[Foundation-l] On curiosity, cats and scapegoats

[KIZU Naoko]

Off topic alert:

I haven't given a closer look to your main topic, Milos, so I cannot
give a responsible statement in any way. But your reference to Wiki
Loves Monuments, while I agree it's heavily Europe-focused, I strongly
disagree with you on its decadency, as an (retired) aesthetic. While
the determination what artworks are heavily depends on the community
to appreciate, so partly I understand your concern, if WLM is carried
on only by European chapter people, it can hardly of NPOV at some
future moment, but artworks belong to the critical part of "the sum of
human knowledge" along with the information who created them and then
have appreciated or rejected them.

Recording those things always inherits its own systematic bias, to
some extent. It may  seem bored and look a certain culture's
hegemonical promotion. But it might be only to the contemporary, and
the coming age may have a different view and even would appreciate
such records. Here I'd like you to recall on two series of exhibitions
in Germany in the late 1930s, that is, Entartete Kunst and the other
(really propaganda) one. Records on those exhibitions let us have a
deep insight what then happened and people thought, and, on the
unfortunately lost works, what they could be.

I have no foresight on WLM and its future. But archival approach for
artworks per se, it matches our mission and thus we support it.

Cheers,

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 4:19 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not long ago I had a gaffe on internal-l, by publicly expressing
> opinion what do I really think about Wiki Loves Monuments, although my
> intention was to send a private email. However, WLM has a number of
> good sides: Commons will be filled with photos, people will spend time
> together, it makes at least some parts of the movement more coherent.
> Besides the fact that making depictions of depictions is a classical
> European type of decadency. Anyway, if that's the worst thing in our
> movement, I could live with that.
>
> But, it is not.
>
> If Board doesn't intervene *now*, it could be easily concluded that
> the worst thing ever happened to our movement has started these days.
>
> Up to the end of the so called "referendum", everything was as usual:
> Because of <I promised to myself that won't use at this point phrase
> "Jimmy's sexually impaired rich friends"> Board articulated something
> in opposition of majority of editors (yes, majority of editors; I
> really don't care what one sexually impaired member of Concerned Women
> for America with 17 edits thinks about Wikipedia [1][2]); then it
> wanted to implement it anyway, including bizarre questionnaire called
> "referendum"; then heated discussion sparked; then results came; then
> results from German Wikipedia came, as well.
>
> Logically, we have the solution: If Board really cares what Concerned
> Women for America think, let it, please, implement that filter on
> English Wikipedia and leave the rest of the projects alone -- if they
> don't ask for the filter explicitly. As members of that organization
> probably don't know any other language except English, everybody will
> be happy. Except the core editors of English Wikipedia, of course. But
> Board doesn't care about them, anyway; which means that English
> Wikipedia is reasonable scapegoat for Wikimedia movement to please
> sexually impaired Americans and others.
>
> But, we have one much more serious problem in front of us. Instead of
> going toward the solution, we are going in opposite direction. Instead
> of concluding this three years long drama, Censorship Committee and
> Board want to "analyze" the numbers and prolong agony for another
> three years. And if that agony has something useful, important at the
> end, I could even say that we need to make reasonable sacrifice (in my
> area it would be solved by slaughtering pig or goat or whatever, which
> is more reasonable than wasting three more years, by the way).
>
> But, it doesn't have.
>
> The most important reason for this bizarre expression of mismanagement
> is to please, as mentioned before, sexually impaired Americans. If
> that's the main reason, please, please them *now* or forget
> everything.
>
> Like WLM, this Board's pet project is expression of decadency. This
> time American. However, unlike WLM, this project won't fill Commons
> with photos. Quite opposite, this project will make significant
> problems to the Commons community. People will spend time together
> indeed, but in arguing who is right and who's not. It already divides
> the movement on a couple of lines.
>
> I realized that I started to participate in this madness when I asked
> for some data from the results. And now, community is asked to
> participate into the "Next steps" [3]! Holy Thing! That will produce
> much more sexual content than any "porn" photo on Commons. In Serbian
> we say for that "fucking in healthy brain". If not exterminated at the
> beginning, that brainfuck (unfortunately, not programming language
> [4]) will produce much more problems than any image filter or any Fox
> News scam.
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer#Internet_censorship
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerned_Women_for_America.
> [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Next_steps/en
> [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck
>
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-- 
KIZU Naoko / 木津尚子
member of Wikimedians in Kansai  / 関西ウィキメディアユーザ会 http://kansai.wikimedia.jp