Re David Gerrard's inquiry about publicity plans.

I don't know if anyone has prepared a publicity plan for the image filter, afterall we don't yet know if this can either be made to work or can get consent for implementation.

But if it does go ahead this is how I'd suggest handling the publicity:

Step 1

Trial it as an option for registered logged in users on some of the projects which are most strongly in favour. I'd anticipate this would include Arabic, Indonesian and Aceh but obviously not DE and probably not EN.

Tell the community what you are doing through Signpost, Wikizine, mailing lists and site notices on Commons and the wikis in the trial.

Be very clear in the communication that this is a trial of a new feature, and at this stage we want to make sure the buttons work - it should enable you to say you never want to see a particular picture again, but avoiding stuff that you haven't seen yet is more difficult.

If the press ask tell them the truth. We are trialling a new feature on certain wikis, and no we haven't set an official launch date yet. But yes on those wikis in the trial it has already got to the point where you can decide you never want to see a particular image again.

On participating wikis shift the way you handle complaints about inappropriate images to encourage such complainants to join the image filter trial.

Step 2

Once any teething troubles are resolved and those who use it report that it is better than not having a filter; Either allow any wiki that wants it to join the trial, or if we as a movement decide to make a movement wide decision on this, allow any registered user to join the trial.

Keep tabs on the effectiveness of it and I'd suggest keep Signpost updated. So that if the press ask you can say yes the trial continues and we now have:

??? editors trialling it on ??? language versions of Wikipedia ?? language versions of wikinews ?? language versions of Wikiquote etc etc. and according to our latest survey of users in the trial it is now xx% effective - up from xx% 12 months ago.

If they want to know why IPs are not in the trial and only registered users can use it; Explain that creating an account is free, but we can't implement this for IP editors as we have no way of doing that without allowing one person using an IP address to censor what others at that IP address see.

Step 3

Continue the trial per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:TIND

Obviously if any journalist wants a demonstration then anyone handling press relation needs to be able to demonstrate what you see with an account that has opted to not to see cockroaches and what you see otherwise.

On a highly interrelated aside, if we implement this we need to decide what information to collect about it. I would hope it would be uncontentious to collect statistics on:

1. Number of users of this feature per project 2. Number of times per project per month that this blocked an image 3. Number of times per project per month that a user chose to block an image and not see it again 4. Number of times per project per month that a user chose to override the filter and look at an image anyway

TTFN

WereSpielChequers

On 19 September 2011 06:28, David Levy lifeisunfair@gmail.com wrote:

...

Additionally, if and when the WMF proudly announces the filters' introduction, the news media and general public won't accept "bad luck to those using the feature" as an excuse for its failure.

Oh, yes. The trouble with a magical category is not just that it's impossible to implement well - but that it's fraught as a public relations move.

What is the WMF going to be explicitly - and *implicitly* - promising readers? What is the publicity plan? Has this actually been mapped out at all?

• d.