I would like to raise a little issue.
It is currently possible to do redirection from all projects to one project image.
I'll give you a nice example.
Imagine you connect yourself to wikipedia, and get a bright orange message "You have a message".
You click on it... and find yourself facing the autofellatio image.
You would love to vote for its deletion (you do not support such an image on your project), but unfortunately, the image is on another wikipedia, where maybe you do not have an account, and actually you have no idea if this image is welcome or not welcome on the other pedia and actually you may not even have the right to vote for its deletion.
If you are lucky enough, you quickly find the way to cancel the redirect. Maybe not.
-------
Many months ago, we made it impossible to link to external images, because we were fighting to avoid the goatse.
Now, several wikipedias are dirtied by the pornographic images available on the english wikipedia.
So, I suggest that * either we all agree to share common images, since they can impact us and in this case, I would like that a common vote is held to decide the deletion of this image from the english wikipedia * or we agree that no local projects should be submitted to the editorial choices made by other projects and redirections between projects should be cancelled * or we find a filtering solution, so that certain images not welcome to other projects may not be redirected.
In case of all sensible images such as the autofellatio, it should be the project choice whether to display it or not. And I think the multiplication of complaints on the topic requires to think about a viable solution for all of us.
Ant
Anthere wrote:
- or we agree that no local projects should be submitted to the
editorial choices made by other projects and redirections between projects should be cancelled
- or we find a filtering solution, so that certain images not welcome to
other projects may not be redirected.
I'm not sure of the technical solution which will be best, but I think it is clear that editorial standards may very well properly vary to an extent in different languages. The simplest possible example that doesn't give rise to questions about "censorship" is that already we have different standards on "fair use" for different languages, standards which vary based on the laws of countries which speak those languages.
In case of all sensible images such as the autofellatio, it should be the project choice whether to display it or not. And I think the multiplication of complaints on the topic requires to think about a viable solution for all of us.
The thing we want to avoid is giving a "green light" to excessive sensitivity to local cultures in a way that conflicts with our NPOV policy. I don't personally think this is a big risk, but it does merit our consideration of course.
--Jimbo
On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 12:54:17 +0200, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
In case of all sensible images such as the autofellatio, it should be the project choice whether to display it or not. And I think the multiplication of complaints on the topic requires to think about a viable solution for all of us.
It IS the choice of the project. If you don't want the image on your project, don't add a link to it. And yes, people can add the link again, but then, they can upload the image again too, or re-insert a copyright violation, or whatever. I don't see the problem.
Andre Engels
Andre Engels a écrit:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 12:54:17 +0200, Anthere
anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
In case of all sensible images such as the autofellatio, it should be the project choice whether to display it or not. And I think the multiplication of complaints on the topic requires to think about a viable solution for all of us.
It IS the choice of the project. If you don't want the image on your project, don't add a link to it. And yes, people can add the link again, but then, they can upload the image again too, or re-insert a copyright violation, or whatever. I don't see the problem.
Andre Engels
No, it is not the choice of the project.
When editors start to complain noisily over and over and over that the pornographic pictures of the english wikipedia are spilling over their project, then there is a problem. And I think it is normal that I report it, because I think it is understandable that people are upset and ask that a solution is brought.
Add that this is done by a bot and at high speed, and add that it is NOT easy to revert a redirect to another project, and you have the seed of a crisis boiling.
When porn images were linked many times in the english project, due to vandalism, it resulted in some solution being proposed : no direct linking allowed (granted, there was also the issue of the copyright).
When wrong images are uploaded at high speed by anonymous editor, the solution is to allow image upload only to log-in editors.
These two solutions do not allow to entirely prevent vandalism, but they allow to slow down the speed of it.
Now, we have several projects, such as the french, the dutch, the spanish ones, which are victims of vandalism spree by a bot, which redirect pages to the english pornography. It is a vandalism difficult to revert. It is time consuming. And it is very upsetting to editors.
The question is "is it okay that several editors spent several hours running to remove pornographic images from other editors talk page or their main page ?"; Is it the best way to use people time ? what value do you give to people time when they spent 1 hour cleaning up the mess of a 5mn bot ?
Dunno, but when editors leave me a spanish desperate message on my talk page, when I see calls on the french pump to go for deletion of the english image, I just think there IS a problem.
I am not sure the solution of this problem is to make a general call on all pedias vandalised to go vote for the image deletion.
Anthere wrote:
When editors start to complain noisily over and over and over that the pornographic pictures of the english wikipedia are spilling over their project, then there is a problem. And I think it is normal that I report it, because I think it is understandable that people are upset and ask that a solution is brought.
Add that this is done by a bot and at high speed, and add that it is NOT easy to revert a redirect to another project, and you have the seed of a crisis boiling.
When porn images were linked many times in the english project, due to vandalism, it resulted in some solution being proposed : no direct linking allowed (granted, there was also the issue of the copyright).
When wrong images are uploaded at high speed by anonymous editor, the solution is to allow image upload only to log-in editors.
These two solutions do not allow to entirely prevent vandalism, but they allow to slow down the speed of it.
Now, we have several projects, such as the french, the dutch, the spanish ones, which are victims of vandalism spree by a bot, which redirect pages to the english pornography. It is a vandalism difficult to revert. It is time consuming. And it is very upsetting to editors.
The question is "is it okay that several editors spent several hours running to remove pornographic images from other editors talk page or their main page ?"; Is it the best way to use people time ? what value do you give to people time when they spent 1 hour cleaning up the mess of a 5mn bot ?
Dunno, but when editors leave me a spanish desperate message on my talk page, when I see calls on the french pump to go for deletion of the english image, I just think there IS a problem.
I am not sure the solution of this problem is to make a general call on all pedias vandalised to go vote for the image deletion.
The big risk when dealing with these problematic infantile behaviours is to have a solution that is worse than the problems. Some people like the feature of hiding edits by bots from Recent Changes, but that creates a drift away from the acceptance of a collective responsibility for dealing with vandalism.
Those of us who have been around for a while realize that this kind of vandalism is an unfortunate fact of life. Some of these people who complain the loudest also need to accept a degree of responsibility for dealing with the problem to whatever extent their technical access permits.
The other side of the technical solution approach is that most such solutions also restrict the activities of many more well-intentioned users. When there is garbage on a street of the community the fastest way to get rid of it is not by standing around and complaining to the government, but by the people themselves going out to clean the garbage themselves. If someone picks up the scrap of paper that he finds on the street and puts it into the trash that little problem is over. If, instead, he reports it to the authorities they will generate another 20 pieces of scrap paper to make sure that everyone is informed about the problem
Ec
Or a better analogy I think, is asking the authorities to ban paper. Without paper, there can be no scrap paper!
Mark
On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 10:13:59 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthere wrote:
When editors start to complain noisily over and over and over that the pornographic pictures of the english wikipedia are spilling over their project, then there is a problem. And I think it is normal that I report it, because I think it is understandable that people are upset and ask that a solution is brought.
Add that this is done by a bot and at high speed, and add that it is NOT easy to revert a redirect to another project, and you have the seed of a crisis boiling.
When porn images were linked many times in the english project, due to vandalism, it resulted in some solution being proposed : no direct linking allowed (granted, there was also the issue of the copyright).
When wrong images are uploaded at high speed by anonymous editor, the solution is to allow image upload only to log-in editors.
These two solutions do not allow to entirely prevent vandalism, but they allow to slow down the speed of it.
Now, we have several projects, such as the french, the dutch, the spanish ones, which are victims of vandalism spree by a bot, which redirect pages to the english pornography. It is a vandalism difficult to revert. It is time consuming. And it is very upsetting to editors.
The question is "is it okay that several editors spent several hours running to remove pornographic images from other editors talk page or their main page ?"; Is it the best way to use people time ? what value do you give to people time when they spent 1 hour cleaning up the mess of a 5mn bot ?
Dunno, but when editors leave me a spanish desperate message on my talk page, when I see calls on the french pump to go for deletion of the english image, I just think there IS a problem.
I am not sure the solution of this problem is to make a general call on all pedias vandalised to go vote for the image deletion.
The big risk when dealing with these problematic infantile behaviours is to have a solution that is worse than the problems. Some people like the feature of hiding edits by bots from Recent Changes, but that creates a drift away from the acceptance of a collective responsibility for dealing with vandalism.
Those of us who have been around for a while realize that this kind of vandalism is an unfortunate fact of life. Some of these people who complain the loudest also need to accept a degree of responsibility for dealing with the problem to whatever extent their technical access permits.
The other side of the technical solution approach is that most such solutions also restrict the activities of many more well-intentioned users. When there is garbage on a street of the community the fastest way to get rid of it is not by standing around and complaining to the government, but by the people themselves going out to clean the garbage themselves. If someone picks up the scrap of paper that he finds on the street and puts it into the trash that little problem is over. If, instead, he reports it to the authorities they will generate another 20 pieces of scrap paper to make sure that everyone is informed about the problem
Ec
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
1) Brion is on the case already. There's a code change in CVS that will allow InterWiki redirects to show a "Redirected from" like regular redirects.
2) Angela pointed out to me that even if the image was deleted from the English Wikipedia, it could still be on any of the other wikis on the InterWiki map (e.g. all Wikicities), all of which can be used for InterWiki redirects. So you wouldn't just need a cross-Wikipedia deletion or linking policy, but pretty much one across all wikis. That is clearly not a workable solution.
3) The autofellatio image may be a case where many people agree that it is inappropriate in any context, but many images which we clearly want, such as the photos GerardM uploaded of venereal diseases, would be clearly inappropriate on user talk pages. That doesn't mean such images should be deleted.
We should simply consider this vandalism, and improve the tools we use to deal with it. 1) helps a great deal already. Single login will also help, as people will not suddenly be thrown into a wiki whose language they do not speak once they have set their language user preference. We may, however, want to consider disabling InterWiki redirects specifically for non-Wikimedia wikis whose policies are beyond our control.
All best,
Erik
On 28 Mar 2005 23:12:00 +0100, Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
- Brion is on the case already. There's a code change in CVS that will
allow InterWiki redirects to show a "Redirected from" like regular redirects.
Better to just nott auto-redirect at all.
SJ
Erik Moeller a écrit:
- Brion is on the case already. There's a code change in CVS that will
allow InterWiki redirects to show a "Redirected from" like regular redirects.
This is a good idea. It allows to fix things more easily.
- Angela pointed out to me that even if the image was deleted from the
English Wikipedia, it could still be on any of the other wikis on the InterWiki map (e.g. all Wikicities), all of which can be used for InterWiki redirects. So you wouldn't just need a cross-Wikipedia
deletion
or linking policy, but pretty much one across all wikis. That is
clearly
not a workable solution.
- The autofellatio image may be a case where many people agree that
it is
inappropriate in any context, but many images which we clearly want,
such
as the photos GerardM uploaded of venereal diseases, would be clearly inappropriate on user talk pages. That doesn't mean such images
should be
deleted.
No, but this is precisely what is happening right now. Which is why I raise up the issue.
Two weeks ago, there was a wide call on the french pump to go vote for the deletion on the english wikipedia. The intent of such a vote was only to prevent this vandalism. This was the only solution some french editors found to limit vandalism locally. I do not think it is a good solution. It should be the choice of english editors to keep it or not keep it. And the vote should be strictly limited to voting for a regular use (on article).
Ultimately... finding tools to deal with this type of vandalism will help such images to be kept on projects.
We should simply consider this vandalism, and improve the tools we
use to
deal with it. 1) helps a great deal already. Single login will also
help,
as people will not suddenly be thrown into a wiki whose language they
do
not speak once they have set their language user preference. We may, however, want to consider disabling InterWiki redirects specifically
for
non-Wikimedia wikis whose policies are beyond our control.
All best,
Erik
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 07:13:17 +0200, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
No, but this is precisely what is happening right now. Which is why I raise up the issue.
Two weeks ago, there was a wide call on the french pump to go vote for the deletion on the english wikipedia. The intent of such a vote was only to prevent this vandalism. This was the only solution some french editors found to limit vandalism locally. I do not think it is a good solution. It should be the choice of english editors to keep it or not keep it. And the vote should be strictly limited to voting for a regular use (on article).
So, why do you propose in the FIRST of your three possible solutions that "in this case, I would like that a common vote is held to decide the deletion of this image from the english wikipedia." First you propose it, then you attack people who think it is censorship, and now you say you do not want it. You could have saved a lot of discussion by not proposing/endorsing things that you nor anyone else here wants.
Andre Engels
Ant-
No, but this is precisely what is happening right now. Which is why I raise up the issue.
Fair enough, but please acknowledge that it is not a "porn on Wikipedia" issue. It is an "inappropriate images posted to user talk pages" issue. Whether these images are of autofellatio, of venereal diseases, or of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, is entirely irrelevant. We've got more than enough photos on Wikimedia which you don't want to suddenly show up on your screen when you don't expect it. The last thing we need is another anti- obscenity crusade.
Erik
On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 12:54:17 +0200, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
I would like to raise a little issue.
It is currently possible to do redirection from all projects to one project image.
I believe Interwiki redirects should be made soft, I think there is some degree of consensus here, so I'm not going to comment on that matter further... However:
[snip]
Many months ago, we made it impossible to link to external images, because we were fighting to avoid the goatse. Now, several wikipedias are dirtied by the pornographic images available on the english wikipedia. So, I suggest that
- either we all agree to share common images, since they can impact us
and in this case, I would like that a common vote is held to decide the deletion of this image from the english wikipedia
- or we agree that no local projects should be submitted to the
editorial choices made by other projects and redirections between projects should be cancelled
- or we find a filtering solution, so that certain images not welcome to
other projects may not be redirected.
In case of all sensible images such as the autofellatio, it should be the project choice whether to display it or not. And I think the multiplication of complaints on the topic requires to think about a viable solution for all of us.
Let me suggest the correct course of action:
If your interest is to censor encyclopedic content on any wikimedia wikipedia, then your goals are at odds with the goals of the foundation. Because you do not share the same goals, you should fork and produce your own project with censorship among it's goals.
If you continue to endorse censorship you are harming the project. Please allow those who want to share knowledge freely the ability to do so on wikipedia by taking your censorship someplace else.
The claim that pages are somehow 'dirtied' by a mere image speaks strongly about your lack of neutral perspective.
Wiki vandalism is unfortunate, but it is not a sufficient cause to reduce the available knowledge and the free exchange of information to mankind. It is not an excuse for censorship.
Gregory Maxwell stated for the record:
If your interest is to censor encyclopedic content on any wikimedia wikipedia, then your goals are at odds with the goals of the foundation. Because you do not share the same goals, you should fork and produce your own project with censorship among it's goals.
If you continue to endorse censorship you are harming the project. Please allow those who want to share knowledge freely the ability to do so on wikipedia by taking your censorship someplace else.
I find it admirable that you are so utterly certain that you know what the goals of the foundation are better than members of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, and are so unhesitatingly willing to accuse those Trustees of harming your project, and are so quick to request that Trustees leave your project.
Admirable, and very wrong.
But admirable.
Well, sorta.
Sean Barrett a écrit:
Gregory Maxwell stated for the record:
If your interest is to censor encyclopedic content on any wikimedia wikipedia, then your goals are at odds with the goals of the foundation. Because you do not share the same goals, you should fork and produce your own project with censorship among it's goals.
If you continue to endorse censorship you are harming the project. Please allow those who want to share knowledge freely the ability to do so on wikipedia by taking your censorship someplace else.
I find it admirable that you are so utterly certain that you know what the goals of the foundation are better than members of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, and are so unhesitatingly willing to accuse those Trustees of harming your project, and are so quick to request that Trustees leave your project.
Admirable, and very wrong.
But admirable.
Well, sorta.
Well, thank you Sean. I was sorta feeling squeazy this morning.
I apology for not feeling very happy toward that picture. However, I just limited myself to vote for its deletion on the english wikipedia, and will absolutely accept very willingly any decision the community will find toward its future.
Ant
Anthere (anthere9@yahoo.com) [050329 15:02]:
However, I just limited myself to vote for its deletion on the english wikipedia, and will absolutely accept very willingly any decision the community will find toward its future.
You realise that action was probably worse than useless:
1. It doesn't slow down the vandals one bit - they routinely create a username, upload the image then make their edit putting it in place. The image will keep reappearing as long as the technical facility exists.
2. The deletion vote has reoccurred so often as to be vexatious IMO. It keeps getting nominated for deletion, it keeps getting voted to be kept. (What's the point, to keep nominating it until you get the answer you want?)
3. It encourages threads like this has become.
- d.
- It doesn't slow down the vandals one bit - they routinely create a
username, upload the image then make their edit putting it in place. The image will keep reappearing as long as the technical facility exists.
I am absolutely zero when it comes to technical topics, but I can hardly imagine that it be impossible for servers to exclude single computers - regardless of the User Name apllied. Moreover, still most vandals do not create user names - at least not at first - and once their anonymous "account" in numbers has been blocked, they can't enter Wikipedia from their own machine anyway. Third, I can tell you most vandals are deviant adolescents, and if they notice vandalism is removed very fastly more than once (and don't notice their great deeds are discussed somewhere), they will most likely stop, because they get bored. "Professional" vandals are relatively rare. I think persistent participators in edit wars are more serious a problem than vandals.
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I am absolutely zero when it comes to technical topics, but I can hardly imagine that it be impossible for servers to exclude single computers - regardless of the User Name apllied.
Consider this an education. We cannot idenfity individual computers. Computers just don't send out their processor's unique serial number with every HTTP request, or anything like that... and if they did, they might just be faking it. Any form of ID 'cookies' and the like can be erased. The IP address is really the only thing that can't be faked. We can only identify individual IP addresses. On the Internet, many computers may share an IP address (ever hear of 'proxies' and 'NAT', 'Network Address Translation'? Look them up on Wikipedia) and many computers can jump around between many IP addresses (dial-up networks and AOL users, in particular). The end result is that we cannot block them by individual computer: we can only block them by their IP address, and (if the IP address is variable) by their internet service provider, and there are a *lot* of people out there who can be affected by such a block, particularly in the case of AOL.
David Gerard a écrit:
Anthere (anthere9@yahoo.com) [050329 15:02]:
However, I just limited myself to vote for its deletion on the english wikipedia, and will absolutely accept very willingly any decision the community will find toward its future.
You realise that action was probably worse than useless:
Uh ? Giving one's opinion is worse than useless ???
- It doesn't slow down the vandals one bit - they routinely create a
username, upload the image then make their edit putting it in place. The image will keep reappearing as long as the technical facility exists.
Yes, but if the image is voted once for deletion, it should be automatically redeleted afterwards.
- The deletion vote has reoccurred so often as to be vexatious IMO. It
keeps getting nominated for deletion, it keeps getting voted to be kept. (What's the point, to keep nominating it until you get the answer you want?)
This was the first time *I* voted.
- It encourages threads like this has become.
- d.
...
Well, if the current direction is to encourage editors to say nothing at all when they disagree with a situation, or to flow them under accusations and insults when they do nevertheless, I think Wikipedia is in big trouble. It is never a good think to threaten people who try to give their opinion, and today makes me really wonder what project I am in all fairness giving my time to.
Ant
Anthere (anthere9@yahoo.com) [050330 04:12]:
David Gerard a écrit:
Anthere (anthere9@yahoo.com) [050329 15:02]:
However, I just limited myself to vote for its deletion on the english wikipedia, and will absolutely accept very willingly any decision the community will find toward its future.
You realise that action was probably worse than useless:
Uh ? Giving one's opinion is worse than useless ???
- It doesn't slow down the vandals one bit - they routinely create a
username, upload the image then make their edit putting it in place. The image will keep reappearing as long as the technical facility exists.
Yes, but if the image is voted once for deletion, it should be automatically redeleted afterwards.
- The deletion vote has reoccurred so often as to be vexatious IMO. It
keeps getting nominated for deletion, it keeps getting voted to be kept. (What's the point, to keep nominating it until you get the answer you want?)
This was the first time *I* voted.
- It encourages threads like this has become.
- d.
...
Well, if the current direction is to encourage editors to say nothing at all when they disagree with a situation, or to flow them under accusations and insults when they do nevertheless, I think Wikipedia is in big trouble. It is never a good think to threaten people who try to give their opinion, and today makes me really wonder what project I am in all fairness giving my time to.
Where in the above did I threaten you, or do anything even resembling threatening you?
(Or were you responding to someone else in replying to my message?)
- d.
David Gerard a écrit:
Anthere (anthere9@yahoo.com) [050330 04:12]:
David Gerard a écrit:
Anthere (anthere9@yahoo.com) [050329 15:02]:
However, I just limited myself to vote for its deletion on the english wikipedia, and will absolutely accept very willingly any decision the community will find toward its future.
You realise that action was probably worse than useless:
Uh ? Giving one's opinion is worse than useless ???
- It doesn't slow down the vandals one bit - they routinely create a
username, upload the image then make their edit putting it in place. The image will keep reappearing as long as the technical facility exists.
Yes, but if the image is voted once for deletion, it should be automatically redeleted afterwards.
- The deletion vote has reoccurred so often as to be vexatious IMO. It
keeps getting nominated for deletion, it keeps getting voted to be kept. (What's the point, to keep nominating it until you get the answer you want?)
This was the first time *I* voted.
- It encourages threads like this has become.
- d.
...
Well, if the current direction is to encourage editors to say nothing at all when they disagree with a situation, or to flow them under accusations and insults when they do nevertheless, I think Wikipedia is in big trouble. It is never a good think to threaten people who try to give their opinion, and today makes me really wonder what project I am in all fairness giving my time to.
Where in the above did I threaten you, or do anything even resembling threatening you?
(Or were you responding to someone else in replying to my message?)
- d.
Sorry, the conclusion is not about your comments of course, but about all those I receive in the course of the day. Let me limit myself to say that some of the comments I heard today from three people terribly hurted me, and that the near absence of reaction to this mishandling is even hurting me more.
On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 20:49:15 -0800, Sean Barrett
I find it admirable that you are so utterly certain that you know what the goals of the foundation are better than members of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, and are so unhesitatingly willing to accuse those Trustees of harming your project, and are so quick to request that Trustees leave your project. Admirable, and very wrong. But admirable. Well, sorta.
Well better to judge the ideas than the speaker...
Or perhaps, A lie told often enough can become the truth. Sometimes the secret to change is to tell the right lies. ;)
In any case, I've read over and over that it explicitly not the goal of the project to attempt to impose a set of arbitrary value judgements on the work. Perhaps my interpretation of the matters is wishful and lacking in accuracy, but I'd rather I state it strongly and be rebutted strongly as that will bring about the deepest understanding in the least amount of time. In any case, it will hopefully result in clear answers that will be useful in preventing confusion in others later. :)
Sean Barrett wrote:
I find it admirable that you are so utterly certain that you know what the goals of the foundation are better than members of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, and are so unhesitatingly willing to accuse those Trustees of harming your project, and are so quick to request that Trustees leave your project.
Admirable, and very wrong.
Sean, thank you for this.
--Jimbo
On Mar 28, 2005, at 9:54 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
If your interest is to censor encyclopedic content on any wikimedia wikipedia, then your goals are at odds with the goals of the foundation. Because you do not share the same goals, you should fork and produce your own project with censorship among it's goals.
You know Anthere is on the foundation board, right?
-Snowspinner
You know Anthere is on the foundation board, right?
Oh I knew. :)
But I think the ideas are wrong and at odds with the published goals. If I do not misunderstand Anthere and the views are truly representative and accepting censorship based on some peoples non-neutral value judgements is acceptable ... then I think we should discuss the matter, because I think a lot of people are misled by the principal of neutrality 'as advertised'.
Well, to contract the whole discussion: Anthere states we must be able to ban dirty pictures that are irrelevant, Gregory considers this "censorship" and states that the pornographicness of a picture is a subjective appropriety, which goes counter to the objectivity claim of the project.
Ladies and gentlemen, have you ever been taught in scientifical method? If so, you must know that objectivity is an illusion. If there is an autonomous reality at all, we always view it through coloured subjective veils. Extreme attemps to objectivity and apersonality will lead to no knowledge at all. We imply have to accept that and deal with our common sense both in daily life and in science.
Thus: what we should allow on Wikipedia and its sisters and what not depends on conventions. If most people think pictures considered pornographic are not at home, than we must delete them.
Now more concrete on the picture itself: If there is an encyclopedic article on a sexual topic in which a picture of someone doing a blow job on himself is or might be relevant, then we must maintain the article, otherwise we shouldn't, because it can only be abused. The case is that simple in my view. (Correct me if I'm wrong, I am a relative newbe...)
Thanks for reading this, Wouter
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Wouter Steenbeek said:
Now more concrete on the picture itself: If there is an encyclopedic article on a sexual topic in which a picture of someone doing a blow job on himself is or might be relevant, then we must maintain the article, otherwise we shouldn't, because it can only be abused. The case is that simple in my view. (Correct me if I'm wrong, I am a relative newbe...)
Well most people decided it shouldn't be on Wikipedia, whether because they suspected it was a copyright violation, they thought it was too open to abuse, or they didn't think it was suitable for Wikipedia. Quadell has closed the discussion, deleted the image, and removed the link from the article. I'm happy with this outcome. The image was deleted by consensus.
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com Reply-To: minorityreport@bluebottle.com, wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Autofellatio Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 15:28:52 +0100 (BST)
Wouter Steenbeek said:
Now more concrete on the picture itself: If there is an encyclopedic article on a sexual topic in which a picture of someone doing a blow job on himself is or might be relevant, then we must maintain the article, otherwise we shouldn't, because it can only be abused. The case is that simple in my view. (Correct me if I'm wrong, I am a relative newbe...)
Well most people decided it shouldn't be on Wikipedia, whether because they suspected it was a copyright violation, they thought it was too open to abuse, or they didn't think it was suitable for Wikipedia. Quadell has closed the discussion, deleted the image, and removed the link from the article. I'm happy with this outcome. The image was deleted by consensus.
So am I, don't get me wrong. The image was said to be copyrighted and I don't see any opportunity to include the picture (perhaps in [[Back Troubles]]...). If the picture was re-added by the same guy (very probably it was a guy) who uploaded it first, then block him, for he will very likely be the vandal who put it on everyone's Talk pages as well. However, I must express a certain admiration for this creative way of vandalism... (which is in no way meant to justify it!)
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On Tue, 29 Mar 2005, Tony Sidaway wrote:
Well most people decided it shouldn't be on Wikipedia, whether because they suspected it was a copyright violation, they thought it was too open to abuse, or they didn't think it was suitable for Wikipedia. Quadell has closed the discussion, deleted the image, and removed the link from the article. I'm happy with this outcome. The image was deleted by consensus.
This is not an "outcome", in the sense that it will not stop here. Other images will appear, and one can easily find images that are fine for articles but will upset a lot of people if they are put in place of their user page.
The problem is using invisible redirects that are difficult to remove for 90% of wikipedia users, so that cleanup is substantially delayed.
Since the interwiki redirect has been so seldomly used, I propose to remove the functionality altogether. One will still be able to vandalize an user's page with an ordinary redirect, but it will be one to the same wikipedia and much more manageable.
Alfio
Alfio Puglisi said:
This is not an "outcome", in the sense that it will not stop here. Other images will appear, and one can easily find images that are fine for articles but will upset a lot of people if they are put in place of their user page.
Yes. I am not really bothered by the redirect vandalism. It's a wiki and will always be vulnerable to mischief of one sort or another. Presumably a technical fix that still permits interwiki links of some sort will be forthcoming. I was referring to the outcome of all those months of individuals trying to pre-empt consensus to delete, by acting unilaterally. This was the right way to do it.
Alfio Puglisi a écrit:
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005, Tony Sidaway wrote:
Well most people decided it shouldn't be on Wikipedia, whether because they suspected it was a copyright violation, they thought it was too open to abuse, or they didn't think it was suitable for Wikipedia. Quadell has closed the discussion, deleted the image, and removed the link from the article. I'm happy with this outcome. The image was deleted by consensus.
This is not an "outcome", in the sense that it will not stop here. Other images will appear, and one can easily find images that are fine for articles but will upset a lot of people if they are put in place of their user page.
The problem is using invisible redirects that are difficult to remove for 90% of wikipedia users, so that cleanup is substantially delayed.
Since the interwiki redirect has been so seldomly used, I propose to remove the functionality altogether. One will still be able to vandalize an user's page with an ordinary redirect, but it will be one to the same wikipedia and much more manageable.
Alfio
Agree with this very much. Ant
Well most people decided it shouldn't be on Wikipedia, whether because they suspected it was a copyright violation, they thought it was too open to abuse, or they didn't think it was suitable for Wikipedia. Quadell has closed the discussion, deleted the image, and removed the link from the article. I'm happy with this outcome. The image was deleted by consensus.
I'm not sure the reason many people gave for deleting this particular image on grounds of copyright violation was their real reason for wanting it gone, we have a lot of images with the same unconfirmed copyright state, that is, someone with <50 edits uploaded it never to be seen again and slapped a GFDL notice on it. I'm not sure I disagree with deleting them on those reasons but I ask those that did vote to delete this picture on grounds of copyright violation to not apply double standards and find and or vote to delete other images of similar copyright status in the future if that was their real reason but not some pretext for wanting it gone.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
If your interest is to censor encyclopedic content on any wikimedia wikipedia, then your goals are at odds with the goals of the foundation. Because you do not share the same goals, you should fork and produce your own project with censorship among it's goals.
This is really over-the-top, Gregory.
If you continue to endorse censorship you are harming the project. Please allow those who want to share knowledge freely the ability to do so on wikipedia by taking your censorship someplace else.
My problem with people using the word "censorship" in talking about this very complex issue is precisely that we get responses like yours, which are really not very helpful and short-circuit our ability to think critically about the issue.
We are *all* (the major participants) opposed to censorship (in the sense that you mean), including (very strongly) Anthere. It is our goal to educate and inform, not to shock, offend, or titillate.
Of course there is a tiny majority of people who are interested in censoring Wikipedia. Fine. Ignore them.
But don't imagine that those of us who think that, for example, it is blatantly obvious that the [[Imgae:Autofellatio_2.jpg]] image is wildly inappropriate for wikipedia are simply prudish censors. Such a view really fails to respect and understand the point that we are making.
A respectful discussion of this difficult issue is hard to have if anyone who is in favor of deleting some images from wikipedia is to be shunned as a censor who ought to leave the project and fork.
Especially, for goodness sake, Anthere, who is a hero to us all.
--Jimbo
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 04:42:36 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
But don't imagine that those of us who think that, for example, it is blatantly obvious that the [[Imgae:Autofellatio_2.jpg]] image is wildly inappropriate for wikipedia are simply prudish censors. Such a view really fails to respect and understand the point that we are making.
A respectful discussion of this difficult issue is hard to have if anyone who is in favor of deleting some images from wikipedia is to be shunned as a censor who ought to leave the project and fork.
I do not want to discuss whether the image is appropriate or not. That's an issue that I do not want to discuss here, although I guess it needs to be discussed. What I do want to state is that if there is one Wikipedia page in one language where it *is* appropriate, and 1.499.999 pages on the various Wikimedia Wikis where it is *not* appropriate, the one page that can use it should weigh more heavily than those other 1.499.999 where it is not. And in particular, an image should not be deleted from the *English* Wikipedia because it is inappropriate at the *French* one.
Andre Engels
Andre Engels a écrit:
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 04:42:36 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
But don't imagine that those of us who think that, for example, it is blatantly obvious that the [[Imgae:Autofellatio_2.jpg]] image is wildly inappropriate for wikipedia are simply prudish censors. Such a view really fails to respect and understand the point that we are making.
A respectful discussion of this difficult issue is hard to have if anyone who is in favor of deleting some images from wikipedia is to be shunned as a censor who ought to leave the project and fork.
I do not want to discuss whether the image is appropriate or not. That's an issue that I do not want to discuss here, although I guess it needs to be discussed. What I do want to state is that if there is one Wikipedia page in one language where it *is* appropriate, and 1.499.999 pages on the various Wikimedia Wikis where it is *not* appropriate, the one page that can use it should weigh more heavily than those other 1.499.999 where it is not. And in particular, an image should not be deleted from the *English* Wikipedia because it is inappropriate at the *French* one.
Andre Engels
Agreed as well. Ant
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 04:42:36 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
If your interest is to censor encyclopedic content on any wikimedia wikipedia, then your goals are at odds with the goals of the foundation. Because you do not share the same goals, you should fork and produce your own project with censorship among it's goals.
This is really over-the-top, Gregory.
Is that really the case? I'm surprised that you would disagree with the statement above, that if someone's intention is to censor encyclopedic content, based on such value judgements, that they are at odds with the project and should work on something else.
I certainly see how you might state that I was mistaken in classifying the proposed measures as censorship, or that it was rude of me to insult someone of unquestionable value...
My problem with people using the word "censorship" in talking about this very complex issue is precisely that we get responses like yours, which are really not very helpful and short-circuit our ability to think critically about the issue.
We are *all* (the major participants) opposed to censorship (in the sense that you mean), including (very strongly) Anthere. It is our goal to educate and inform, not to shock, offend, or titillate. Of course there is a tiny majority of people who are interested in censoring Wikipedia. Fine. Ignore them.
This is quite heartening to hear reaffirmed.
At the same time, what I see being proposed is the idea that it's acceptable for wikipedias in differing languages to have a differing set of standards, and this is the one, and perhaps only, point where I am reasonably confident that I am not misunderstanding Anthere. I don't see how these ideas can coexist.
If our test of a material is it's value to educate and inform, is it not true that the same material which would educate and inform would also educate and inform people of another language?
A policy that says that we will exclude content differently depending on the language of wikipedia, says that we are applying an additional test, a test of moral rightness.
But don't imagine that those of us who think that, for example, it is blatantly obvious that the [[Imgae:Autofellatio_2.jpg]] image is wildly inappropriate for wikipedia are simply prudish censors. Such a view really fails to respect and understand the point that we are making.
This thread is surrounded on all sides with bad information... Anthere's initial concern was primarily about vandalism... But vandalism is an issue that we can't even come close to solving by the proposed measures that I objected so strongly to (value based standards of content)...
The autofellatio image is a bad example because most people would agree that it has some of the poorest inform to shock ratios of call the contested images on wikipedia. (I'd still argue it's of value, as one person said after seeing it... "wow.. thats possible? eww", but I haven't been involved in the voting for that image and don't intend to be)
I jumped in the thread because I believe that the idea of differing standards inclusion standards in differing languages necessitates censorship and I decided that it was a worthwhile matter which was being ignored in the thread... because of the separately worthwhile discussion of applying technical means to address that specific form of vandalism.
A respectful discussion of this difficult issue is hard to have if anyone who is in favor of deleting some images from wikipedia is to be shunned as a censor who ought to leave the project and fork.
My apologies, both to the list and Anthere, on this matter... My attempt cut away issues I saw as extranious to the issue I wanted to discuss (vandalism, that specific image,etc) came off as offensive. (I may not care if you find a useful image on the 'pedia offensive, but I really would hope you don't find my discussions as offensive.)
Grey paint begins with black and white.
I did not mean to imply that we should shun the issues or the people bringing them, but rather strike up some vigorous discussion on this important matter... and through out some ideas that I think should be widely acceptable, such as "if making good/evil value judgements about content is someones goal then everyone would gain from them working on a fork, given the intentions of the project".
Especially, for goodness sake, Anthere, who is a hero to us all.
Well, If I'm going to have to base my discussions on whom is proposing an idea rather than the merits of the idea, then I should probably give up now.... :)
Gregory, let me tell you, Jimbo doesn't seem to understand metaphorical language or figures of speech, and I don't think he can tell when people are being completely serious or when they're exaggerating a bit. I know this from experience, and have had the same problem with Danny. I have been told by one of them (can't remember which), "Nobody's saying you burned their crops". He also doesn't seem to understand very well the sliding scale that should be used in the case of an e-mail like yours.
He seems to think that you were directly suggesting Ant fork, which is definitely not the case. (as far as I can tell, you are saying that she is at odds with foundation philosophy and that if she really wants to have a Wikipedia where it doesn't follow philosophy, she can make a fork; rather than a suggestion that she really should)
My advice is to be very literal with him, and only say exactly what you mean.
Mark
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:11:55 -0500, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 04:42:36 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
If your interest is to censor encyclopedic content on any wikimedia wikipedia, then your goals are at odds with the goals of the foundation. Because you do not share the same goals, you should fork and produce your own project with censorship among it's goals.
This is really over-the-top, Gregory.
Is that really the case? I'm surprised that you would disagree with the statement above, that if someone's intention is to censor encyclopedic content, based on such value judgements, that they are at odds with the project and should work on something else.
I certainly see how you might state that I was mistaken in classifying the proposed measures as censorship, or that it was rude of me to insult someone of unquestionable value...
My problem with people using the word "censorship" in talking about this very complex issue is precisely that we get responses like yours, which are really not very helpful and short-circuit our ability to think critically about the issue.
We are *all* (the major participants) opposed to censorship (in the sense that you mean), including (very strongly) Anthere. It is our goal to educate and inform, not to shock, offend, or titillate. Of course there is a tiny majority of people who are interested in censoring Wikipedia. Fine. Ignore them.
This is quite heartening to hear reaffirmed.
At the same time, what I see being proposed is the idea that it's acceptable for wikipedias in differing languages to have a differing set of standards, and this is the one, and perhaps only, point where I am reasonably confident that I am not misunderstanding Anthere. I don't see how these ideas can coexist.
If our test of a material is it's value to educate and inform, is it not true that the same material which would educate and inform would also educate and inform people of another language?
A policy that says that we will exclude content differently depending on the language of wikipedia, says that we are applying an additional test, a test of moral rightness.
But don't imagine that those of us who think that, for example, it is blatantly obvious that the [[Imgae:Autofellatio_2.jpg]] image is wildly inappropriate for wikipedia are simply prudish censors. Such a view really fails to respect and understand the point that we are making.
This thread is surrounded on all sides with bad information... Anthere's initial concern was primarily about vandalism... But vandalism is an issue that we can't even come close to solving by the proposed measures that I objected so strongly to (value based standards of content)...
The autofellatio image is a bad example because most people would agree that it has some of the poorest inform to shock ratios of call the contested images on wikipedia. (I'd still argue it's of value, as one person said after seeing it... "wow.. thats possible? eww", but I haven't been involved in the voting for that image and don't intend to be)
I jumped in the thread because I believe that the idea of differing standards inclusion standards in differing languages necessitates censorship and I decided that it was a worthwhile matter which was being ignored in the thread... because of the separately worthwhile discussion of applying technical means to address that specific form of vandalism.
A respectful discussion of this difficult issue is hard to have if anyone who is in favor of deleting some images from wikipedia is to be shunned as a censor who ought to leave the project and fork.
My apologies, both to the list and Anthere, on this matter... My attempt cut away issues I saw as extranious to the issue I wanted to discuss (vandalism, that specific image,etc) came off as offensive. (I may not care if you find a useful image on the 'pedia offensive, but I really would hope you don't find my discussions as offensive.)
Grey paint begins with black and white.
I did not mean to imply that we should shun the issues or the people bringing them, but rather strike up some vigorous discussion on this important matter... and through out some ideas that I think should be widely acceptable, such as "if making good/evil value judgements about content is someones goal then everyone would gain from them working on a fork, given the intentions of the project".
Especially, for goodness sake, Anthere, who is a hero to us all.
Well, If I'm going to have to base my discussions on whom is proposing an idea rather than the merits of the idea, then I should probably give up now.... :) _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
I'll consider starting yoga and relaxing techniques today...
Ant
Mark Williamson a écrit:
Gregory, let me tell you, Jimbo doesn't seem to understand metaphorical language or figures of speech, and I don't think he can tell when people are being completely serious or when they're exaggerating a bit. I know this from experience, and have had the same problem with Danny. I have been told by one of them (can't remember which), "Nobody's saying you burned their crops". He also doesn't seem to understand very well the sliding scale that should be used in the case of an e-mail like yours.
He seems to think that you were directly suggesting Ant fork, which is definitely not the case. (as far as I can tell, you are saying that she is at odds with foundation philosophy and that if she really wants to have a Wikipedia where it doesn't follow philosophy, she can make a fork; rather than a suggestion that she really should)
My advice is to be very literal with him, and only say exactly what you mean.
Mark
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:11:55 -0500, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 04:42:36 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
If your interest is to censor encyclopedic content on any wikimedia wikipedia, then your goals are at odds with the goals of the foundation. Because you do not share the same goals, you should fork and produce your own project with censorship among it's goals.
This is really over-the-top, Gregory.
Is that really the case? I'm surprised that you would disagree with the statement above, that if someone's intention is to censor encyclopedic content, based on such value judgements, that they are at odds with the project and should work on something else.
I certainly see how you might state that I was mistaken in classifying the proposed measures as censorship, or that it was rude of me to insult someone of unquestionable value...
My problem with people using the word "censorship" in talking about this very complex issue is precisely that we get responses like yours, which are really not very helpful and short-circuit our ability to think critically about the issue.
We are *all* (the major participants) opposed to censorship (in the sense that you mean), including (very strongly) Anthere. It is our goal to educate and inform, not to shock, offend, or titillate. Of course there is a tiny majority of people who are interested in censoring Wikipedia. Fine. Ignore them.
This is quite heartening to hear reaffirmed.
At the same time, what I see being proposed is the idea that it's acceptable for wikipedias in differing languages to have a differing set of standards, and this is the one, and perhaps only, point where I am reasonably confident that I am not misunderstanding Anthere. I don't see how these ideas can coexist.
If our test of a material is it's value to educate and inform, is it not true that the same material which would educate and inform would also educate and inform people of another language?
A policy that says that we will exclude content differently depending on the language of wikipedia, says that we are applying an additional test, a test of moral rightness.
But don't imagine that those of us who think that, for example, it is blatantly obvious that the [[Imgae:Autofellatio_2.jpg]] image is wildly inappropriate for wikipedia are simply prudish censors. Such a view really fails to respect and understand the point that we are making.
This thread is surrounded on all sides with bad information... Anthere's initial concern was primarily about vandalism... But vandalism is an issue that we can't even come close to solving by the proposed measures that I objected so strongly to (value based standards of content)...
The autofellatio image is a bad example because most people would agree that it has some of the poorest inform to shock ratios of call the contested images on wikipedia. (I'd still argue it's of value, as one person said after seeing it... "wow.. thats possible? eww", but I haven't been involved in the voting for that image and don't intend to be)
I jumped in the thread because I believe that the idea of differing standards inclusion standards in differing languages necessitates censorship and I decided that it was a worthwhile matter which was being ignored in the thread... because of the separately worthwhile discussion of applying technical means to address that specific form of vandalism.
A respectful discussion of this difficult issue is hard to have if anyone who is in favor of deleting some images from wikipedia is to be shunned as a censor who ought to leave the project and fork.
My apologies, both to the list and Anthere, on this matter... My attempt cut away issues I saw as extranious to the issue I wanted to discuss (vandalism, that specific image,etc) came off as offensive. (I may not care if you find a useful image on the 'pedia offensive, but I really would hope you don't find my discussions as offensive.)
Grey paint begins with black and white.
I did not mean to imply that we should shun the issues or the people bringing them, but rather strike up some vigorous discussion on this important matter... and through out some ideas that I think should be widely acceptable, such as "if making good/evil value judgements about content is someones goal then everyone would gain from them working on a fork, given the intentions of the project".
Especially, for goodness sake, Anthere, who is a hero to us all.
Well, If I'm going to have to base my discussions on whom is proposing an idea rather than the merits of the idea, then I should probably give up now.... :) _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:45:45 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
He seems to think that you were directly suggesting Ant fork, which is definitely not the case. (as far as I can tell, you are saying that she is at odds with foundation philosophy and that if she really wants to have a Wikipedia where it doesn't follow philosophy, she can make a fork; rather than a suggestion that she really should)
This is quite correct... In this case it my be a matter of my debate style, which usually works exceedingly well in person (more indirect communication channels), but sometimes fails miserably in email.
I think it's useful to extrapolate past any unknowns, draw some conclusions related to what I care about most, and let discussion refine the accuracy of those conclusions. This usually results in everyone's position being accurately determined in a minimum number of exchanges.
The statement about the fork was by large a trueism... if someone actually disagrees with the fundimental goals, they should fork.... At the least it's an *option* for someone who is upset about the continued inclusion of offensive images.
I think it's a reasonable additional option for any group that is upset about the content of the wikipedia that is not removed because we are making an effort to impose our values on the articles.
I don't want anyone to fork, but I think that preserving core goals is much more important than avoiding forking.
There are a million ways I could have been (and most likely was) wrong with my assumptions, but it would be dishonest of me to end my statement with a wimpy 'this doesn't sound like the type of policy that we want' ... I believed certain views were being proposed, and pointed out what I thought they would or perhaps should result in... I think it is better to completely expose my assumptions, and the seriousness of the matter right away so that the other side has the chance to put me in my place as quickly as possible.
Now that we've gone off on a tangent because I was too hasty with my statements....
This still leave us, I think, with Anthere proposing that differing languages should have differing limitations on permitted content because of cultural norms.
Lets ignore the problem of mapping cultures to languages for a moment... I still think that this leaves us in a position of deciding about content based on a (perhaps mob rule driven) value judgement of good vs bad knowledge, rather than the simple basis of deciding based of the ability of the information to inform and educate. I know censorship is a hot word, but I think it applies well to this situation, no matter how noble our goals are.
I think this is worth discussion.
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:11:55 -0500, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
At the same time, what I see being proposed is the idea that it's acceptable for wikipedias in differing languages to have a differing set of standards, and this is the one, and perhaps only, point where I am reasonably confident that I am not misunderstanding Anthere. I don't see how these ideas can coexist.
I think it's perfectly well acceptable. There is not one possible 'ultimate' content of Wikipedia, and one language will make other choices than others. If one language uses image A and another uses image B, should we start having a project-wide vote on which one is better, and then, if B is chosen, force the first language to change their article?
If our test of a material is it's value to educate and inform, is it not true that the same material which would educate and inform would also educate and inform people of another language?
The test of material is not its value to educate and inform, the test is whether it improves the given article and Wikipedia. And it seems to be generally accepted that there are places where Wikipedias differ. On the Danish Wikipedia there are stubs that would not be accepted as such on the German Wikipedia (I think). Should one of them change their policy because such stubs do/don't educate and inform? I don't think so.
A policy that says that we will exclude content differently depending on the language of wikipedia, says that we are applying an additional test, a test of moral rightness.
A policy that says that we will exclude the same on all languages, says that we don't trust the Wikipedias to make their own choices.
I jumped in the thread because I believe that the idea of differing standards inclusion standards in differing languages necessitates censorship and I decided that it was a worthwhile matter which was being ignored in the thread... because of the separately worthwhile discussion of applying technical means to address that specific form of vandalism.
I disagree that you say it 'necessitates censorship'. To me, forcing the same inclusion standards to all languages is censorship. Unless perhaps we take the most lenient standards possible. But do you really want to *force* Wikipedias to include certain images?
Andre Engels
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 09:10:01 +0200, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
I think it's perfectly well acceptable. There is not one possible 'ultimate' content of Wikipedia, and one language will make other choices than others. If one language uses image A and another uses image B, should we start having a project-wide vote on which one is better, and then, if B is chosen, force the first language to change their article?
Well do we agree that the goal of wikipedia is the same in all languages?
The test of material is not its value to educate and inform, the test is whether it improves the given article and Wikipedia. And it seems to be generally accepted that there are places where Wikipedias differ. On the Danish Wikipedia there are stubs that would not be accepted as such on the German Wikipedia (I think). Should one of them change their policy because such stubs do/don't educate and inform? I don't think so.
I think the improves test makes the most sense in the context of replacing some piece of information with a similar piece of information... and that the removal of a piece of unique knowledge conveying fact on an encyclopedic subject, without replacing it with something equal, can only be seen as something which reduces the quality of the wikipedia.
A policy that says that we will exclude the same on all languages, says that we don't trust the Wikipedias to make their own choices.
It could also be said by extension to say that by having any policy at all we are expressing distrust in our editors. This is obviously silly. If the other languages are part of the same project there should obviously be some ground rules that are shared in all of them.
I disagree that you say it 'necessitates censorship'. To me, forcing the same inclusion standards to all languages is censorship. Unless perhaps we take the most lenient standards possible. But do you really want to *force* Wikipedias to include certain images?
I would *never* force a language to include an image. However, I would suggest that if our goal is to never allow peoplesnon-neutral value judgements to color our articles, that we deny the ability of participating subprojects to deny the ability of others to include additional encyclopedic knowledge that has failed the kind of test that the above goal precludes using.
In short I think that the editors right to decide what goes in the official wikipedia ends when they begin using that right to control others with the goal of imposing a point of view on the work as a whole. ("Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose")
This all stops being an issue if we decide that such value based exclusion is acceptable in the project... But that isn't the message I've been receiving.
I totally agree with Andre here.
I think it's important for us to take a middle path here. (Big surprise coming from me, huh?) We can't be complete cultural relativists and say "anything goes in any wikipedia as long as the participants agree" -- this would be the end of neutrality. At the same time, we must not be complete cultural *imperialists* and assume that exactly identical decisions have to be made everywhere, particularly on sensitive matters that have a strong cultural component.
Andre wrote:
A policy that says that we will exclude the same on all languages, says that we don't trust the Wikipedias to make their own choices.
I think that's very well said.
--Jimbo
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 11:45:45 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I totally agree with Andre here.
I think it's important for us to take a middle path here. (Big surprise coming from me, huh?) We can't be complete cultural relativists and say "anything goes in any wikipedia as long as the participants agree" -- this would be the end of neutrality. At the same time, we must not be complete cultural *imperialists* and assume that exactly identical decisions have to be made everywhere, particularly on sensitive matters that have a strong cultural component.
But is it imperialistic to say that one side of the issue does not have the right to completely exclude the other side with the only justification being that the one side believes they have a commandment from god to rid the world of such ideas?
Is it imperialism to ask that others not use the project to suppress the works of others to further their personal/cultural agenda?
Andre wrote:
A policy that says that we will exclude the same on all languages, says that we don't trust the Wikipedias to make their own choices.
I think that's very well said.
As I said in my reply to Andre, then why do we have rules at all? It is acceptable to set the ground rules, and ask those who do not wish to play by the rules to go start their own game... and I think that a tremendous rule that is baked into wikipedia is the idea of neutrality, a rule that is violated when we allow some editors to deny the ability of other editors to contribute useful information due to personally held ideas on goodness/evilness of the information rather than reasons not forbidden by our basic rules.
If we accept a group of authors in France erasing the works of other french wikipedia authors because the majority find the idea acceptable, then will we allow for the exclusion of evolution when the larger part of the US biblical literalists movement finally find wikipedia?
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
But is it imperialistic to say that one side of the issue does not have the right to completely exclude the other side with the only justification being that the one side believes they have a commandment from god to rid the world of such ideas?
Again, really, this is just extremely over the top. Tell you what, if you go out and find someone in the wikipedia community who says "I have the right to complete exclude the other side because I have a commandment from god to rid the world of such ideas" then by all means drag them in here to the mailing list so we can make fun of them.
It'll be great fun.
In the meantime, let's try to address the arguments of people who are actually engaged in this discussion. I think that virtually everyone comes down along a spectrum in the broad middle which says: (a) there are universal standards and (b) there are local cultural considerations as well, so that (c) we expect some things to be more or less universal, but we can also have some local flavor.
--Jimbo
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:33:10 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Again, really, this is just extremely over the top. Tell you what, if you go out and find someone in the wikipedia community who says "I have the right to complete exclude the other side because I have a commandment from god to rid the world of such ideas" then by all means drag them in here to the mailing list so we can make fun of them.
It'll be great fun.
It's not over the top, it's calling a spade a spade. There are a number of people that go around trying to remove images like the clitoris picture. I'm sure you've seen some of the edit wars... They might not directly tell you that they believe they've been commanded by god, but that is basically what they are saying when their basis is in their scripture.
... and we already do laugh at them, some of those talk pages and edit summs are a laugh a minute.
I think the issues have been handled well thus far, at least on the English wikipedia (the only one I am able to read, since I am multi linguistically handicapped). Which is why I'm not bringing in boatloads of concrete examples the generally process on the bigger wikipedias appears to be working pretty well.
If we were to say that we will not treat neutrality in other languages as less important just because fewer people in that language advocate neutrality, then I think we are in agreement as this was the heart of my initial complaint.
In the meantime, let's try to address the arguments of people who are actually engaged in this discussion. I think that virtually everyone comes down along a spectrum in the broad middle which says: (a) there are universal standards and (b) there are local cultural considerations as well, so that (c) we expect some things to be more or less universal, but we can also have some local flavor.
When you say standard here you are talking about a standard that says which material is good/bad and thus should be included an excluded.
It sounds like you divorce this from keeping a neutral point of view, but I don't see how that is possible.
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
Andre wrote:
A policy that says that we will exclude the same on all languages, says that we don't trust the Wikipedias to make their own choices.
I think that's very well said.
I don't see how this is a good policy. By happy accident of languages, we have no US-specific Wikipedia, in which Americans get to decide how their Wikipedia is going to look---they have to share their English Wikipedia with the opinions of all other English speakers on the planet who choose to participate. Some languages aren't blessed with as diverse a population of speakers, but this is no excuse for making decisions that don't take into account the opinions of the rest of the world.
-Mark
I don't see how this is a good policy. By happy accident of languages, we have no US-specific Wikipedia, in which Americans get to decide how their Wikipedia is going to look---they have to share their English Wikipedia with the opinions of all other English speakers on the planet who choose to participate.
Ermmmmm even if their were a US-english specific wikipedia, still everyone who considers themself to speak US-english would want to participate. I do not see the difference. Also on nl we welcome everyone who speaks Dutch. Whether they happen to be Belgium/Dutch/Surinamese or not. For all I care a Dutch speaking Martian contributes. I mean we have Dutch speaking trolls so why not :)
Walter/Waerth
His point is is that, at least from his standpoint, the opinions and population aren't as diverse.
The Netherlands and Belgium are right next to each other. And what percentage of Dutch speakers are from outside of them?
Mark
On Mar 31, 2005 10:13 PM, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
I don't see how this is a good policy. By happy accident of languages, we have no US-specific Wikipedia, in which Americans get to decide how their Wikipedia is going to look---they have to share their English Wikipedia with the opinions of all other English speakers on the planet who choose to participate.
Ermmmmm even if their were a US-english specific wikipedia, still everyone who considers themself to speak US-english would want to participate. I do not see the difference. Also on nl we welcome everyone who speaks Dutch. Whether they happen to be Belgium/Dutch/Surinamese or not. For all I care a Dutch speaking Martian contributes. I mean we have Dutch speaking trolls so why not :)
Walter/Waerth _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
If your interest is to censor encyclopedic content on any wikimedia wikipedia, then your goals are at odds with the goals of the foundation. Because you do not share the same goals, you should fork and produce your own project with censorship among it's goals.
If you continue to endorse censorship you are harming the project. Please allow those who want to share knowledge freely the ability to do so on wikipedia by taking your censorship someplace else.
The claim that pages are somehow 'dirtied' by a mere image speaks strongly about your lack of neutral perspective.
Agreed.
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason a écrit:
If your interest is to censor encyclopedic content on any wikimedia wikipedia, then your goals are at odds with the goals of the foundation. Because you do not share the same goals, you should fork and produce your own project with censorship among it's goals.
If you continue to endorse censorship you are harming the project. Please allow those who want to share knowledge freely the ability to do so on wikipedia by taking your censorship someplace else.
The claim that pages are somehow 'dirtied' by a mere image speaks strongly about your lack of neutral perspective.
Agreed.
And ? I do not think anyone can claim to be truely neutral on this picture :-) And I think we have the right to have opinions. All those who voted had an opinion.
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:55:25 +0200, Anthere
And ? I do not think anyone can claim to be truely neutral on this picture :-) And I think we have the right to have opinions. All those who voted had an opinion.
But is it appropriate for people to organize flash mobs to go vote on content in an encyclopedia that they don't even use?
Sounds like the image was VFDed (I don't know, I don't really care about it)... If it is the case that users which only registered to keep it off of their languages swung the vote, then a tragedy occurred.
Especially since the use of that image in vandalism could very well have been the actions of strongly POVed people who wanted it removed to suit their prudish wishes (not saying that all who want it gone are prudes...)
As far as being neutral on the image. I've seen it a few times and have utterly no emotional reaction to it, when I first saw it I said "ha, I bet that causes edit wars". ::shrugs:: Not everyone makes a big deal out of sexual things. To each his own.
Gregory Maxwell a écrit:
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:55:25 +0200, Anthere
And ? I do not think anyone can claim to be truely neutral on this picture :-) And I think we have the right to have opinions. All those who voted had an opinion.
But is it appropriate for people to organize flash mobs to go vote on content in an encyclopedia that they don't even use?
No. And this was *precisely* what was happening. And this was one of the reasons why I brought attention to the list about it. And this was precisely why helping to decrease the amount of vandalism on one pedia resulting in the decision taken by another pedia could help.
There is a saying : good fences make good neighbours.
Sounds like the image was VFDed (I don't know, I don't really care about it)... If it is the case that users which only registered to keep it off of their languages swung the vote, then a tragedy occurred.
perhaps not a tragedy, but yes, it occurred. It occurred because people were tired to fight this type vandalism.
Especially since the use of that image in vandalism could very well have been the actions of strongly POVed people who wanted it removed to suit their prudish wishes (not saying that all who want it gone are prudes...)
Not sure about that. I think the primary reason was to prevent vandalism...
As far as being neutral on the image. I've seen it a few times and have utterly no emotional reaction to it, when I first saw it I said "ha, I bet that causes edit wars". ::shrugs:: Not everyone makes a big deal out of sexual things. To each his own.
Neutrality is not even about being non-reactive about a topic.
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:32:12 +0200, Anthere
But is it appropriate for people to organize flash mobs to go vote on content in an encyclopedia that they don't even use?
No. And this was *precisely* what was happening. And this was one of the reasons why I brought attention to the list about it. And this was precisely why helping to decrease the amount of vandalism on one pedia resulting in the decision taken by another pedia could help.
There is a saying : good fences make good neighbours.
But why not start by calling out the unacceptable behavior? ... That sort of ballot stuffing is just unacceptable. We don't need to judge the cause to judge the result as a turn for the bad.
perhaps not a tragedy, but yes, it occurred. It occurred because people were tired to fight this type vandalism.
If this turns out to actually help in the slightest against this form of vandalism, then I think we can say with confidence that the vandalism was an intentional effort to get the content removed and we should be really disappointed that we have allowed the system to be abused in that way.... even if we personally wanted the image gone.
Especially since the use of that image in vandalism could very well have been the actions of strongly POVed people who wanted it removed to suit their prudish wishes (not saying that all who want it gone are prudes...)
Not sure about that. I think the primary reason was to prevent vandalism...
You've said this... but I don't understand. I could go find another image you will find offensive, and have it up in minutes. Then another, and another. At least if the vandal always used that specific image it would be easy to block personally (install firefox adblock plugin, rightclick on image, select block this image), so that you could remove it without having to look at it.
As far as being neutral on the image. I've seen it a few times and have utterly no emotional reaction to it, when I first saw it I said "ha, I bet that causes edit wars". ::shrugs:: Not everyone makes a big deal out of sexual things. To each his own.
Neutrality is not even about being non-reactive about a topic.
You suggested that no one could be neutral about the image, ... I disagree... It is my position that to some people the image is no different than a picture of a desk. I don't claim that response has a 1:1 relationship with neutrality, but rather that the image isn't necessarily as special as you may think it is... If you find it hard to imagine that view, don't feel bad... While I understand that many people are highly offended by such things, I just can't see it myself.. It seems silly, but I respect that people differ.
Ultimately If someone can be neutral about a picture of a desk, then someone can be neutral about that picture. But this is offtopic for the current discussion.
I don't agree at all. Freedom of speech and NPOV are not absolute. They are simply policies that are sometimes necessary to balance with other goals of importance.
Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Doctorant CERSA - CNRS, Paris 2 http://soufron.free.fr
Le 29 mars 05, à 16:33, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason a écrit :
If your interest is to censor encyclopedic content on any wikimedia wikipedia, then your goals are at odds with the goals of the foundation. Because you do not share the same goals, you should fork and produce your own project with censorship among it's goals.
If you continue to endorse censorship you are harming the project. Please allow those who want to share knowledge freely the ability to do so on wikipedia by taking your censorship someplace else.
The claim that pages are somehow 'dirtied' by a mere image speaks strongly about your lack of neutral perspective.
Agreed. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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