Hi Kerry, Sad as it is to be the bearer of dispiriting news...
A proposal more or less similar to this was made by the Board in 2011 (some kind of image filtering on a user-selected basis) - http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Controversial_content The debate about whether (and/or how) to implement it was pretty vicious, pretty angry, and went on for the best part of a year. A September 2011 community poll gave interestingly mixed results - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-09-05/News_and_notes and the development of any software was suspended pending further discussion. In mid-2012, the Board then formally rescinded the "develop a filter system" request - http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:_Personal_Image_Hiding_Feature - and it has more or less been dead in the water since then. There's been no significant attempt to revive it, but I think this is in part because the wounds are still fresh - I think were it to be reopened now you'd get much the same result, a lot of heat which eventually stalls. It's worth noting that a very small-scale version of this is in use for some wikis - it's been pointed out that some sexual topics on Arabic Wikipedia have a "click to expand" field which conceals an image - but this is pretty rare and done on a page-by-page, not image-by-image, basis; it also has no user-level customisability. Andrew. On 24 July 2014 02:51, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raym...@gmail.com> wrote: > I agree that offensiveness is in the eye of the beholder. And while there > may be all manner of very niche groups who find strange things > offensiveness, maybe some people object to seeing refrigerators or reading > about cakes, nonetheless we know that there are a lot of widespread > categories of offensiveness that generate the bulk of discussions about the > inclusion of items on Wikipedia or Commons. > > > > What we could do is to have to some system of classification (like the > movies) for articles, images, and/or categories indicating that they are > potentially offensive for various reasons. Perhaps along similar lines to > the “content advisories” in IMDB, e.g. > > > > http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295297/parentalguide?ref_=tt_stry_pg > > > > People could then put in their profiles that all classifications are > acceptable or them or that these are the classifications they don’t want to > see (e.g. Sex and Nudity, Gore and Violence, Profanity, etc – obviously our > classifications might not be identical to IMDB as we are dealing with > different kinds of content but you get the idea). When that person searches > Wikipedia or Commons, then those articles, images and categories that they > would find offensive are not returned. When a person reads an article > containing an offensive-to-them categorised image, it is simply not > displayed or some image saying “Suppressed at your request (Sex and > Nudity)”. We could possibly bundle such these finer classifications into > common collections, e.g. Inappropriate for Children, Suitable for Muslims, > or whatever, so for many people it’s a simple tick-one-box. > > > > For anonymous users or users who have not explicitly set their preferences, > rendering of an article or image could first ask “This article/image has > been tagged as potentially offensive for SuchAndSuch reason, click OK to > confirm you want to view it”. If they are a logged-in user, it could also > offer a link to set their preferences for future use. > > > > I note that movies are often made with variants for different countries. > Sometimes that’s simply a matter of being dubbed into another language but > it can also include the deletion (or replacement) of certain scenes or > language that would be offensive in those countries. So it is not as if we > are reinventing the wheel here, just customising it to Wikipedia. > > > > Kerry > > > > ________________________________ > > From: gendergap-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org > [mailto:gendergap-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Kaldari > Sent: Thursday, 24 July 2014 7:11 AM > To: Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the > participationof women within Wikimedia projects. > Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Sexualized environment on Commons > > > > Personally, I don't think it's worth having a discussion here about the > merits of deleting these images. There's no chance in hell they are going to > be deleted from Commons. What I'm more interested in is the locker-room > nature of the discussions and how/if this can be addressed, as I think that > is actually more likely to dissuade female contributors than the images > themselves. > > Ryan Kaldari > > > > On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 2:01 PM, Pete Forsyth <petefors...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Ryan, thanks for bringing this up for discussion. I've put a lot of thought > into the series of photos this comes from over the years, and it's well > worth some discussion. I'd like to hear what others think about this. Here > is a link to the category for the larger collection; warning, there's lots > of nudity and sexual objectification here, so don't click if you don't want > to see that: > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Nude_portrayals_of_computer_technology > > First, I agree with Ryan that in the (various) deletion discussions I've > seen around this and similar topics, there is often a toxic level of > childish and offensive comments. I think that's a significant problem, and I > don't know what can be done to improve it. Scolding people in those > discussions often a backfires, and serves only to amplify the offensive > commentary. But silence can imply tacit consent. How should one participate > in the discussion, promoting an outcome one believes in, without > contributing to or enabling the toxic nature of the discourse? I think I've > done a decent job of walking that line in similar discussions, but I'm sure > there's a lot of room for better approaches. I would love to hear what has > worked for others, here and/or privately. > > > > Also, my initial reaction to these images is that they are inherently > offensive; my gut reaction is to keep them off Commons. > > > > But after thinking it through and reading through a number of deletion > discussions, the conclusion I've come to (at least so far) is that the > decision to keep them (in spite of the childish and offensive commentary > along the way) is the right decision. These strike me as the important > points: > > * We have a collection of more than 20 million images, intended to support a > wide diversity of educational projects. Among those 20 million files are a > great many that would be offensive to some audience. (For instance, if I > understand correctly, *all images portraying people* are offensive to at > least some devout Muslims.) > * Were these images originally intended to promote objectification of women? > To support insightful commentary on objectification of women? Something > else? I can't see into the minds of their creators, but I *can* imagine them > being put to all kinds of uses, some of which would be worthwhile. The > intent of the photographer and models, I've come to believe, is not relevant > to the decision. (apart from the basic issue of consent in the next bullet > point:) > > * Unlike many images on Commons, I see no reason to doubt that these were > produced by consenting adults, and intended for public distribution. > > If they are to be deleted, what is the principle under which we would delete > them? To me, that's the key question. If it's simply the fact that we as > individuals find them offensive, I don't think that's sufficient. If it's > out of a belief that they inherently cause more harm than good, I think the > reasons for that would need to be fleshed out before they could be > persuasive. > > Art is often meant to be provocative, to challenge our assumptions and > sensibilities, to prompt discussion. We host a lot of art on Commons. On > what basis would we delete these, but keep other controversial works of art? > Of course it would be terrible to use these in, for instance, a Wikipedia > article about HTML syntax. But overall, does it cause harm to simply have > them exist in an image repository? My own conclusion with regard to this > photo series is that the net value of maintaining a large and diverse > collection of media, without endorsing its contents per se., outweighs other > considerations. > > > > (For anybody interested in the deletion process on Commons, the kinds of > things that are deliberated, and the way the discussions go, you might be > interested in my related blog post from a couple months ago: > http://wikistrategies.net/wikimedia-commons-is-far-from-ethically-broken/ ) > > > > -Pete > > [[User:Peteforsyth]] > > > > > > On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 1:03 PM, Ryan Kaldari <rkald...@wikimedia.org> > wrote: > > If anyone ever needs a good example of the locker-room environment on > Wikimedia Commons, I just came across this old deletion discussion: > > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Radio_button_and_female_nude.jpg > > The last two keep votes are especially interesting. One need look no farther > than the current Main Page talk page for more of the same (search for > "premature ejaculation"). > > Kaldari > > > > _______________________________________________ > Gendergap mailing list > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Gendergap mailing list > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Gendergap mailing list > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap > -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
