[Foundation-l] Controversial content software status

Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
Wed Mar 14 22:34:43 UTC 2012


Hoi,
Commons as a project provides a service to any and all projects. It does
have its own community but as Commons is a shared resource it is similar
but not the same in its autonomy. This should be obvious .
Thanks,
    Gerard

On 13 March 2012 08:23, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> On 03/09/12 9:39 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 2:16 AM, Ray Saintonge<saintonge at telus.net>
>>  wrote:
>>
>>  On 03/08/12 2:20 AM, Theo10011 wrote:
>>>
>>>  The other issue is morality and responsibility. I don't think any
>>>> executives or board members should make a statement about that video.
>>>> It's
>>>> a stated policy that they are not responsible for the content on the
>>>> project. To hold them legally or morally responsible, for what 100,000
>>>> contributors might do at any given point, is unrealistic and
>>>> unreasonable.
>>>> They can not be held liable for actions of vandals, as much as of
>>>> community
>>>> members who upload media in good faith. Depending on how you perceive
>>>> this,
>>>> who does have some responsibility is the community itself. It governs
>>>> itself, has its own rules about content, WMF regularly points to it in
>>>> cases of content dispute.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  This raises an important point about the role of the board, and of
>>>>
>>> staff.  The status of an ISP implies blindness to content.  The more it
>>> assumes editorial rights, the more it puts its role as an ISP into
>>> question.  It does not know about these contents until it receives a
>>> properly formulated demand to take something down, at which point it must
>>> act according to law.  Third parties who just happen to feel offended by
>>> some material tend to approach these matters with a strong bias, which
>>> may
>>> or may not reflect the reality of the law. Such people need to be
>>> informed
>>> of the proper legal channels with the assurance of knowing that
>>> management
>>> will abide with the law without itself being a tryer of the facts.
>>>
>> Why is it that the instinctive Wikimedia response to a problem is always
>> burying one's head in the sand and hoping that the problem will go
>> away? For goodness' sake. Sue has blogged her views about editorial
>> judgment. The Board is in the habit of passing resolutions on project
>> content. And in one of these, the Board decided last year that we would
>> have an image filter, and instructed Sue to install one. To turn around
>> now
>> and say that all of this is something the Board can't even so much as
>> *comment* on, when they've gave specific management instructions on this
>> last year, is ludicrous.
>>
>>  It's not at all question of burying one's head in the sand. It's a
> question of the communities solving their own problems. Serious injustices
> are a common occurrence in the communities, but a community is diminished
> when it has to run to mother-WMF's apron strings to solve its problems.
> Some communities will implement filters, others not; that's fine.
> Eventually, each community will find its own balanced solution.
>
> Ray
>
>
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