[Foundation-l] On curiosity, cats and scapegoats

Sat Sep 10 09:33:32 UTC 2011

Since I moved to an internet connection that doesn't cripple my 
connection speed after 1 GB of traffic/month, I probably won't use this 
feature either.

But, as I to and fro have tried to follow the debate over the last week, 
I got curious about the feasibility of one possible solution that *I 
think* would sidestep some of the issues which has been presented 
concerning the categorization that has been deemed necessary:

What if the user has a default switch "show images?" [on/off] (as 
someone else already suggested somewhere - sorry, I don't remember in 
which post), and in every place where a picture is shown (or supposed to 
be shown), the user would have the ability to toggle the visibility of 
that particular image.

Kim Bruning: if these settings are stored server-wise, and given the 
lack of indications on any page about any ban-worthiness, do you think 
it still would be possible for a third party to create a list of "banned 
images"/"banned pages" and impose it on anyone? I mean, besides what is 
already possible by looking at category names such as "sex", "religion", 
"people from country X" etc.

Obviously, this would emphatically not be a "think of the children" or 
"if you are a good <insert-belief-here> you should use our special 
filter" tool, and it would be a pain in the neck to maintain for the 
user if he or she would like any kind of fine grained control - but 
quite purposefully so. (An image wouldn't - couldn't - be blocked until 
the user got to a page where the image is called for and actively 
blocked it for him/herself, i.e. no manual editing of the raw blacklist 
or whitelist.)

The reason I ask is that I'm no programmer, and have no clue about the 
technical feasibility of such a solution, how tampering-resistant this 
could be made (I *guess* the "red team" would have a harder time 
destroying this than a system based on a publicly visible 
categorization, but would it be in some sense "sufficiently" hard?) nor 
whether this would require too much of the servers, keeping track of 
settings of x million users times y million images.

I'd be happy to be educated in this.

\Mike

On 10/09 2011 09:35, WereSpielChequers wrote:
> As this debate has ploughed on I've become less likely to use this feature
> myself. But am still utterly unconvinced by the opposition arguments.
>
> Re: Demagogy of "multiculturalism" when it means "pushing POV by right-wing
> US". As long as the image filter would enable Moslems to opt out of seeing a
> certain set of cartoons, then this to me is about globalisation not about
> appeasing Conservapedia and its fans. Actually one of the most predictable
> risks of implementing this is that we will be attacked by our American
> critics "Wikipedia enables censorship, Moslems now allowed to censor images
> they dislike, but naturally no "block all porn" option for Christians" (all
> porn is bound not to be an option because definitions of porn are so
> divergent. But if it were they'd pick another unimplemented option such as
> "swimsuit" or "respectable swimsuit").
>
> As for Kim's Red team Blue team shenanigans, why would anyone bother? I can
> understand why spammers try to subvert our processes and add their links and
> spamcruft - they see us as a free source of advertising worth their time to
> try and sneak their message in. But if devout Bahais decide to use this
> filter to screen out certain images, how likely is it that there will be an
> opposing team trying to sneak those images past their filter? Especially if
> the filters are personal options that other editors can't see.
>
> WereSpielChequers
>
> Board is filled with a bunch of amateurs (not derogatory meaning!) --
>> including yourself in the past and hypothetically including myself if
>> I passed last election -- which position is the product of political
>> will (community, chapters, Board will itself).
>>
>> Any sane body -- which is aware that it is there because of political
>> will and not because of their expertise (no, Stu and Jan-Bart are not
>> in the Board as experts when they act as apologists of Jimmy's
>> deletion of artworks on Commons [1][2]) -- knows that it should
>> delegate responsibilities to those who know the matter better.
>>
>> However, Wikimedia Foundation Board acts dilettantish whenever one of
>> the Board member (or a friend of that Board member) has strong
>> position toward some issue.
>>
>> For example, Wikipedia in Tunisian Arabic has been rejected by the
>> Board, although relevant international institutions (and reality, as
>> well) recognize it as a separate language [3]. Just after long
>> discussion (in short period of time) between two Board members and
>> Language committee, it was threw under the carpet as "waiting" [4]
>> with the excuse to wait for non-existent initiative to create North
>> African Arabic Wikipedia (it was my initiative at the end, just to end
>> with grotesque Board's dilettantism, by claiming that their members
>> are better introduced in linguistic diversity than relevant
>> international bodies and Language committee as well; which I see as
>> humiliating for the Board, but Board members don't think so).
>>
>> I didn't want to open this issue; but the flow of discussion --
>> claiming that Board *really* knows what it is doing -- forced me to
>> give it as an example.
>>
>> While I am sure that at least Arne cares about German Wikipedia and
>> Bishakha cares about Hindi Wikipedia -- collectively, Board reacts
>> just if someone points to their POV related to English Wikipedia.
>> Everything else, including Serbian Wikipedia in 2005 and including
>> Kazakh Wikipedia in 2011, are just safari-like care about interesting
>> and strange species. Yes, Board cares when some project dares to
>> question Jimmy's authority, like when Wikinews did it well and
>> Wikiversity badly.
>>
>> If the Board members would be more honest in their intentions, not to
>> hide behind demagogy of "multiculturalism" when it means "pushing POV
>> by right-wing US" and similar phrases with similar opposite meanings,
>> we could start to have real discussion. Not to mention that it is
>> obvious that some of the motivations of some of the Board members are
>> not even politically motivated, but very personally (and "very" has
>> the meaning inside of the phrase).
>>
>> [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/058026.html
>> [2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057795.html
>> [3]
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requests_for_new_languages%2FWikipedia_Tunisian&action=historysubmit&diff=2744156&oldid=2741178
>> [4]
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requests_for_new_languages%2FWikipedia_Tunisian&action=historysubmit&diff=2748151&oldid=2744156
>>
>>
>>
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