[Foundation-l] Nazi Goatse part 94 (was Discussion Questions for Potentially-Objectionable Content)

[Samuel Klein]

On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 8:55 PM, Mike.lifeguard
<mike.lifeguard at gmail.com> wrote:
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> On 37-01--10 03:59 PM, David Gerard wrote:
>> If you go against the mission statement, and the expectation with it
>> that more information is better than less information - even if the
>> information is horrible and shocking - the community will not accept
>> it. They will get up and *leave*. As Milos noted, implementing any of
>> the recommendations on that meta talk page will promptly lead to a
>> fork. As it should.
>>
>> Filtering should be left to third parties. The SOS Children Wikipedia
>> for Schools is an excellent example, and it's quite popular and won't
>> get a teacher fired. Other than that, I've seen no evidence of actual
>> demand for a filtered Wikimedia from end users - only from people who
>> want to filter the projects themselves at the source.
>
> As much as I hate "+1" posts, I have to say simply: I agree! And thanks
> for explaining this far more lucidly than I could have. I'd buy you not
> one but *two* beers if we were near each other. Since we're not, I'll
> just tip my hat and join you in pushing people who want to filter our
> projects out so they can do the filtering they want in a more
> appropriate venue. There's nothing wrong with filtering for consumption.
> There most certainly *is* a problem with filtering at the source.

As David says, the editing community are skilled at keeping only
content that is educational.  Avoiding shocking readers without
warning is a matter of style and presentation, not of filtering.

On customizing for consumption (by filtering or enhancing):  the most
popular requests I hear are for subsets filtered by field, or
screening out stubs, not filters on "potential to offend".  This
customizing should be left to third parties,[1] perhaps including some
filtering and deletion that current policies require at the source.[2]
  Reflection on what is appropriate may lead us to become more open to
contributions, not less.[3]

SJ


[1] Or to content-neutral tools like the Books extension that make it
easy for readers to create and share their own customizations.

[2] For instance: some of the stronger deletion policies based on
quality or notability (of otherwise verifiable, educational material)
Among the many reasons not to delete at the source: deleting a topic
and its discussions leaves no space for that conversation, not even as
permanent links in some page history.[4]

[3] We should at the same time expand the scope of what contributions
we accept and archive, and refine the quality of what we present as
our default appearance.  The latter reflects changing standards for
quality, notability, educational value, and freedom of license.
Ideally, these standards would not keep us from accepting any
potentially useful content, they would simply limit what ends up in
that default view.[4]

[4] A quarantine/sandbox for work of interest whose {quality,
notability, educational value, license} is in dispute would be useful.