[Foundation-l] Image filtering without undermining the category system

Sat Nov 26 04:27:11 UTC 2011

Hoi,
The category system is as far as I am concerned of little interest. It
is as far as I am concerned not helpful for Selecting one from a
bunch. It is a sick dog and it is in misery.
Thanks,
    GerardM

On 14 October 2011 01:14, WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 7
>> Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:07:54 -0300
>> From: Andrew Crawford <acrawford at laetabilis.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Image filtering without undermining the
>>        category        system
>> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
>>        <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>> Message-ID:
>>        <CAE0LbZ5M_iN2CiTaObubtWC8Zd3rAf4NDH+Y5+kX+0d=NYgqgw at mail.gmail.com
>> >
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>>
>> In general I think this is the best and most practical proposal so far.
>>
>
> Hi Andrew,
>
> Thanks I appreciate that.
>
>
>> Having filter users do the classifying is the only practical option. In my
>> opinion, it is unfortunately still problematic.
>>
>> 1. It is quite complicated from the user's point of view. Not only do they
>> have to register an account, but they have to find and understand these
>> options. For the casual reader who just doesn't want to see any more
>> penises, or pictures of Mohammed, that is quite a lot to ask. The effort it
>> would take to implement a system like this might outweigh the benefit to
>> the
>> small number of readers who would actually go through this process.
>>
>
> Yes my wording of the options is not ideal, and I'm hoping we can make it
> more user friendly. But the process isn't very complex. If we create
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-filter
>
> It need be no more complex than
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist
>
> I'm pretty sure we can make it simpler than buying some censorship software
> with a credit card and then installing it on your PC.
>
>
>> 2. It is obviously subject to gaming. How long would it take 4chan to
>> figure
>> out they can create new accounts, and start thumbs-upping newly-uploaded
>> pictures of penises while mass thumbs-downing depictions of Mohammed?
>>
>
> Subject to gaming, well it's bound to be. But vulnerable to gaming,
> hopefully not.  Fans of penises are welcome to add their preferences. That's
> why I didn't include the option "Hide all images except those that a fellow
> filterer has whitelisted".
>
> If some people find naked bodies wholesome but crucifixes troubling, and
> others the reverse, then the filter will pick up on that as an easy
> scenario, and once you've  indicated that you are happy to see one or the
> other it will start giving a high score to things that have been deemed
> objectionable to people who've made similar choices to you, or things that
> were deemed wholesome by people whose tastes run counter to yours.
> Conversely it will give low scores to images cleared by people whose tastes
> are highly similar to yours or to images objected to by people whose tastes
> are the reverse of yours.
>
>
>
>>
>> 3. How can we prevent the use of this data for censorship purposes?
>
>
> We prevent the use of this data for censorship by not releasing the
> knowledge base, only showing logged in users  the results that are relevant
> to them, and not saying how we've come up with a score. If we only had a
> small number of images and a limited set of reasons why people could object
> to them then it would be simple to impute the data in our knowledge base,
> but we have a large and complex system, and some aspects would be inherently
> difficult to hack by automated weapons. An experienced human looking at an
> image with a filter score would sometimes be able to guess what common
> reasons had caused a filterer or filterers not to want to see it again, but
> a computer would struggle and often anyone but the filterer who'd applied
> that score would be baffled. If you had access to that individuals filter
> list it might be obvious that they were blocking images that triggered their
> vertigo, depicted people associated with a particular sports team or train
> engines that lacked a boiler. But without the context of knowing which
> filter lists an image was on it would be difficult to get meaningful
> information out of the system.
>
>
> Would we
>> keep the reputation information of each image secret? I imagine many
>> Wikipedians would want to access that data for legitimate editorial
>> reasons.
>>
>> Well of course any of the editors could themselves have the filter set on
> and would know what the score was relative to their preferences. But
> otherwise the information would be secret. I don't see how we could give
> editors access to the reputation information without it leaking to censors,
> or indeed divulging it generally. Remember the person with vertigo might not
> want that publicly known, the pyromaniac who blocked images that might
> trigger their pyromania would almost certainly not want their filter to be
> public. As for "legitimate editorial reasons", I think it would be quite
> contentious if anyone started making editorial decisions based on the filter
> results, so best not to enable that - but I'll clarify that in the proposal
>
> Thanks for your feedback
>
> WereSpielChequers
>
> Cheers,
>>
>> Andrew (Thparkth)
>> On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 5:55 PM, WereSpielChequers <
>> werespielchequers at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > OK in a spirit of compromise I have designed an Image filter which should
>> > meet most of the needs that people have expressed and resolve most of the
>> > objections that I'm aware of. Just as importantly it should actually
>> work.
>> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/filter
>> >
>> > WereSpielChequers
>> > _______________________
>>
>>
>> Thanks for that and for your comments on
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