[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia isn't just a good idea - it's compulsory

[Phil Nash]

Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> 2009/3/25  <WJhonson at aol.com>:
>>> In a message dated 3/25/2009 1:34:36 PM Pacific Standard Time,
>>> thomas.dalton at gmail.com writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>> I don't think the IWF will make that mistake again. I never thought
>>>> I'd see so many people being so outspokenly against a charity
>>>> dedicated to fighting child pornography!>>
>>>
>>> This is what you said, which misses the point.
>>> People weren't against them because they are dedicated to fighting
>>> child pornography, so this is a straw man position.
>>>
>>> People were against them because they operate censorship inside a
>>> black box.
>>>
>>> Quite a different situation. And why people were so vehement in
>>> their condemnation.
>>
>> Ah, this is simply a misunderstanding! What I meant was that one
>> would expect people to be thoroughly in support of a charity
>> dedicated to fighting child pornography so the fact that there was
>> such outspoken criticism shows how big a mistake blocking Wikipedia
>> was.

On the face of it, yes. However, when, presumably on the basis on an 
anonymous complaint, they pass forward a URL to the ISPs who use their 
services, without performing anything approaching "due diligence", that 
demonstrates to me that not only do they operate in a cultural and political 
vacuum, but also that they take on trust any and every report made to them. 
That cannot be objectively correct, and they were rightly pilloried for it. 
If they have had advice and training from CEOP, either they've ignored it or 
that advice they've received is flawed.

It's difficult to blame the ISPs for this, because they take the IWF reports 
on trust, and rightly so, to avoid forcibly-imposed regulation, and also to 
avoid liability under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubby_v._CompuServe 
whereby knowledge is fixed if they actually make the decision themselves.

>> I don't think people were against them due to the lack of
>> transparency, I think it was the fact that they blocked an
>> encyclopaedia that annoyed people. (The lack of transparency annoys
>> us, but I'm not sure the general public/media know much about those
>> details.)

Not so much that the whole encyclopedia was blocked, more that the 
collateral effect as a result of blocking vandalism was that a bottleneck 
handful of re-routed proxy IP addresses was blocked; however, there was no 
block on the image page itself, and anyone who knows the basics of the http: 
protocol could work round it; and, of course, it only applied to en:wiki.

All in all, people should stick to things they understand, be it 
basket-weaving, medieval history, or drainage.