[Foundation-l] Image filter

[Tobias Oelgarte]

Am 23.09.2011 14:03, schrieb me at marcusbuck.org:
> After some thinking I come to the conclusion that this whole
> discussion is a social phenomenon.
>
> You probably know how some topics when mentioned in newspaper articles
> or blogs spur wild arguments in the comments sections. When the
> article mentions climate change commentators contest the validity of
> the collected data, if it mentions religions commentators argue that
> religion is the root of all evil in the world, if it is about
> immigration commentators start to rant how immigrants cause trouble in
> society, if it is about renewable energies commentators tell us how
> blind society is to believe in its ecologicalness.
>
> It's always the same pattern: the topic is perceived well in the
> general society (most sane people think that climate change is real,
> that renewable energies are the way to go, that religious freedom is
> good and that most immigrants are people as everybody else who do no
> harm), but a small or not so small minority experiences these
> attitudes as a problem and tries to raise awareness to the problems of
> the trend (usually exaggerating them). The scepticists give their
> arguments and the non-scepticists answer them.
>
> The non-scepticists usually have not much motivation to present their
> arguments (because their position is already the mainstream, so not
> much incentive to convince more people, just trying to not let the
> scepticists' opinions stand unwithspoken) while the scepticists have
> much motivation to present their arguments (if they don't society will
> presumedly face perdition). This difference in the motivation leads to
> a situation where both groups produce a similar content output leading
> to the semblence that both groups represent equal shares of society.
>
> I think the same is happening here. The majority of people probably
> think that an optional opt-in filter is a thing that does no harm to
> non-users and has advantages for those who choose to use it. (Ask your
> gramma whether "You can hide pictures if you don't want to see them"
> sounds like a threatening thing to her.) But the scepticists voice
> their opinions loudly and point out every single imaginable problem.
>
> I just want to point out that an idea like a free community-driven
> everybody-can-edit-it encyclopedia with no editorial or peer-review
> process would never have been created if a long discussion would have
> preceded its creation. The scepticists would have raised so many
> seemingly valid concerns that they'd buried the idea deep. I'm feeling
> that a group of worst-case scenarioists are leading the discussion to
> a point where the image filter is buried just because everybody is
> bored about the discussion.
>
> Marcus Buck
> User:Slomox
>
> PS: Please don't understand this as a longish version of "You guys
> opposing my opinion are trolls!". I don't think that the points raised
> by scepticists should be neglected. But I think that many people
> reject the image filter because of very theoretical concerns for the
> sake of it completely removed from pragmatical reasons and that the
> length of the discussion is in no way indicative of the real
> problematicness of the topic.
>
>
>
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I agree with that. But i also have to mention that we have same 
repeating patterns in the claims that we would need a filter, because 
there is a huge mass of users demanding it. Actually i don't see this 
mass of users in all samples that i have taken over time. Even in 
theoretical support that there are much more complains then actually are 
written down at the discussion pages, it's still below 1% or less. Thats 
make me think that the arguments for the introduction of a filter are 
already based on a loud minority view.