[Foundation-l] Personal Image Filter results announced

[Milos Rancic]

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 15:01, Thomas Morton
<morton.thomas at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Milos; as a strong left wing liberal I entirely support your ideas on
> censorship etc.
>
> But on the other hand I've always recognised that some people do not want to
> see certain things... especially things like nudity or images of Muhammed.
> And I don't see any issues with giving them the tools to hide such things -
> it feels better than cramming it down their throats based on our liberal
> agenda :)
>
> Sure; it needs to be done with care so as not to be gamed, and so that it
> does reflect a personal choice.
>
> But I've never seen an issue with this sort of thing; from our readers
> perspective it is a useful tool, to the editor community perhaps not so much
> - but lets consider the readers for a moment.

First, I actually don't oppose to the filter per se. There is
significant difference between what Jimmy did in May 2010 and this
filter. From the point of freedom of information, that's not an issue.
I was even thinking to support image filter inclusion; just to finish
with that; but grotesque mismanagement repelled me of that idea.

However, there are two unsolved issues and two problems in relation to
the process itself.

The unsolved issue is the fact that it's not our job to censor
content, it's the job of those who want to censor. And it's pretty
easy to implement it (see Appendix A for algorithm). Nobody of
pro-censor Board members and others addressed that issue. Besides the
fact that by introducing soft censorship we are introducing
*censorship*, which could be treated variously in various parts of the
world. Nobody of them gave a decent analysis (neither here, neither on
internal-l) about possible consequence of introducing censorship. But,
anyway, Board will deal with possible negative consequences, not me,
so it's not my problem.

The first problem in front of us is the fact that the majority of core
editors disagree with the filter. While I don't think that the filter
is a big deal, disagreement of the core editors is. Forcing the issue
above the will of the core community means that Board has the plan how
to create new core community (probably consisted of Concerned Women
for America and similar organizations).

But, they don't have such plan, of course. Because they basically
don't have any plan at all. It is known habit of the Board to make
strategic decisions (or tactical decisions with significant strategic
influences) on ad hoc basis. And that's the second and most important
problem of the movement itself. The goal of employing Robert Harris
was not to find what would be the best, but how to make something
which would look like political compromise. And it is not about the
compromise inside of the movement nor compromise in the interest of
Wikimedia movement, but compromise between personal wishes of two
Board members and the [vast majority of the] rest of the movement.
(Again, I don't count a member of Concerned Women for America with 17
edits as movement member.)

And that's not just unacceptable, but dangerous.

At Research committee list [1] there is ongoing discussion related to
John Vanderberg's question "Was this survey approved by the Research
Committee?" [2]. Research committee wasn't asked, of course (and
WereSpielChequers is working on statement). Because, simply,
politically motivated junk science requires implementation, not
questions about validity of premises.

[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/rcom-l/2011-September/000327.html
[2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/067889.html

* * *

[Appendix A]

Today's Commons picture of the day is Maze Coral [1]. It is inside of
the categories Marine animals of Haiti [2] and Meandrinidae [3]. Its
location on Upload Wikimedia is [4] and link to the image on page is
[5].

If someone wants to create a decent censorship tool and has aversion
toward marine animals of Haiti, that person should:
1) go to the category Marine animal of Haiti;
2) list all images inside of that category;
3) take links to the image at upload.wikimedia.org;
4) add image link to the censorship database;
5) add .../wikipedia/commons/thumb/<$1>/<$2>/<image name>.* regex into
the censorship database.

That's not our business.

[1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meandrina_meandrites_%28Maze_Coral%29.jpg
[2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Marine_animals_of_Haiti
[3] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Meandrinidae
[4] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Meandrina_meandrites_%28Maze_Coral%29.jpg
[5] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Meandrina_meandrites_%28Maze_Coral%29.jpg/800px-Meandrina_meandrites_%28Maze_Coral%29.jpg