On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 6:35 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Pete, > > <snip> > > Yet now, faced with those "horrible" things that happen "on our site all > the time", and which come up time and again in gender gap discussions, you > want to send us bird-watching and tell us about all the great things > Commons does. > > Shame on you. > Andreas, although I have no *personal* obligation to do so, I fully intend to continue working on these complex problems, much as I have been for a couple of years. The first step, in my view, is to develop a thorough understanding of how things are, while resisting the urge to resort to sweeping generalizations and finger-pointing. I invite you to join me. > Oliver said a very stupid thing. > If it appears my previous message was addressed to any one specific person -- it was not. It was intended to address the oft-repeated claim that "Commons is broken," (or variants on that which cast a negative light on volunteer contributors to Commons) which a number of different people have said here and in other conversations. Your seizing on it to deflect from the fact that the spirit and letter of > the board resolution are routinely ignored in Commons looks like a devious > gambit that presents us with a wonderful opportunity to distinguish those > who pay mere lip service to the idea of putting those "horrible" things > right from those who actually want to. > My position on the board resolution is basically that it was well-intentioned but not useful. I do not know whether or not this was the intent, but the phrasing of the resolution has nothing to say about nudity or anything related. If the board's intent was to have portraits of authors sitting at their desks, and the like, deleted in the absence of an explicit consent form of some kind, then the resolution is probably fine; but I sort of hope that's not what they meant to do. Drawing these lines is a thorny problem that, frustrating though it is, does not have an obvious solution I can see. As I have said before, I am happy to work with you or anyone on drafting a better policy. (I realize you offered a two word edit, but in my view this is not a substantive effort to engage with the problem, so it doesn't merit much pursuit. Still, I appreciate your making that effort.) As for the greatness of Commons' expertise in intellectual property law, > <snip> tl;dr > So much for Commons' intellectual property expertise. Yes, Commons may > have lots of information on freedom of panorama in countries all around the > world, most of which may be accurate, but what good does it do if the site > is riddled with copyright violations. > You know what other sites are "riddled with copyright violations"? YouTube, Flickr, Facebook. None of those sites have a community of people working to keep copyright violations off; Commons does. They're not perfect, but they are an asset. Meanwhile, I have worked toward the deletion of, I'd guess, about 20 possible copyright violations on Commons in the last week or so. Just one of many examples: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Mary-williams.jpg How many have you reviewed? > Keep watching the birds. They're beautiful. > Indeed, aren't they? Try clicking the "Random file" button in the lefthand nav, and see how long it takes you to get to some kind of nudity or sexuality etc. I've done so hundreds of times in the last year or two, and have yet to find a file that struck me as potentially offensive. Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
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