[Foundation-l] Letter to the community on Controversial Content

[Andreas Kolbe]

From: Bob the Wikipedian <bobthewikipedian at gmail.com>

The question arises, however, of where to draw the rather thick gray 
line. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, take for instance the 
famous Renaissance paintings; often innocent at first glance, but 
perhaps one of the subjects is nude. Perhaps in the background there is 
a nude individual. Maybe that individual is too tiny to see clearly. Or 
perhaps it's adorned with nude cherubim around the corners. Or maybe 
there's a photo of something where in the background you can see a nude 
sculpture. And that's just the topic of nudity within the scope of the 
Renaissance art-- it gets worse.

This is precisely the thing that makes it difficult to decide whether to 
block an image or not.

Whatever system is used, it needs to be a bit more intricate than just 
"either / or".




Bob,

I agree it needs a large upfront investment in defining categories sensibly.

Photos of genitals attached to live human beings are different from historical paintings, or photos of Greek sculptures. Few if any would want to filter the latter. 

But the idea is to use pedestrian descriptions, telling the user exactly what sort of media files are meant.

Andreas