[Foundation-l] On curiosity, cats and scapegoats

[Sarah]

On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 10:37, Marcin Cieslak <saper at saper.info> wrote:
>> Hello Saper,
>>
>> Could you explain how that you think an user controlled image filter would
>> make a difference to a person who lives on a country politically restricted
>> country? Do you think that it would hurt or help, or make no difference?
>
> Can you help me in understanding in why such a user control feature may
> possibly bring more people to Wikipedia? I am especially interested in
> countries where access to information is restricted by the environment,
> for example by governments, whether the same reasoning applies to them
> as to less restrictive regions.
>
> I am asking this because I happened to grow up and have first 8 years
> of my education in such an environment and I still remember those times
> and how we approached the limited access to information.
>
> //Saper
>
Saper, the feature (as I understand it) would allow you sitting at
your computer to turn off certain images. But it would not allow you
to make the existence of those images disappear. You would see that an
image was on the page. You would be able to click on it to make it
visible. See mock-up --
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PIF-Proposal-Workflow-Anon-FromImage-Step5.png

We already do something similar. Certain templates in articles are
presented in a collapsed state. You have to click on them to see them.

It would not be possible (as I understand it) for the filter to make
the presence of an image disappear entirely.

Some people would welcome not being forced, as a first option, to see
certain images simply because other people have decided they must.
It's the idea of "my freedom ends where your nose begins."

The hope is that reading and editing Wikipedia will appeal to a
broader range of people if they are given more personal options over
what they see when they first look at a page.

Sarah