bad bad idea. Where on wiki have you set up a page consulting the community on whether we want this humongous change, so that I can go and voice my opposition? Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 12:29 PM, David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I think that Jimmy should ask them to back.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 37-01--10 03:59 PM, Samuel Klein wrote: The difference is that they don't use their access in ways that affect the editor communities so directly. Sure, a software update might get botched for a few minutes, or maybe some people don't like Vector so much. But system administrators aren't deleting content en masse in cases that are really *really* unclear. That's where the difference lies. If Jimbo's going to be a figurehead, I think we can live with him having essentially unlimited technical access on the wikis. If he's going to actually use it, he needs a community mandate. Recall, he *didn't* found all the wikis, and he *doesn't* edit most of them regularly. Recall that English Wikipedia is in a special position (whether you think that is good or bad) in that he actually did start that wiki, and he hangs around the wiki sometimes. Not so for most of the Wikimedia universe. It shouldn't be surprising that those other wikis are less tolerant of his derisive attitude towards disagreements they may have with this actions - - either the means or the ends. - -Mike

I wrote: "are are" = "who are" David Levy

2010/5/8 David Levy &lt;lifeisunfair(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: Well.. maybe... but bear in mind that it is really hard to discuss the pictures you can't see, and commons-delinker bot actions are really difficuilt to revert. On any other project if you delete something it is just a local issue. But deleting a picture on Commons which was used on many other project for years is really hiting all those projects, not only Commons. The side effect of Jimbo action might be a general move toward keeping pictures on local projects instead of using Commons... Maybe we should have common-prolinker bot to work in opposite way, after undeleting pictures? The another idea is to keep on Commons only those pictures which are non-controversial and suggest local project to keep their controversial pictures local? For example en Wikipedia keeps fair use pictures locally and it is OK. If for example nudity pictures is not a problem for Danish or French or Svedish Wikipedias - they can keep them locally... and the en-Wikipedia which is driven by anglo-saxon taboo of nudity can get rid of them... -- Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html

2010/5/8 Anthony &lt;wikimail(a)inbox.org&gt;rg>: Or shut off the Commons. That would be the ultimate solution :-) Shuting down commons-delinker won't much help, as deleting the picture on Commons leave the red links on all those projects which were using the picutre. Thats the idea of Commons - to be the central repository of multimedia files - which strikes back in an effect - that if you delete something on Commons you hit not only Commons but also all those projects which are using it. -- Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html

On 9 May 2010 01:40, Anthony &lt;wikimail(a)inbox.org&gt; wrote: Considering this to be an ill conceived joke, not because it could appear 'controversial', but because it lacks... I dunno, humour? Comedy? But it raises a good point, however. It perceives the concept of not dealing with a situation proportionally. 'Someone is misusing A' -> 'Let's make A illegal'. I would argue that this also sort of illustrates Wales' immediate behaviour. 'Bad press' -> 'Do something!' Ironically, I think the solution to this problem is status quo. But no one will accept that solution. That's what got this whole thing started!

Tomasz Ganicz wrote: We're arguing the same thing. :) Anthony wrote: 1. We don't usually have this problem, as Commons administrators seldom go on controversial deletion sprees (and when they do, other administrators aren't powerless to counter their actions). 2. Even without CommonsDelinker, editors at the various projects will remove broken image transclusions when they discover them. What, other than delinking or uploading the missing image locally (thereby bypassing Commons), do you expect a wiki to do? And how do you expect editors who cannot read English (particularly those whose native languages are among the less widespread) to even understand why in-use images are being deleted? I'll quote myself from earlier in the thread. "Deletions are easily reversible. Multi-wiki image transclusion removals, distrust in the Wikimedia Commons and resignations from Wikimedia projects? Less so." David Levy

Anthony wrote: This assumes that a suitable alternative is readily available (which likely isn't the case with many of the inappropriately deleted images, including those that Jimbo wheel-warred over) and still entails delinking the original image. This is a highly undesirable outcome (and example of potential damage). This is not always feasible (depending on one's native language) and is futile when Jimbo intends to unilaterally overrule any such decision. Additionally, one might erroneously assume that the image was deleted for a valid reason (e.g. copyright infringement). This is another highly undesirable outcome (and example of potential damage). And the point is that some solutions weaken the Wikimedia Commons and/or the sister projects that rely upon it. Depending on the language, that isn't always an easy task. And again, that assumes that a benefit exists and is apparent. See above. David Levy

Anthony wrote: As noted, the problem extends beyond the images delinked by the CommonsDelinker bot. In fact, I would argue that the bot actually mitigates the damage by preemptively delinking images via an identifiable account (thereby making the removals easier to detect and revert). David Levy

2 months. Andreas

On 9 May 2010 02:20, Andreas Kolbe &lt;jayen466(a)yahoo.com&gt; wrote: At this point it is because the issue of pornography has been completely overshadowed by the issue of the actions taken and Board support for them. The pornography issue *cannot* be resolved until these other issues are resoved. Cannot. - d.

Samuel Klein wrote: If you consider a false report to the FBI reasonably characterised as "just made a lot of noise", sure. This is an important clarification, and I commend you for it. Not to disagree with your personal inclinations at all, I just want to clarify a point of fact. "Lot of momentum around the idea", is currently most persistently promoted by the same precise individual who began the "ethical breaching experiment" project on the English Wikiversity, and created the previous to last wiki-fracas. The suggestion has certainly been a perennial one, Uwe Kils and his Wiki-Vikings may have been the first one to down in flames. [[WP:TOBY]] (might still survive as a historical page, and as a warning to passersby. These kind of schemes no matter how they are flavored have always been soundly rejected by the community. I am like "Buridans ass" stuck between whether to refer to them as the "third rail", or a "lead balloon". If you however imply there is impetus to have anything of this sort implemented on the foundation side, my personal prediction would be that it would be a train wreck to make this current commons fracas look like a leisurely picnic by the Seine. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

When I heard that Jimmy had taken an axe to explicit images on commons, I thought it was good news as I've been frustrated and disappointed by my own inability to convince the commons community that some things, like the bulk copying of erotic imagery from flickr— hundreds of images with little to no prospect of use in an article, was inappropriate. By in my first few clicks on Jimmy's deletion log I instantly found several hundred year old works of art by artists who have articles in almost every major language Wikipedia. ... and that these deletions were not just errors. When the images were deleted by people operating under that impression, Jimmy wheel-warred. As an example of their maturity, I'm not aware of any Commons Admin that undeleted a second time. After seeing that went and viewed Jimmy's talk page, and the commentary there was enough to dispel all hope I had of being able to support this initiative. I strongly recommend you read these sections yourself: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Franz_von_Bayros.3F The "delete everything now, regardless of how long its been there, how widely used, the fact that it's a 100 year old line drawing, and worry about allowing some stuff later, maybe" approach seems maximally poisonous to me. I've been guilty of it myself in the past, but I hope that I've learned better by now... I think Jimmy's conduct is alarming, disproportionate, and ill-considered. I find it shocking that the board has chosen to explicitly support this 'wild west' approach. I feel like our community is being dragged into a petty game of personal one-upmanship between Larry Sanger and Jimmy. On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 6:15 PM, Ting Chen &lt;wing.philopp(a)gmx.de&gt; wrote: I hope the rest of the board will step forward and disclose their level of support for Jimmy's actions. I think such disclosure will be relevant in the communities decision to support the members in the future. I don't see any reason why the board discussion on this topic should be kept confidential. Michael, Ting. Please consider this to be a request for the board to release its entire discussion related to this subject so that the community may better understand the basis for this sudden action against the commons community. I think a lot of people who have invested considerable effort into the structure and operation of commons will be gravely offended by your claim that Commons has "no such basic rules", for it most certainly does— I know that your words hurt and offend me. The point that commons governance has not managed a single area to your liking can not be construed as evidence that commons is lawless. There is an enormous space of things strongly understood to be acceptable by consensus, and at least some space understood to be unacceptable. Then there is a area under which no clear consensus exists but under which several carefully navigated compromises exist on Commons and the projects. These compromises are not, in my opinion, anywhere near sufficient. But they do exist and they are helpful. The actions taken have disregarded both the area under clear consensus (e.g. hundreds year old works of art by famous artists) as well as having disregarded the area of compromise in the "no consensus" space. For example, on many Wikipedia projects drawings (albeit rather detailed ones) were used rather than sexually explicit photographs to illustrate articles on specific sex acts. — The compromise being that there is a need to use illustrations on these articles, just as we use illustrations on other physical activities (like dancing) but that drawings could achieve the informative purpose without being quite as likely to offend. Unfortunately Jimmy unilateral removed the commons policy preferring the illustrations: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Sexual_content&d… I think is incredibly unfortunate— it damages one of the things we've been able to do, not just at commons, but at the Wikipedias— to decrease the level of offence and shock without upsetting people who are taking a principled stand against singling out sexually explicit material for self-censorship. Now I don't know where we stand. I don't really want to support the proposals of the extremely permissive, as I've long supported being a little more selective on commons. ... but if my alternatives are either supporting the removal of historic artwork and treating fictional illustrations the same as photographs, I think I may have to side with the large faction in support of permissiveness— After all, I can always choose to _not look at_ the images on commons which I don't believe belong there, but no personal choice will protect me from hasty under-considered over-aggressive censorship imposed at the whim of a single wikimedia board member.

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote: Apologies for replying to my own message, but that was a false alarm. In this case the link was broken because a better quality image had been uploaded with a different name, apparently. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 7:24 AM, Florence Devouard &lt;Anthere9(a)yahoo.com&gt; wrote: I have to agree with you, Anthere. It's starting to look like over time the role of the board has evolved from broad guidance and administration to some sort of twisted version of enwp's Arbitration Committee. When the board was first created, it wasn't particularly political and its members were simply those who were most well-known and respected from across the Wikimedia communities. Now, at least some of the board members appear to be of the opinion that they have become the ultimate arbiters of what should be included in Wikimedia projects. They are not, and this will eventually become patently clear to them when their seats are due for re-election. As for Jimbo, this is not the first time he has ignored community consensus and processes because he is of the clear opinion that he is right and everyone else is wrong. However, it is the first time I've seen him using his Founder flag to do it. The founder flag is a bad idea, because it gives Jimbo the false impression that he can in fact do whatever he likes. He cannot. When he created the Foundation and later stepped down as Chair of the Board, he effectively gave up the right to intervene on his own whim. I think the right thing for him to do now would be to voluntarily turn off the founder flag, and participate in community discussions like everyone else. ~Mark Ryan

On 5/9/10 3:16 AM, Casey Brown wrote: Well, thank you for reminding us of this link explaining what the role of a board member is and is not. Just a clarification. I am not the author of this statement. This statement comes from the board itself, and was crafted and officially approved during a board meeting in June 2007. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Elections_to_the_board_(June_2007) Anthere

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 This, my friends, beyond the porn debate, is an important lesson about the vulnerability of wikipedia. You just have to threaten or convince Mr. Wales to control or shutdown the entire project. The whole community is powerless. When this crisis is over, we should think about giving a stronger autonomy to wikipedia. A project of this magnitude can no longer rest on the shoulder of one man, depending on his good faith. Wikipedia is making enemies (today: the prudes). One day they'll force Mr. Wales to denature the project. Is it today? I don't know. But don't be fooled about the appearances: the real crisis is not about porn, but about who has control on the project and who has control on these critical persons. If this is an emergency situation requiring a justified, immediate, unilateral, king-like massive action, I regret Mr. Wales didn't take the time to explain the emergency to us. By rush-imposing his views and decisions on people who are not out of the debate yet, he is browbeating their inner self, ignoring their beliefs and opinions, discarding the value of the Other. This lack of respect and of equality of vote should be extremely well argumented and the reasons transparently communicated. Otherwise, trust, faith and adhesion to the WMF values dissolve. I don't think we should let this happen. Mr. Wales, I hope you enter reason and dialogue realms again. We're not idiots who can't understand strategy. And by the way, if you pretend to calm puritan donors in a first time, then try to reconquer the lost ground later, you just surrendered the whole project to them by showing that you will cede before their threat. Maybe it is time to adopt a bold secularism (morally neutral, but still respectful of humans)? Anyway, will I, for one, accept the situation if you don't explain? I would oppose any person pretending to dictate non-consensually how to handle the human knowledge: it is part of the Humanity Heritage. But you're the founder and I'm powerless. Am I? I think many of us are having these very questions now. Is it good for the WMF that we're asking them? Is it the consequence of Wales' bold actions? Is the board voluntarily ignoring our legitimate feelings ? On 07/05/2010 17:19, Marcus Buck wrote: