[Foundation-l] Image filter

[me at marcusbuck.org]

After some thinking I come to the conclusion that this whole  
discussion is a social phenomenon.

You probably know how some topics when mentioned in newspaper articles  
or blogs spur wild arguments in the comments sections. When the  
article mentions climate change commentators contest the validity of  
the collected data, if it mentions religions commentators argue that  
religion is the root of all evil in the world, if it is about  
immigration commentators start to rant how immigrants cause trouble in  
society, if it is about renewable energies commentators tell us how  
blind society is to believe in its ecologicalness.

It's always the same pattern: the topic is perceived well in the  
general society (most sane people think that climate change is real,  
that renewable energies are the way to go, that religious freedom is  
good and that most immigrants are people as everybody else who do no  
harm), but a small or not so small minority experiences these  
attitudes as a problem and tries to raise awareness to the problems of  
the trend (usually exaggerating them). The scepticists give their  
arguments and the non-scepticists answer them.

The non-scepticists usually have not much motivation to present their  
arguments (because their position is already the mainstream, so not  
much incentive to convince more people, just trying to not let the  
scepticists' opinions stand unwithspoken) while the scepticists have  
much motivation to present their arguments (if they don't society will  
presumedly face perdition). This difference in the motivation leads to  
a situation where both groups produce a similar content output leading  
to the semblence that both groups represent equal shares of society.

I think the same is happening here. The majority of people probably  
think that an optional opt-in filter is a thing that does no harm to  
non-users and has advantages for those who choose to use it. (Ask your  
gramma whether "You can hide pictures if you don't want to see them"  
sounds like a threatening thing to her.) But the scepticists voice  
their opinions loudly and point out every single imaginable problem.

I just want to point out that an idea like a free community-driven  
everybody-can-edit-it encyclopedia with no editorial or peer-review  
process would never have been created if a long discussion would have  
preceded its creation. The scepticists would have raised so many  
seemingly valid concerns that they'd buried the idea deep. I'm feeling  
that a group of worst-case scenarioists are leading the discussion to  
a point where the image filter is buried just because everybody is  
bored about the discussion.

Marcus Buck
User:Slomox

PS: Please don't understand this as a longish version of "You guys  
opposing my opinion are trolls!". I don't think that the points raised  
by scepticists should be neglected. But I think that many people  
reject the image filter because of very theoretical concerns for the  
sake of it completely removed from pragmatical reasons and that the  
length of the discussion is in no way indicative of the real  
problematicness of the topic.