Re: [Foundation-l] Minors and sexual explicit stuff
On 16/11/2009, at 1:04 AM, private musings wrote: Hi all, On Wikipedia Review, 'tarantino' pointed out that on WMF projects, self-identified minors (in this case User:Juliancolton) are involved in routine maintenance stuff around sexually explicit images reasonably describable as porn (one example is 'Masturbating Amy.jpg'). http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=27358st=0p=204846#entry2048 46 I think this is wrong on a number of levels - and I'd like to see better governance from the foundation in this area - I really feel that we need to talk about some child protection measures in some way - they're overdue. I'd really like to see the advisory board take a look at this issue - is there a formal way of suggesting or requesting their thoughts, or could I just ask here for a board member or community member with the advisory board's ear to raise this with them. on 11/17/09 5:37 AM, Andrew Garrett at agarr...@wikimedia.org wrote: You just won't give up this topic, will you? I'm not sure where you get the idea that it's somehow inappropriate for minors to be viewing or working on images depicting human nudity and sexuality. Cultural sensibilities on this matter are inconsistent, irrational and entirely lacking in substance. I'm also unsure how you propose to define sexually explicit. The definitions under law are elaborate, attempting to make distinctions that would be irrelevant to any negative impact on children, if one existed. Are images of the statue of David, the Mannekin Pis or the Ecstacy of Theresa deserving of such restrictions? What about the detailed frescoes of sexual acts displayed in brothels and living rooms in ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum? How are those distinct from the image you've used as an example, and how is that distinction relevant to whatever supposed harm you are claiming to children? If it is truly inappropriate or harmful for children to be working on such images, then those children should be supervised in their internet access, or have gained the trust of their parents to use the internet within whatever limits those parents (or, indeed, the minor) believe is appropriate. It is absolutely not the job of the Wikimedia Foundation, nor the Wikimedia community, to supervise a child's internet access and/or usage, and certainly not to make arbitrary rules regarding said usage on the basis of a single culture's sensibilities on children and sexuality, especially sensibilities as baseless and harmful as this one. -- Andrew Garrett Yes. Very well said, Andrew. Marc Riddell, Ph.D. Clinical Psychology/Psychotherapy ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Minors and sexual explicit stuff
Even though I do agree to some extent with you, Andrew, I would like to make a remark. You correctly state that the cultural sensibilities differ over the world on this topic. However, this does not excuse for calling the sensibilities irrational and lacking in substance (inconsistent is fair enough). Clearly, you belong to the group of people who do not have a problem at all with these images, and PM belongs to the group of people that has huge problems with them. The mere fact that you two disagree should not lead to the conclusion we should not think about a way of taking away the problem for the people in side of the spectrum where PM is located. I think you could lay a comparison between people having significant problems with these images and therefore are not able (or less able) to access Wikipedia with people who have technical issues because they do not want to download a piece of propitiatory software. We care a lot about the latter group, why abolish even the idea of caring about the first? Because we do not belong to it? Some people do indeed think that ancient pornography should be hidden as well by the way, although I do get your point. Sometimes there is clearly an educational purpuse involved, and the images add value. Now let it be clear I do not vouch at all for getting rid of the images, or any free content. However, if that would suit a significant group of people, we could consider to make them a little less prominently accessible. Please speak up if the following procedure would make no sense at all to you: 0) think about whether we want (if it exists) to help reduce this group of people with siginificant problems in the first place. 1) research / find research on how large the group of people is that have significant problems with this issue (I define significant here as having the impact that because of this, they will visit Wikipedia less frequently or not at all) 2) consider which approaches would be possible 3) research which of these approached would be help to decrease the group of people having significant problems with this issue 4) consider whether this has any negative impact for the people not having these significant problems 5) balance these advantages/disadvantages lets not jump to 5) immediately. To get to the original question of PM, I am not sure actually whether the advisory board would have people on it who would be helpful on this specific topic. Angela, could you advise on this? Perhaps this topic could, however, better be approached through the often named Strategy Process. Philippe, do you have a suggestion how this can be incorporated? Thanks, Lodewijk 2009/11/17 Andrew Garrett agarr...@wikimedia.org: On 16/11/2009, at 1:04 AM, private musings wrote: Hi all, On Wikipedia Review, 'tarantino' pointed out that on WMF projects, self-identified minors (in this case User:Juliancolton) are involved in routine maintenance stuff around sexually explicit images reasonably describable as porn (one example is 'Masturbating Amy.jpg'). http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=27358st=0p=204846#entry204846 I think this is wrong on a number of levels - and I'd like to see better governance from the foundation in this area - I really feel that we need to talk about some child protection measures in some way - they're overdue. I'd really like to see the advisory board take a look at this issue - is there a formal way of suggesting or requesting their thoughts, or could I just ask here for a board member or community member with the advisory board's ear to raise this with them. You just won't give up this topic, will you? I'm not sure where you get the idea that it's somehow inappropriate for minors to be viewing or working on images depicting human nudity and sexuality. Cultural sensibilities on this matter are inconsistent, irrational and entirely lacking in substance. I'm also unsure how you propose to define sexually explicit. The definitions under law are elaborate, attempting to make distinctions that would be irrelevant to any negative impact on children, if one existed. Are images of the statue of David, the Mannekin Pis or the Ecstacy of Theresa deserving of such restrictions? What about the detailed frescoes of sexual acts displayed in brothels and living rooms in ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum? How are those distinct from the image you've used as an example, and how is that distinction relevant to whatever supposed harm you are claiming to children? If it is truly inappropriate or harmful for children to be working on such images, then those children should be supervised in their internet access, or have gained the trust of their parents to use the internet within whatever limits those parents (or, indeed, the minor) believe is appropriate. It is absolutely not the job of the Wikimedia Foundation, nor the Wikimedia community, to supervise a child's internet access and/or usage, and certainly not
Re: [Foundation-l] Minors and sexual explicit stuff
The New York City public library system--and I would imagine most municipal library systems in general--is filled with underage interns (or pages, or whatever they're called now) who play a not insignificant role in curating collections that contain material every bit as explicit as those examples given here, including computers, which offer unrestricted access to the breadth of the internet, which contains material very, very much more explicit than the examples given here. And libraries are not age-segregated or censored in the manner you describe here. Wikipedia is an educational endeavor, not the MPAA, and the constant re-flourishing of this topic under varying guises, particularly when the consensus of community standards on things like pearl necklace, Virgin Killer c c have been demonstrated time and again, by the same old hands quite frankly makes this list a chore to read. FMF On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 8:58 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.comwrote: Hoi, Thank you effe for your analysis. I do agree that this can be considered something that some people feel strongly about and, also as something that would entice certain groups of people to use Wikipedia more freely. Growing our community or readers and editors is a priority. The problem is that while private musing is quite outspoken about the priority for his concern, we can spend effort on one issue at a time and while I sympathise, I would not give it priority because I favour effort on the issue that has my concern. As long as our imagery is serchable, usable only for people who speak English I think that this trumps the strategic value of prudery. When for either of the two issues a solution is to be found, there will be a need for substantial investment of resources. There is no obvious and sensible solution that will be accepted for the cncern of private musing. It will even be hard to come up with an acceptable default position, more likely is different default positions that can be chosen by communities. It is even questionable that such positions can be found; I expect that the best that can be had is a bad compromise for everyone. Multi lingual support is easy; either you wish for it or you don't there is no half way house, the good thing is, the ability for search in other languages will not detract from the ability to search in English.. We do not have even a glimmer of what can be technically done to address private musings concerns and we do not know what would be acceptable by our communities. So let us work on the technical aspects of multi lingual support and divine a workable compromise for imagery that show people in the flesh and as biological entities at the same time. Once we have multi lingual support sorted out and grown our audience even further, we may have something that we can do that is practical and will have some support. Thanks, GerardM 2009/11/17 effe iets anders effeietsand...@gmail.com Even though I do agree to some extent with you, Andrew, I would like to make a remark. You correctly state that the cultural sensibilities differ over the world on this topic. However, this does not excuse for calling the sensibilities irrational and lacking in substance (inconsistent is fair enough). Clearly, you belong to the group of people who do not have a problem at all with these images, and PM belongs to the group of people that has huge problems with them. The mere fact that you two disagree should not lead to the conclusion we should not think about a way of taking away the problem for the people in side of the spectrum where PM is located. I think you could lay a comparison between people having significant problems with these images and therefore are not able (or less able) to access Wikipedia with people who have technical issues because they do not want to download a piece of propitiatory software. We care a lot about the latter group, why abolish even the idea of caring about the first? Because we do not belong to it? Some people do indeed think that ancient pornography should be hidden as well by the way, although I do get your point. Sometimes there is clearly an educational purpuse involved, and the images add value. Now let it be clear I do not vouch at all for getting rid of the images, or any free content. However, if that would suit a significant group of people, we could consider to make them a little less prominently accessible. Please speak up if the following procedure would make no sense at all to you: 0) think about whether we want (if it exists) to help reduce this group of people with siginificant problems in the first place. 1) research / find research on how large the group of people is that have significant problems with this issue (I define significant here as having the impact that because of this, they will visit Wikipedia less frequently or not at all) 2)
Re: [Foundation-l] Everything okay?
On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 10:40 PM, Dennis During dcdur...@gmail.com wrote: I'm guessing that the habit has been broken. It will probably come back. I think you're right, particularly given that foundation-l was closed for nearly a week. Participants have been posting to other lists, or keeping discussion on Meta or Wikipedia instead. That said, I would hope that no one is scared of posting here, and if you are, I hope you'll contact either myself or Austin and tell us why. -- [[User:Ral315]] ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Everything okay?
On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 10:37 PM, Mark Williamson node...@gmail.com wrote: Half a day? Is that really so bad? I would be worried if there were no posts for a week. Obviously there isn't as much traffic as before but I would personally wait longer before sending out e-mails asking why there are no messages. Yeah, I don't see that anything has changed. This list has always has periods of low activity and periods of very high activity. The latter might be going away, but it's too soon to tell. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Minors and sexual explicit stuff
Here is a good example of what can happen when we set free those children who have gained the trust of their parents to use the internet within whatever limits those parents (or, indeed, the minor) believe is appropriate: http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/200907/wisconsin-high-school-sex-scandal-online-facebook?currentPage=all So, if that's too long for you to read and consider the implications, there's always this Wikimedia image that has received nearly 2,000 page views this month: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cock_and_Ball_Torture.jpg Or, there's this one that has captured the attention of over 2,000 visitors this month: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Estim_penis.jpg I have trouble understanding how these images help that girl in Africa emerge from the abject poverty that surrounds her, but I'll trust you guys (we're all adults here, right?) that you're helping to fulfill that mission with publication of images like these, with little to no concern whether there are minors consuming them. Gregory Kohs ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Everything okay?
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 9:21 AM, Ryan Lomonaco wiki.ral...@gmail.com wrote: That said, I would hope that no one is scared of posting here, and if you are, I hope you'll contact either myself or Austin and tell us why. The difference between fear and respect is what? Whether or not you agree with the person in charge? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Everything okay?
2009/11/17 Ryan Lomonaco wiki.ral...@gmail.com That said, I would hope that no one is scared of posting here, and if you are, I hope you'll contact either myself or Austin and tell us why. I hope so too, but I would understand why they wouldn't say so. People might be nervous, scared or simply confused - in which cases they'd be less likely to speak up than if they were angry. Fact of (online?) life, folks! Therefore, this might be a good time to clarify what this list is for, and what kinds of things are not considered appropriate or productive. Currently, we have a single sentence on [[m:Mailing list]] [1] about maintaining wikiquette and avoiding personal attacks - and nothing on the foundation-l info page [2]. This could be essentially refactoring what's on the Improving foundation-l page [3]; but in any case, guidelines should be explicit somewhere to both discourage what we don't want, and to encourage what we do - thereby hopefully reassuring people that we *do* value diverse input. Cormac [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list [2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] strategy office hours today
Hi everyone, It's that time again. Strategic Planning office hours are today, November 18, from 20:00-21:00 UTC, which is: 12-1pm PST, 3pm-4pm EST. We meet in #wikimedia-strategy on the freenode network. You can access the chat by going to https://webchat.freenode.net/ and filling in a username and the channel name (#wikimedia-strategy). You may be prompted to click through a security warning. It's fine. Another option is http://chat.wikizine.org. For more information about IRC clients, go to the Wikipedia entry on IRC or the Meta page on Wikimedia IRC. Hope to see you there! =Eugene -- == Eugene Eric Kim http://xri.net/=eekim Blue Oxen Associates http://www.blueoxen.com/ == ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] strategy office hours today
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 5:07 PM, Eugene Eric Kim ee...@blueoxen.com wrote: Hi everyone, It's that time again. Strategic Planning office hours are today, November 18, from 20:00-21:00 UTC, which is: 12-1pm PST, 3pm-4pm EST. Um, today's the 17th. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Minors and sexual explicit stuff
It is absolutely not the job of the Wikimedia Foundation, nor the Wikimedia community, to supervise a child's internet access and/or usage Frankly, I dont think that is what I read in PMs post which started this discussion. In many countries it is the responsibility of parents for their childs behaviour, inlcuding their behavious on internet. However, also in many countries it is the responsibility of volunteer organizations to that under age volunteers do while they are active as a volunteer for that organization. In that respect Wikimedia foundation may be held responsible for what minors during their vi\olunteer acticvities for wikimedia do and see. Viewn as such, it might indeed be a responsibility for the foundation, and not for an individual wiki. i wish you health and happiness, teun spaans On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Andrew Garrett agarr...@wikimedia.orgwrote: On 16/11/2009, at 1:04 AM, private musings wrote: Hi all, On Wikipedia Review, 'tarantino' pointed out that on WMF projects, self-identified minors (in this case User:Juliancolton) are involved in routine maintenance stuff around sexually explicit images reasonably describable as porn (one example is 'Masturbating Amy.jpg'). http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=27358st=0p=204846#entry204846 I think this is wrong on a number of levels - and I'd like to see better governance from the foundation in this area - I really feel that we need to talk about some child protection measures in some way - they're overdue. I'd really like to see the advisory board take a look at this issue - is there a formal way of suggesting or requesting their thoughts, or could I just ask here for a board member or community member with the advisory board's ear to raise this with them. You just won't give up this topic, will you? I'm not sure where you get the idea that it's somehow inappropriate for minors to be viewing or working on images depicting human nudity and sexuality. Cultural sensibilities on this matter are inconsistent, irrational and entirely lacking in substance. I'm also unsure how you propose to define sexually explicit. The definitions under law are elaborate, attempting to make distinctions that would be irrelevant to any negative impact on children, if one existed. Are images of the statue of David, the Mannekin Pis or the Ecstacy of Theresa deserving of such restrictions? What about the detailed frescoes of sexual acts displayed in brothels and living rooms in ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum? How are those distinct from the image you've used as an example, and how is that distinction relevant to whatever supposed harm you are claiming to children? If it is truly inappropriate or harmful for children to be working on such images, then those children should be supervised in their internet access, or have gained the trust of their parents to use the internet within whatever limits those parents (or, indeed, the minor) believe is appropriate. It is absolutely not the job of the Wikimedia Foundation, nor the Wikimedia community, to supervise a child's internet access and/or usage, and certainly not to make arbitrary rules regarding said usage on the basis of a single culture's sensibilities on children and sexuality, especially sensibilities as baseless and harmful as this one. -- Andrew Garrett agarr...@wikimedia.org http://werdn.us/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] strategy office hours today
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 05:16:23PM +, Bod Notbod wrote: On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 5:07 PM, Eugene Eric Kim ee...@blueoxen.com wrote: Hi everyone, It's that time again. Strategic Planning office hours are today, November 18, from 20:00-21:00 UTC, which is: 12-1pm PST, 3pm-4pm EST. Um, today's the 17th. Maybe they're going on US time? -- Regards, Isabell Long isabell...@gmail.com [[User:Isabell121]] on all public Wikimedia projects Freenode Community Co-Ordinator - issyl0 on irc.freenode.net PGP Key ID: 0xEB83C2BD signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Minors and sexual explicit stuff
2009/11/17 Anthony wikim...@inbox.org: On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 10:04 AM, David Moran fordmadoxfr...@gmail.com wrote: It is correspondingly true that there are many people who would more comfortably use, or let their children use, regular brick and mortar libraries if they could be sure that certain material had been removed from the building. But typically libraries do not cater to people who ask that offensive books be removed, and I don't see any reason why Wikipedia is different. I'm not sure what your library is like, but the situation at my library is much more controlled than the one at Wikipedia. Yes, there's offensive material in it, and some of the offensive material is in places where children have access, but it's nothing even remotely approaching what's found in Wikipedia - in terms of how graphic the material is, in terms of how easily accessible it is to minors, in terms of the chances of encountering it accidentally, and in terms of the use of children to decide whether or not to keep it. You never flicked through the photography or modern art section. Sure my library didn't have any of Robert Mapplethorpe's work but it had some fairly explicit stuff. That said I think the winner in that sense was one of the art books my school held. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] strategy office hours today
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 5:40 PM, Isabell Long isabell...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone, It's that time again. Strategic Planning office hours are today, November 18, from 20:00-21:00 UTC, which is: 12-1pm PST, 3pm-4pm EST. Um, today's the 17th. Maybe they're going on US time? By my calculations, which admittedly are far from infallible, that would make no difference. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Minors and sexual explicit stuff
If anybody wants censored encyclopedia there is a very easy way how to obtain it: 1) Take a copy of Wikipedia's database. 2) Use it at your own Mediawiki server. 3) Censor whatever you want. 4) Never ever bother others with your hobbies. This solution of your problem is completely legal and free of charge. Enjoy. Jiri signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] strategy office hours today
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 9:16 AM, Bod Notbod bodnot...@gmail.com wrote: It's that time again. Strategic Planning office hours are today, November 18, from 20:00-21:00 UTC, which is: 12-1pm PST, 3pm-4pm EST. Um, today's the 17th. Sorry about the typo, everyone. Office hours was indeed today. Thanks to all who came, and sorry to those who thought it was tomorrow. The correct office hours are always posted on the wiki at: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours Thanks. =Eugene -- == Eugene Eric Kim http://xri.net/=eekim Blue Oxen Associates http://www.blueoxen.com/ == ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Minors and sexual explicit stuff
One point that the apologists seem to be missing is that the Wikimedia Foundation assumes and expects that sometimes minors have administrator rights on the Wikimedia projects. This then gives them the responsibility of deciding what is suitable content or not for the project. Likewise, the Foundation seems to assume and expect that there will be some risk of the child interacting on very serious issues with grown adults whose agenda may indeed be to exploit the minor. But, the response is... Go fork yourself a new wiki, if you don't like it. And the Foundation powers that be wonder why critics sometimes skip to more dramatic forms of protest, without going through the proper channels. Jimmy Wales can probably tell you about this very phenomenon when I didn't go through proper channels to advocate against his company hosting a Spanking Art Wikia site, complete with photos and drawings of young girls in pigtails being showcased in a highly exploitative and abusive setting. Wikia wanted more time to try to work things out with the creators of that environment, while I preferred that it be taken down in 48 hours, regardless of conversations with the creators. Oh well, I guess I'll just go make myself my own wiki. I'm working on an article about Consumer economy, if anyone is interested in helping out and earning $15: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Talk:Consumer_economy Greg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Office hours next Thursday, November 19
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hello all! Next Thursday's office hours will feature Véronique Kessler, the Foundation's Chief Financial Officer. If you don't know Naoko, you can get to know her at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/V%C3%A9ronique_Kessler. Office hours on Thursday are from 2100 to 2200 UTC (3:00 PM - 4:00 PM PDT). If you do not have an IRC client, there are two ways you can come chat using a web browser: First is using the Wikizine chat gateway at http://chatwikizine.memebot.com/cgi-bin/cgiirc/irc.cgi. Type a nickname, select irc.freenode.net from the top menu and #wikimedia-office from the following menu, then login to join. Also, you can access Freenode by going to http://webchat.freenode.net/, typing in the nickname of your choice and choosing wikimedia-office as the channel. You may be prompted to click through a security warning. It should be all right. Please feel free to forward (and translate!) this email to any other relevant email lists you happen to be on. Also note, this is Veronique's first foray into IRC, so lets show her how welcoming we can be! :-) - -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAksDQcwACgkQyQg4JSymDYl+wACcCsTgIUtThC4agEUwC9533olx 61cAn1titMJqMmNt4GESgoQ9U5sQMFM7 =1DvA -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Office hours next Thursday, November 19
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Cary Bass wrote: Hello all! Next Thursday's office hours will feature Véronique Kessler, the Foundation's Chief Financial Officer. If you don't know Naoko, you can get to know her at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/V%C3%A9ronique_Kessler. delete Naoko insert Véronique *blush* - -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAksDQosACgkQyQg4JSymDYk9AgCgoaQ/4BT7OsT/gkjt333D2Fa0 bdIAoKLFjqVqZNsHlUpPcpzG+X4MeGg/ =ZXON -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Minors and sexual explicit stuff
Andrew Garrett wrote: On 16/11/2009, at 1:04 AM, private musings wrote: On Wikipedia Review, 'tarantino' pointed out that on WMF projects, self-identified minors (in this case User:Juliancolton) are involved in routine maintenance stuff around sexually explicit images reasonably describable as porn (one example is 'Masturbating Amy.jpg'). http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=27358st=0p=204846#entry204846 I think this is wrong on a number of levels - and I'd like to see better governance from the foundation in this area - I really feel that we need to talk about some child protection measures in some way - they're overdue. I'm not sure where you get the idea that it's somehow inappropriate for minors to be viewing or working on images depicting human nudity and sexuality. Cultural sensibilities on this matter are inconsistent, irrational and entirely lacking in substance. If it is truly inappropriate or harmful for children to be working on such images, then those children should be supervised in their internet access, or have gained the trust of their parents to use the internet within whatever limits those parents (or, indeed, the minor) believe is appropriate. It is absolutely not the job of the Wikimedia Foundation, nor the Wikimedia community, to supervise a child's internet access and/or usage, and certainly not to make arbitrary rules regarding said usage on the basis of a single culture's sensibilities on children and sexuality, especially sensibilities as baseless and harmful as this one. I agree that a common sense approach is warranted. In large measure applying complex controls on child viewing is totally unrealistic. We would begin with the problem of defining what is too young. In an other topic, underage drinking, it is relatively far easier to define the offending act but the age at which drinking is permitted still varies widely from one jurisdiction to another. So what age is appropriate for viewing such material? 12? 16? 18? 21? And even if we agree on an age, except for the few self-identified individuals how are we to know what someone's age really is? Those who are too young very quickly learn that lying is a valuable skill founded upon necessity. Not many years ago in a bible-belt suburb there was a very loud campaign to block books that depicted same sex parents from a school library. There was no question of those parents engaging in sexual activity in the books, only a depiction that they could be loving and committed parents just as much as opposite sex parents. The aim of the books was to combat the development of homophobia among children of normal parents. Yes, that is at the other extreme from the raunchy photos that are most often complained about, but that merely illustrates the problem of definition. As is often stated WMF is an ISP, and not a publisher. The more it seeks to control content, the more it acquires characteristics of a publisher. Indeed as an ISP it must respond to specific legal demands to remove certain material, but random complaints are not legal demands. Perhaps at the same time those complainers should be asking why murder is so much more socially acceptable on TV than consensual sex. The responsibility of parents remains paramount ... even if some are incapable of exercising that responsibility. It would also be irresponsible if parents with the means to provide internet access exercised control to the extent of raising internet illiterates incapable of functioning in a wired world. What teachers and other public institutions can do has severe limitations. The sad unavoidable fact is that the seamier side of life exists. A parent does not protect his child by pretending to him that such things don't happen. More is accomplished by directing him toward a mature attitude. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Minors and sexual explicit stuff
Ray, you seem to me to be essentially discussing the 'users' perspective on wikipedia - whilst it's my view that the foundation, and the projects could (and should) do more to allow things like descriptive image filtering for users (I think it would drive participation in places like schools, and librairies) I'm also interested in discussing the perspective of 'participant' in the project. I think there are important duty of care issues for whomever is responsible for children's involvement in projects like wikipedia, and I don't believe the foundation, and projects, should simply pass the buck of responsibility upstream to the parent. Encyclopedia's are rightly exciting and interesting to children, and I think it's just reality that large numbers of participants are minors (wiki's fun, right! :-) - we really should at least talk about whether or not these participants are protected / treated / advised appropriately. for example, it would be my advice to a minor that it's inappropriate for them to join this (not safe for work discussion) about whether or not to include 'hardcore photos' in the oral sex article ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Oral_sex#Hardcore_photos ) There are important ethical issues here (maybe legal ones too, I don't know) - I've tried to reach out to Volunteering Australia ( http://www.volunteeringaustralia.org/html/s01_home/home.asp ) who I hope may be able to offer some advice about good practice in working with volunteer kids etc. but I think this might be able to go much further much quicker on a foundation level. I'd like to see some concrete progress (a report, some ideas, anything really!) related to ensuring appropriate and adequate measures are in place to protect child participants in foundation projects. I've copied this message Angela, who I hope I may persuade to raise this issue with the advisory board, and also sj who may be able to raise the issue with the board, or perhaps join this discussion to offer any ideas about handy next steps. Regardless, I'll hop back on this list following a meeting with Volunteering Australia, just in case they have any useful or interesting advice :-) cheers, Peter, PM. On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: Andrew Garrett wrote: On 16/11/2009, at 1:04 AM, private musings wrote: On Wikipedia Review, 'tarantino' pointed out that on WMF projects, self-identified minors (in this case User:Juliancolton) are involved in routine maintenance stuff around sexually explicit images reasonably describable as porn (one example is 'Masturbating Amy.jpg'). http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=27358st=0p=204846#entry204846 I think this is wrong on a number of levels - and I'd like to see better governance from the foundation in this area - I really feel that we need to talk about some child protection measures in some way - they're overdue. I'm not sure where you get the idea that it's somehow inappropriate for minors to be viewing or working on images depicting human nudity and sexuality. Cultural sensibilities on this matter are inconsistent, irrational and entirely lacking in substance. If it is truly inappropriate or harmful for children to be working on such images, then those children should be supervised in their internet access, or have gained the trust of their parents to use the internet within whatever limits those parents (or, indeed, the minor) believe is appropriate. It is absolutely not the job of the Wikimedia Foundation, nor the Wikimedia community, to supervise a child's internet access and/or usage, and certainly not to make arbitrary rules regarding said usage on the basis of a single culture's sensibilities on children and sexuality, especially sensibilities as baseless and harmful as this one. I agree that a common sense approach is warranted. In large measure applying complex controls on child viewing is totally unrealistic. We would begin with the problem of defining what is too young. In an other topic, underage drinking, it is relatively far easier to define the offending act but the age at which drinking is permitted still varies widely from one jurisdiction to another. So what age is appropriate for viewing such material? 12? 16? 18? 21? And even if we agree on an age, except for the few self-identified individuals how are we to know what someone's age really is? Those who are too young very quickly learn that lying is a valuable skill founded upon necessity. Not many years ago in a bible-belt suburb there was a very loud campaign to block books that depicted same sex parents from a school library. There was no question of those parents engaging in sexual activity in the books, only a depiction that they could be loving and committed parents just as much as opposite sex parents. The aim of the books was to combat the development of homophobia among children of normal
Re: [Foundation-l] Minors and sexual explicit stuff
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 10:05 PM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: As is often stated WMF is an ISP, and not a publisher. Stating it often doesn't make it true. The WMF is quite clearly a publisher. It even has admitted as much when it exercised the GFDL clause purporting to allow any World Wide Web server that publishes copyrightable works and also provides prominent facilities for anybody to edit those works to republish Wikipedia (et. al.) under CC-BY-SA. Anyone who says the WMF is not a publisher is just plain wrong. So state it as much as you want. The WMF is a publisher. Under Section 230 of the CDA it most likely won't be treated as a publisher, but that doesn't mean it isn't a publisher. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
