[Foundation-l] Possible solution for image filter - magical flying unicorn pony that s***s rainbows

[Andrew Gray]

On 21 September 2011 18:04, Tobias Oelgarte
<tobias.oelgarte at googlemail.com> wrote:

>> One of the problems with the discussions about the image filter is
>> that many of them argue - I paraphrase - that "Wikipedia must not be
>> censored because it would stop being neutral". But is the existing
>> "Wikipedian POV" *really* the same as "neutral", or are we letting our
>> aspirations to inclusive global neutrality win out over the real state
>> of affairs? It's the great big unexamined assumption in our
>> discussions...
> You describe us as geeks and that we can't write in a way that would
> please the readers. Since we are geeks, we are strongly biased and write
> down POV all day. If that is true, why is Wikipedia such a success? Why
> people read it? Do they like geeky stuff?

...no, that's really not what I said.

We've known for ten years that Wikipedia editors have systemic biases,
and we've tried to avoid them by insisting on NPOV. This is one of the
reasons we've been successful - it's not the only one, but it's
helped.

But being neutral in text is simple. You give both sides of the
argument, and you do it carefully, and that's it. The method of
writing is the same whichever side you're on, and so most topics get a
fair treatment regardless of our bias.

We can't do that for images. A potentially offensive image is either
there, or it is not. We can't be neutral by half including it, or by
including it as well as another image to balance it out - these don't
make sense. So we go for reasonable, acceptable, appropriate, not
shocking, etc. Our editors say "this is acceptable" or "this is not
acceptable", and almost all the time that's based on *our personal
opinions* of what is and isn't acceptable.

The end result is that our text is very neutral, but our images
reflect the biases of our users - you and me. That doesn't seem to be
a problem to *us*, because everything looks fine to us - the
acceptable images are in articles, the unacceptable ones aren't.

People are saying we can't have the image filter because it would stop
us being neutral. If we aren't neutral to begin with, this is a bad
argument. It doesn't mean we *should* have the image filter, but it
does mean we need to think some more about the reasons for or against
it.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk