[Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro at gmail.com
Sat May 8 13:28:51 UTC 2010


Samuel Klein wrote:
> Marcus writes:
>
>   
>> I try to understand what happened...
>>
>>
>> * Larry Sanger informs media about us alleging Wikimedia of hosting
>>     
> porn. [unaffirmed]
>
> He just made a lot of noise, and some media picked it up.
>
>   
If you consider a false report to the FBI reasonably
characterised as "just made a lot of noise", sure.
>   
>> * The (conservative) TV station FOX reports about Wikimedia and
>> contacts many important companies that have donated money for
>> Wikimedia in the past whether they want to comment on the allegations.
>> [affirmed]
>> * The companies are contacting Wikimedia to ask what's going on.
>> [unaffirmed]
>>     
>
> Mainly they contacted us to say "fyi, Fox wants to cause trouble".  It
> was clear what was going on.
>
>   
This is an important clarification, and I commend you for it.


> On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 6:50 PM, Marcus Buck <me at marcusbuck.org> wrote:
>
>   
>   
>> We had discussions on sexual content before. I proposed to use a
>> technical solution in which images are tagged with tags that give
>> detailed information about the form of explicit content present...
>>
>> Creating a technical solution like that is the task of the foundation.
>> The _real_ task of the foundation.
>>     
>
> Let's have a meaningful discussion about this over the coming weeks.
> I'm not sure how I feel about this -- my reflex is to be opposed to
> the idea of internal tagging beyond Categories -- but there's a lot of
> momentum around the idea, and if the community decides it is the right
> thing the do, the Foundation would certainly support creating such a
> solution.
>   

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



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