[Foundation-l] Another board member statement

[Kat Walsh]

First of all, this is entirely my own opinion, not that of the board,
and anyone who quotes it as a statement of the WMF will get promptly
crushed by a giant puzzle globe.

I absolutely sign on to the board statement[1]. Commons should not be
a host for media that has very little informational or educational
value; works that are primarily intended to shock, arouse, or offend
generally fall under this category. But as a compendium of knowledge
about, well, everything, we cover topics that some people will find
unsuitable or offensive. If a topic is covered at all, it should be
done well and honestly, explained in the as thorough and neutral a
fashion as other topics--including illustrations.

The Commons community and the individual project communities have
already largely recognized this, developing policies that strike
compromises between being excessive and being incomplete, but of
course there are still some areas that slip through the cracks.

Jimmy's actions are not the Board's; I don't agree with the extent of
what he was doing and I wish he had gone about it differently. Not
least because I think it's been unclear what he believes personally
and what the Foundation's position is and it's caused a great deal of
unrest and distrust. Some of this is unavoidable: it's difficult for
any of us to speak our minds, knowing that whatever we say is likely
to be attributed to WMF, or at least to be unclear. He's acknowledged
that his own actions went too far and resigned his rights, and I
respect him for doing so.

I don't think we can say with a straight face that sexual topics
should be treated no differently than, say, tea pots or cute cats. I
think we benefit from trying to be no more shocking than
necessary--where things have comparable informative value, we should
prefer the ones that will be most broadly accepted and useful. A line
drawing instead of a photograph, or a medical study image instead of
an amateur porn model.

However, I think it is because Commons is a project that must serve
every Wikimedia project in every language that it must be broadly
inclusive. Media only a few projects might wish to use still belongs
on Commons for their benefit. (I also think that it's not only images
included in articles that are support for projects--a page of text can
only have so many images before they begin to overwhelm the text or
frustrate users with slow internet connections. Having a gallery of
additional media illustrating different aspects of a subject adds
value: roses of every color, boats of every variety, and yes, images
of every sexually-transmitted disease.)

I can think of few better places to go than Wikipedia for complete and
informative coverage of topics that may be shocking or explicit. Most
other sites which are uncensored are also intended to have
entertainment or shock value, or to present a culturally or
politically biased viewpoint. (I do remember being a young geek, going
to the library with a small cluster of other middle-school girls,
looking at books which had depictions of sex and sexual topics and
giggling over them, trying not to admit that we really *didn't* know
what certain things were or what they looked like, but wanted to. If
the librarians ever figured out what we were doing, they never even
cast a disapproving glance, for which I am grateful. It was a
non-threatening context for satisfying curiosity. Wikipedia would
serve the same purpose for me, now.)

What shouldn't happen is people being surprised by media they didn't
want to see. (And yes, Greg Maxwell and I do in fact talk about
Wikimedia at the dinner table. Occasionally we even reach consensus.)

I don't think filtering is effective, useful, or desirable; the
reasons are pretty adequately covered elsewhere on the list and on the
web. (The American Library Association--my employer--agrees with this
anti-filtering stance: providers of information should provide access
to the best of their abilities, and allow adult users to choose what
they see.)

And I am firmly against reducing the content on Wikimedia to only that
which is acceptable for children. The world's knowledge contains a lot
of things that are shocking, divisive, offensive, or horrific, and
people should be able to learn about them, and to educate others. Not
including these things doesn't make them go away--it only makes it
more difficult for interested people to learn from a source that tries
to be neutral and educational. I don't think Wikipedia will ever be
(or should ever be) "safe", for the same reason your public library
will never be, either.

(One of the benefits of being free content is that anyone with
sufficient motivation can produce an edited version that aligns with
their values and goals; there are several existing edited Wikipedia
mirrors intended for children, though none have been very successful.)

What I do support are tools and procedures that make it simpler for
users to choose what they see: I don't think anyone should have to
avoid Wikimedia projects because they fear that they (or their
children) will inadvertently see something they didn't intend to. Most
people never do; links are generally not surprising, and
sexually-themed media is generally only present in sexually-themed
articles. (As are depictions of violence, for that matter.) But a user
clicking on an unfamiliar term, or who is not aware that certain
categories of content are allowed on the projects, may be in for a
shock.

I'm sorry if I am repeating others' points--I've been following
discussions on Commons and the lists but have not yet caught up with
everything![2] However, I thought as a community-elected member I
should share my viewpoint, the sort of things the board is debating as
we speak.

Cheers,
Kat

[1] You know, this one:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057791.html
[2] The list just had to catch fire while I was finishing my very last
set of papers for law school...

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