[Foundation-l] On curiosity, cats and scapegoats

[Milos Rancic]

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 17:31, David Richfield <davidrichfield at gmail.com> wrote:
> I understand the attitude of being against censorship at any costs -
> it is a very important fight.  But as H.L. Mencken said:
>
> "Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the
> exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority ..."
>
> The thing is, even if a lot of Wikipedia is written by a disreputable
> minority, we want it to go to the great masses.  I completely get what
> Sarah is saying here: not everyone wants that hard uncompromising
> focus on uncensored liberty: it's inconvenient in "polite society".
>
> Sure, the image hiding feature is a compromise, but it's not a bad
> one.  It's not intended to remove any images from Wikipedia, just to
> allow users to make Wikipedia SFW (or SFL, depending on who you are)
> as required, and is totally reversible, so I support it.

There are two separate issues: The first one, with which I agree, is
that image filter is not a big deal.

The second one is a meta question and it's related to our position
inside of the contemporary civilization.

Modern Western civilization has been built on the premise that just
particularly harmful works should be censored, if any at all; and if
censored, they are usually accessible in libraries, but couldn't be
[re]printed.

We are living in the age significantly different to just ~10-15 years
ago; exactly because internet and Wikipedia. Even "particularly
harmful works" could be found on internet. Consequently, the question
for us is: should we define Wikipedia as encyclopedia/library of
classical modernity or we should define it as unique global
phenomenon, just [remotely] connected to the concepts of encyclopedia
and library.

Those are, actually, two confronted concepts behind this debate. Those
who want to keep Wikipedia inside of its encyclopedic and librarian,
modernist frame, oppose to censorship, even in lite form, as this
image filter. Others, who see Wikipedia as unique (better, "not
defined phenomenon, yet") and treat it as contemporary postmodernist
project without clear borders -- tend to accept various ways of social
influences in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

While both positions seem legitimate, the problem with the second one
is that Wikipedia is by definition an encyclopedia, which
ideologically belongs to the modern period. There is no such thing as
"postmodern encyclopedia" as well as there is no "postmodern science".
There are postmodern art, postmodern concepts, postmodern philosophy,
but there is no postmodern science, as science requires exact methods,
which is opposite to the conceptual relativism (i.e., there are no
many truths, there could be just different positions toward some
issue; not counting possible sophisms and scientifically unknown).

The other, "the unique", "the unknown" thing is not Wikipedia nor
Wikisource etc.; the other thing is our movement. And it could
incorporate many different cultures, as well as it could be postmodern
by nature. That's the social issue and social relations are not
necessarily exact, scientific; quite opposite, they usually have
strong irrational color. And that's good and normal, as that
irrational part of us gives meaning to our lives.

In relation to those concepts, the question is where the border
between our rational and irrational is. For example, user interface
doesn't belong to the rational (although it has to be constructed
rationally). It should be easy to use, which could be quantified, but
which is not our rational choice, but our irrational feeling.

Because of that I don't oppose to the image filter, as it belongs to
the irrational part of the content (unlike deleting images, for
example). I would like to see the world full of bold people who don't
afraid to take a look into some image because of religious prejudices,
but I am not the person who should decide that instead of them. So,
without the context, image filter sounds acceptable to me.

However, the main part of the problem is not about freedom of choice,
but about mismanagement which tends to be spread into the chronic
movement agony.

I was serious when I asked the Board to take the action *now*. If they
were bold enough to make decision opposed by majority of core editors,
they should be bold enough to conclude it. Let them implement it ASAP
on English Wikipedia and conclude this drama. The present question is
not how to avoid confrontation -- as confrontation already exists --
the question is what's better: to have mid-level confrontation for
years or to push the issue as soon as possible, have higher level of
drama for a short period of time and to have low to insignificant
level of confrontation in the future. I think that prolonged mid-level
confrontation for more than a couple of months (and it already lasts
for a couple of months) would be very harmful for the community and
movement. The only other non-harmful (or not a lot harmful) option is
to forget everything.

Counting that Board wants to go forward with this, it should ASAP make
the resolution consisted of this or similar sentence: Board has
decided to implement image filter on English Wikipedia and give the
option to other projects to adopt the filter if they want it.

That's not so hard and it's on the line of Board's wishes.