[Foundation-l] Image filter

[Neil Babbage]

I was using "useful" in its most basic sense - to mean "capable of being used at all". That is, in the context of this discussion, avoids the current situation where there is a risk that the whole encyclopedia (or any other project) is off limits to certain groups or individuals because they can't satisfy the basic need of being able to find what they want to read or see easily and safely. I'm not an advocate of anything more than a mechanism that allows users to express preferences and use search tools that accurately follow those preferences regardless of what they are. Personally I'd love to be able to filter fancruft out of searches. 

My point is that providing this capability is not censorship and the screams of protest that it would strike at the core of Wikimedia's mission are ludicrous. It is not censorship to help a consumer of information find what they want quickly and to avoid what they don't want. Not providing this capability is censoring the whole of Wikipedia for people who don't want to risk being exposed to inappropriate material.

Refusing to help meet the needs of these people has an "ivory tower" smell about it; we don't care if nobody uses Wikipedia as long as it is perfect.  This attitude strikes across the core principle of the movement to make knowledge available to all.
 

------Original Message------
From: Ray Saintonge
To: neil at thebabbages.com
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Image filter
Sent: 10 Mar 2012 00:57

On 03/09/12 6:06 AM, Neil Babbage wrote:
> Wikimedia is not supposed to be some kind of exercise in perfection for perfection's sake. It's supposed to be open, accessible and useful.
>
>
"Useful", like "notable" is another of those words that cannot be easily 
defined. In many otherwise non-controversial articles we have pictures 
that do not further the contents of the articles.  They may have a loose 
connection with the article's topic, but they don't add any information 
to the topic. They do, however, break up solid blocks of text, and make 
it more readable.

Ray


Neil / QuiteUnusual at Wikibooks