[Wikimedia-l] Who invoked "principle of least surprise" for the image filter?

[Tobias Oelgarte]

Am 18.06.2012 15:06, schrieb Thomas Morton:
>>
>>>   It is not convincing since it interferes with the work of our editors
>> that aren't interested in such a feature.
>
> Seems unlikely. Although please feel to expand on this with specifics.
Any tagging by non neutral definitions would interfere with project. 
It's like to create categories named "bad images", "uninteresting 
topics" or "not for ethnic minority X".
>> If we tag images inside the project itself then we impose our judgment
>> onto it, while ignoring or separating it from the context it is used in.
>
> And yet you allow that we use editorial judgement in articles. This is no
> different, it gives a further tool for editorial decisions to be made.
Editorial judgment is based on how to wrap up a topic a nice way without 
making an own judgment about the topic. A hard job to do, but that is 
the goal.

If i would write the article "pornography" then i would have to think 
about what should be mentioned inside this article because it is 
important and which parts are not relevant enough or should be but in 
separate sections to elaborate them in further detail. This is entirely 
different to say "pornography is good or evil" or "this pornographic 
practice is good or evil and thats why it should be mentioned or excluded".

There is a difference between the relevance of a topic and the attitude 
toward a topic. The whole image filter idea is based on the latter and 
not to be confused with editorial judgment.
>> The first proposal (referendum) mentioned various tagging
>> options/categories that would have to be maintained by the community,
>> despite existing and huge backlogs.
>
>   A reasonable argument; but almost everything adds to our backlog anyway.
I would have nothing against additional work if i would see the 
benefits. But in this case i see some good points and i also see list of 
bad points. At best it might be a very tiny improvement which comes 
along with a huge load of additional work while other parts could be 
improved with little extra work and be a true improvement. If we had 
nothing better to do then i would say "yes lets try it". But at the 
moment it is a plain "No, other things have to come first".

> Additionally we are a multi culture project with quite different view
>> points and which accepts different view points (main difference between
>> Flickr and Co).
>
> This is an argument for an opt-in filter.
Don't confuse opt-in and opt-out if a filter is implemented on an 
external platform. There is no opt-in or opt-out for Wikipedia as long 
the WP isn't blocked and the filter is the only access to Wikipedia. 
<contains some irony>We have the long story that parents want their 
children to visit Wikipedia without coming across controversial content, 
which they apparently do everytime they search for something entirely 
unrelated.</contains some irony> In this case an opt-in (to view) filter 
makes actually sense. Otherwise it doesn't.
>> The result will be huge amount of discussions about whether to tag an
>> image or not.
>
> Not if well designed. And at the moment we have big discussions about
> whether to include images or not.
We have such discussions. But I'm afraid that most of them do not circle 
around the benefits of the image for the article, but the latter part 
that i mentioned above (editorial judgment vs attitude judgment).

Believe me or believe me not. If we introduce such tagging then the 
discussions will only be about personal attitude towards an image, 
ignoring the context, it's educational benefits entirely.
>> This leads me to the simple conclusion that it isn't worth the effort,
>> especially if the filter is advertised to make Wikipedia a save place for
>> children, while everyone (including children) can disable it at any time.
>>
> "Think of the children" is not really an argument I ascribe to. And not
> really one other proponents of the filter, by my observation, ascribe to
> either.
>
> It mostly seems to be brought up by opponents to try and invalidate
> arguments.
I don't think that we need this argument since the filter can't replace 
parents anyway. But it is a constant part of the discussions with 
various exaggerated examples that can be seen in bold at Jimmys talk 
page even right at this moment. For example:

"Wikipedia helps me teach my children about the world in a safe, clean 
and trustworthy manner. Free from bias, banter, commercial interests and 
risky content."[1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#UK_law
>> Separate projects that only focus on one task (providing a whitelisted
>> view, an automatically updated subset of Wikipedia) would not be a burden
>> for the community or at least for everyone not interested in or against
>> filtering. Additionally it could define it's own strict rules and could
>> even hide images and articles entirely depending on it's goal.
>>
> Please note we define community in significantly different ways. My
> "community" includes a minority, us, who edit and maintain the project. And
> also the vast majority who merely read and use the project.
>
> Our goal as maintainers for this main community should be:
> * Maximise the ability of individuals to access content by...
> * Minimising the road blocks (social, political, etc.) to accessing content
>
> A significant portion of the filter discussion is predicated on our
> internal prejudices and POV - basically navel gazing - with a wide
> rejection of the idea that a multi-cultural society exists.
>
> A non-WMF filtering project would not be useful to our community due to the
> chicken/egg seeding problem.
It is a chicken/egg problem. One part of our community (including 
readers) dislikes tagging/filtering and sees it as (or the tool for) the 
creation of road blocks that don't exist at the moment. A second part of 
our community wants it to be more conservative in fear that it might the 
deciding factor that could create road blocks. I already mentioned it 
above in the "benefits vs effort" section.