[Foundation-l] Discussion Questions for Potentially-Objectionable Content

[Ray Saintonge]

George Herbert wrote:
> Is there in fact sufficient evidence that this is a topic that the
> Foundation must, or should, engage in actively at this time?
>
> I know why the Foundation has an inclination to get involved - people
> ask about it, and some very uncomfortable stuff finds its way into
> Commons and the Encyclopedias at times and in places, and it's
> inconvenient to have Fox News making a big deal about false claims of
> pedophiles or child porn on Wikipedia when we're trying to be taken
> seriously as a responsible charitable organization, and so forth.
>
> But that does not mean that it's necessarily something the Foundation
> should involve itself in at this point.
>   

Good point.  The key characteristic that legally distinguishes an 
Internet Service Provider from a publisher is editorial control.  If the 
Foundation goes too far in deciding about content it risks being treated 
as a publisher, and jeopardizes its safe harbour as an ISP.  An ISP must 
still respond to properly presented claims, but as a non-sentient 
corporation it is by itself incapable of distinguishing the moral 
qualities of submitted material.

I have no problem identifying myself in the no-censorship end of the 
spectrum, but even there I can see the value of modest controls that 
would give the user the option of not seeing certain images. The irony 
is that we accept in some measure the wisdom of crowds by allowing 
everyone to edit, but we avoid that wisdom for rating content. 

I have long believed in having one or more numerical ratings for 
articles. The criterion for one of those ratings could be 
objectionability.  The synthesized rating could be a basis for a filter 
where the user could for example choose to hide only the most 
objectionable ten percent of material; a relatively conservative 
percentage could be applied as a default figure.  Rating images in this 
way could be easier than rating text since posted images tend to remain 
fairly stable, and less subject to editorial variation.

Ec