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

[Tobias Oelgarte]

Am 16.10.2011 12:53, schrieb ???:
> On 11/10/2011 15:33, Kim Bruning wrote:
>>   <flame on>  Therefore you cannot claim that I am stating nonsense.
>>   The inverse is true: you do not possess the information to support
>>   your position, as you now admit. In future, before you set out to
>>   make claims of bad faith in others, it would be wise to ensure that
>>   your own information is impeccable first.</flame>  sincerely, Kim
>>   Bruning
> I claim that you are talking total crap. It is not *that* difficult to
> get the
> categories of an image and reject based on which categories the image
> is in are. There are enough people out there busily categorizing all the
> images already that any org that may wish to could block images that
> are in disapproved categories.
I have to throw that kind wording back at you. It isn't very difficult 
to judge what is offensive and what isn't, because it is impossible to 
do this, if you want to stay neutral and to respect any, even if only 
any major, opinion out there. Wikipedia and Commons are projects that 
gather knowledge or media. Wikipedia has an editorial system that 
watches over the content to be accurate and representative. Commons is a 
media library with a categorization system that aids the reader to what 
he want's to find. The category system in itself is (or should be) build 
upon directional labels. Anything else is contradictory to current 
practice and unacceptable:

* Wikipedia authors do not judge about topics. They also do not claim 
for themselves that something is controversial, ugly, bad, ...
* Commons contributers respect this terms as well. They don't judge 
about the content. They gather and categorize it. But they will not 
append prejudicial labels.
> The problem, and it is a genuine problem, is that the fucking stupid images
> leak out across commons in unexpected ways. Lets assuime that an 6th grade
> class is asked to write a report on Queen Victoria, and a child serach
> commons
> for prince albert:
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=prince+albert&limit=50&offset=0
>
> If you at work you probably do not want to clicking the above link at all.
>
Worst case scenarios will always happen. With filter or without filter, 
you will still and always find such examples. They are seldom, and might 
happen from time to time. But they aren't the rule. They aren't at the 
same height as you should use to measure a flood.

To give an simple example of the opposite. Enable "strict filtering" on 
google and search for images with the term "futanari" . Don't say that i 
did not warn you...


A last word: Categorizing content rightful as "good" and "evil" is 
impossible for human beings, that we are. But categorizing content as 
"good" and "evil" always led to destructive consequences if human beings 
are involved, that we are.