date:20100508

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On 09/05/2010 00:05, Milos Rancic wrote:
> There are some political reasons of why I am here. And they are about
> our values: all human knowledge... not censored... consensus
> culture... building encyclopedia etc., not surrealistic comedy...
> [..]
> 
> Those values are *before* finances. We are here because of them, not
> because of money or strategy. Money and strategy are here because of
> our values.

I'm surprised it is apparently needed to be said, but I'm here too
because I have faith in "universal values". In fact I've been attracted
like a magnet since the day, one year and five months ago, that I wondered:
"In this world rushing into its own demise, who is struggling to better
the human condition and protect our Earth?"

I think the whole active community are here because they believe that
wikipedia is a fantastic project leading to a better world.

With time, more and more people will believe it. This, my friends, is an
incredible potential. This is the first time in mankind history that so
much freedom for sharing knowledge is available for so many humans.

We have a duty because we are the first. So let's not forget the long
term goals and what is really at stake. It is good to be concerned by
survival but survival cannot be the first priority, otherwise you'll
lose ALL your values.

It is true that the current crisis must be addressed but at the same
time we must remember that it's just a moment in our long way to go.

What's really important in this discussion is how to ensure that
wikipedia will survive WITH ITS GOALS INTACT.

The answer is yours, but I think that everyone should at least once ask
himself about our current dilemmas (censorship, external pressure, Mr.
Wales' power, etc.):
Is it threatening our goal? (Why and how?)
Is it threatening our survival? (Why and how?)

Mutual understanding and solutions can be built from this mental frame.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

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On 08/05/2010 22:20, Casey Brown wrote:
> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 9:16 PM, Andrew Garrett  wrote:
>> The *ONLY* rating and classification system that I can support is a
>> descriptive one. That is, it describes the nature of the content, and
>> allows humans or computers to filter it accordingly. The
>> infrastructure would be technically simple.
>>
> 
> I definitely agree that this would be the best solution.
> 

I agree too. Simple and respectful.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread David Goodman

The question is not about your honesty, Mike, but the WMF board. In
authorizing their statement, did they expect that Jimmy would take the
sort of action he did? In practice they are the only ones who have any
control over what actions he takes; I would expect that after an
hysterical over-reaction like his giving their statement as
justification, they would promptly act to explain that this is not
what they meant by their statement.  Rather, the initial reaction of
at least some of the board were to support his actions.

It reminds me very much of the enWP's actions after the single handed
mass deletion of BLPs. They too endorsed it. They cannot most of them
have really thought that thoughtless action of that sort was the way
to solve the problem, but they endorsed it anyway. In the eyes of many
of us, by doing this they lost a good deal of their respect and
legitimacy.

The board is doing likewise, but it still has time to correct itself.
I do not know who besides themselves  could abolish a system-wide
permission, and i call on them to end the founder permission because
of its uniquely great potential for inappropriate use-- which would
allow the various projects to do as they choose about the other
permissions on their own projects.

I continue to respect Jimmy's views more than that of any other single
person here (except perhaps your own, Mike, based on your very
judicious comments here), but  that is not the same as giving any one
person unchecked power over the project.

David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 10:02 PM, Mike Godwin  wrote:
> Florence writes:
>
> Besides the fact Mike is using a language far too convoluted for many
>> speakers on this list,
>
>
> Ouch! If I do say something too convolutedly here, please send me a note,
> and I'll rephrase accordingly.
>
>
>> I would argue that one of the implications of the
>> abusive deletions is that Jimbo is perceived as having "lost touch with
>> base". I do not think letting someone speak on his behalf will help
>> restore trust.
>>
>
> Just to be clear about this: Jimmy didn't ask me to speak for him, and I
> haven't represented here that I'm speaking for him. I'm only offering my
> personal (convoluted!) point of view, trying to be helpful.
>
>
> --Mike
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Re: [Foundation-l] Board members positions toward Jimmy's last action

2010-05-08 Thread Milos Rancic

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 6:29 PM, phoebe ayers  wrote:
> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 3:14 AM, Milos Rancic  wrote:
>> By now, just two Board members explicitly stated what do they think
>> about Jimmy's action: Jan-Bart de Vreede and Ting Chen (who explained
>> his position in details).
>>
>> According to not precise Board's statement I may guess who supports
>> Jimmy's action and who doesn't. However, I don't want to guess. As a
>> member of community who directly or through the chapters elects five
>> Board members and other four through the delegation given to the
>> previous five members, I want to know positions of other Board
>> members.
>
> Well, we as a community don't require such individual statements about
> any other issue; I realize this may be a personal dealbreaker for you
> but it doesn't seem like the single most important issue of our day.
> I'd much rather hear what individual board members think about
> strategy or the budget, which is of much more lasting import for how
> the foundation gets run.

There are some political reasons of why I am here. And they are about
our values: all human knowledge... not censored... consensus
culture... building encyclopedia etc., not surrealistic comedy...

(Saying so, I am not talking in absolute terms: we are not able to
have all human knowledge, but the most important of; if people are
deciding what should be censored for themselves, I am fine; sometimes
we need [well planned] bold actions; sometimes it is nice to watch a
surrealistic comedy.)

Those values are *before* finances. We are here because of them, not
because of money or strategy. Money and strategy are here because of
our values.

And I don't feel that I am the only one who has the opinion similar to
the opinion described inside of my ask.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

> Andreas Kolbe wrote:
>> --- On Sat, 8/5/10, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:
>>   
>>> Then another idea is to keep on Commons only those pictures which are
>>> non-controversial and suggest local project to keep their controversial 
>>> pictures local? For example en Wikipedia keeps fair use pictures locally 
>>> and it is OK. If for example nudity pictures is not a problem for Danish or 
>>> > French or Svedish Wikipedias - they can keep them locally... and the> 
>>> en-Wikipedia which is driven by anglo-saxon taboo of nudity can get rid of 
>>> them...
>>> 
>>
>> This is an elegant idea that might be worth pursuing, at least as >> an 
>> interim solution. Projects could be given ample warning that >> certain 
>> media files will be deleted at such and such a date, and >> that if any 
>> project is interested in them, they should transfer >> them to their own 
>> project space. >> Andreas
>
>
>   
> Without even commenting the idea itself, I have to ask:
> What in this context would you consider "ample
> warning"? One year, two years, more, less?
> Yours,> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
2 months. Andreas


  
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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

2010-05-08 Thread Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

Andreas Kolbe wrote:
> --- On Sat, 8/5/10, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:
>   
>> Then another idea is to keep on Commons only those pictures which are
>> non-controversial and suggest local project to keep their controversial 
>> pictures local? For example en Wikipedia keeps fair use pictures locally 
>> and it is OK. If for example nudity pictures is not a problem for Danish or 
>> > French or Svedish Wikipedias - they can keep them locally... and the> 
>> en-Wikipedia which is driven by anglo-saxon taboo of nudity can get rid of 
>> them...
>> 
>
> This is an elegant idea that might be worth pursuing, at least as an interim 
> solution.Projects could be given ample warning that certain media files will 
> be deleted atsuch and such a date, and that if any project is interested in 
> them, they should transfer them to their own project space. 
> Andreas
>
>
>   
Without even commenting the idea itself, I have to ask:
What in this context would you consider "ample
warning"? One year, two years, more, less?


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


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Re: [Foundation-l] A Board member's perspective

2010-05-08 Thread geni

On 9 May 2010 01:09, David Gerard  wrote:
> On 9 May 2010 01:04, Noein  wrote:
>> On 08/05/2010 20:52, Stuart West wrote:
>
>>> (1) There were some bad actors at work (e.g. hardcore pornography 
>>> distributors taking advantage of our open culture to get free anonymous 
>>> hosting).  (2) As a community (including the Board), we debated the issue 
>>> too long and failed to drive closure and implement.  (3) There are complex 
>>> issues around _some_ of the content that is in a gray area and those 
>>> complexities distracted us from dealing with the clearer cut cases.
>
>> In order to help us understand better the situation, can you refer
>> concrete examples of 1 and a link to the discussion mentioned in 2?
>
>
> Indeed. (1) is a definite [citation needed].
>
>
> - d.
>

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Toyslove_sybian_in_action_kobe_lee.OGG
in particular the last 20 seconds.


-- 
geni

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

> So... are we now going to start writting "USfamilyfriendlypedia(tm)" ?
> There is plenty of stuff to be delete then... not only penis and
> vagina pictures... For example delete all biographies of porn-stars,
> articles about addictive violent computer games, and there is tons of
> things to be deleted in order to make our projects more "family friendy".

Has it occurred to you that we could simply _age-rate_ articles, rather 
than delete them? An article on a pornographic novel could be 18-rated, 
just like the novel itself. Same with porn star bios, which aren't likely 
to be of interest to 9-year-olds. 

I would really like people to understand that when entering Wikipedia with 
an "adult" setting, you would never know any difference to how it is now. But 
if you're entering with a 12-year-old setting, you would not see the 
article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogg_(novel) for example.

What is so bad about that idea? Is it "censorship" to show adult-rated 
material to adults, but not to 12-year-olds? 

Framing this in terms of "gutting" or "censoring" Wikimedia projects 
completely misses the point.

Andreas


  

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

Florence writes:

Besides the fact Mike is using a language far too convoluted for many
> speakers on this list,

Ouch! If I do say something too convolutedly here, please send me a note,
and I'll rephrase accordingly.

> I would argue that one of the implications of the
> abusive deletions is that Jimbo is perceived as having "lost touch with
> base". I do not think letting someone speak on his behalf will help
> restore trust.
>

Just to be clear about this: Jimmy didn't ask me to speak for him, and I
haven't represented here that I'm speaking for him. I'm only offering my
personal (convoluted!) point of view, trying to be helpful.

--Mike
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Re: [Foundation-l] A Board member's perspective

2010-05-08 Thread Alec Conroy

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 8:09 PM, David Gerard  wrote:
> On 9 May 2010 01:04, Noein  wrote:

>> On 08/05/2010 20:52, Stuart West wrote:
>>> (1) There were some bad actors at work (e.g. hardcore pornography 
>>> distributors taking advantage of our open culture to get free anonymous 
>>> hosting).  .
>>
>> In order to help us understand better the situation, can you refer
>> concrete examples of 1
>
> Indeed. (1) is a definite [citation needed].
>

Stu, I'm going to put this as civilly as possible, going out of my way to AGF.

Recently there have been some very substantial 'misunderstandings'
between some individual board members and the community.For
example, one board member made a number of statements that,
unfortunately, led many in the community to believe that the
Foundation was ordering a substantial new policy.   This turned out
not to be true.

Earlier, there were similar misunderstandings over this same issue.
At one point, many in the community may have mistakenly come to
believe that there was a new legal opinion by the Foundation-- there
was not.

In light of all this, I think everyone needs to take a _very_ close
look at anything that board members say, to make sure no future
misunderstandings like this occur again.

In short--  yeah, if you want us to believe you, you're gonna need to
cite things.

Nothing against you personally-- I'm sure you're a trustworthy
individual. But "Just trust us" isn't gonna be very persuasive this
week.

Jimbo's trust is gone, and now the community is watching you guys,
trying to figure out whether the foundation is trustworthy still or
not.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

Anthony wrote:

> Jimbo shouldn't be blamed for the actions of CommonsDelinkerBot.  For those
> particular deletions in which he exercised poor judgment, sure.  For
> wheel-warring over some of those instances, absolutely.  But ultimately, his
> actions (as opposed to the actions which were caused by the maintainer of
> CommonsDelinkerBot), are easily undone, at least from a technical
> standpoint.

As noted, the problem extends beyond the images delinked by the
CommonsDelinker bot.

In fact, I would argue that the bot actually mitigates the damage by
preemptively delinking images via an identifiable account (thereby
making the removals easier to detect and revert).

David Levy

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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

2010-05-08 Thread Aryeh Gregor

On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 4:22 PM, The Cunctator  wrote:
> Hooray for letting American prurience and Larry Sanger's oddities shape the
> project.

Wikimedia's goal is to bring knowledge to everyone on Earth, not just
Europeans.  Europe is at the extreme left on the global social scale,
along with a handful of other developed nations.  Americans are more
socially conservative than Europeans, but still more liberal than most
of the world.  There are 1.5 billion Muslims on Earth, for instance,
which is more than America and Europe *combined* (although many of
those Muslims are European or American).  The large majority of
Muslims would find these images grossly offensive.  So would many
others from *really* conservative cultures.  Americans are the least
of the story.

The tolerance of sexual imagery on Wikimedia is a byproduct of Western
liberal provincialism.  Putting sensitivity to the cultural attitudes
of others above (thoroughly hypocritical) ideals of non-censorship is
essential to Wikimedia's long-term success, and I'm glad to see that
people are finally being forced to deal with this.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 9:14 PM, David Levy  wrote:

> This assumes that...
>

> This is not always feasible...
>

> And the point is that some solutions weaken the Wikimedia Commons
> and/or the sister projects that rely upon it.
>

> Depending on the language, that isn't always an easy task.  And again,
> that assumes that a benefit exists and is apparent.
>

You seem to have missed my entire point.  I hope some others got it.  The
point is, the proper response to a deletion is situation-dependent.  Having
a bot make the fix is therefore a bad solution.

I'm surprised that hasn't been evident before now.

Jimbo shouldn't be blamed for the actions of CommonsDelinkerBot.  For those
particular deletions in which he exercised poor judgment, sure.  For
wheel-warring over some of those instances, absolutely.  But ultimately, his
actions (as opposed to the actions which were caused by the maintainer of
CommonsDelinkerBot), are easily undone, at least from a technical
standpoint.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Threading

2010-05-08 Thread Thomas Dalton

On 9 May 2010 02:26, Aphaia  wrote:
> By the way, Gmail doesn't seem to have that burst command, sad.

Probably because there is no need for one. Create a filter to give a
certain label to all emails to the mailing list and to skip the inbox
for them and you get much better functionality than you do with
digests.

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Re: [Foundation-l] A Board member's perspective

2010-05-08 Thread David Gerard

On 9 May 2010 01:04, Noein  wrote:
> On 08/05/2010 20:52, Stuart West wrote:

>> (1) There were some bad actors at work (e.g. hardcore pornography 
>> distributors taking advantage of our open culture to get free anonymous 
>> hosting).  (2) As a community (including the Board), we debated the issue 
>> too long and failed to drive closure and implement.  (3) There are complex 
>> issues around _some_ of the content that is in a gray area and those 
>> complexities distracted us from dealing with the clearer cut cases.

> In order to help us understand better the situation, can you refer
> concrete examples of 1 and a link to the discussion mentioned in 2?


Indeed. (1) is a definite [citation needed].


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Threading

2010-05-08 Thread Aphaia

Um, I thought it would be better to talk privately but surprised it is
forgotten at all so do it:

Users can burst digest format messages into separate mails locally. It
means, you can scan the digest and burst them into messages only if
you want to reply. Most of ancient mail user clients have this "burst"
function. If your mailers have no such function, there is still
possibilites to get a script and run. Search for "burst digest
messages".

By the way, Gmail doesn't seem to have that burst command, sad.


On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 8:35 AM, Svip  wrote:
> On 9 May 2010 01:31, Dan Rosenthal  wrote:
>
>> Even that solution sometimes creates new threads, for reasons unbeknownst to 
>> me.
>
> This is usually related to an error in your mail client or the mailman
> server.  It is usually a mail header (if you are using gmail, try
> clicking near a mail (the arrow down) and select 'show original') that
> tells whether it is a reply to another mail.
>
> Sophisticated clients like pine or mutt can figure out to draw an
> accurate tree.  Of course, gmail just renders its as a conversation,
> which is fine too.
>
> But digest is in this case the origin of this issue.  And even with
> gmail, using digest makes no sense, since gmail can sort it better
> than mailman in most cases.
>
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-- 
KIZU Naoko
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 9:16 PM, Andrew Garrett  wrote:
> The *ONLY* rating and classification system that I can support is a
> descriptive one. That is, it describes the nature of the content, and
> allows humans or computers to filter it accordingly. The
> infrastructure would be technically simple.
>

I definitely agree that this would be the best solution.

-- 
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023

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Re: [Foundation-l] A Board member's perspective

Stu wrote: '"Due to the failure of the community process, something
extraordinary had to be done"

There's been many statements claiming that Commons cannot police
itself, however, the deletions have been counted: a mere 400 files
were deleted, after which Jimbo said the cleanup was done. A lot of
those are getting undeleted, because it's agreed they never should've
been deleted in the first place. There are 6,609,202 files on
commons. That means that less than one hundredth of one percent of all
files were of a type that could be considered pornographic by Jimbo's
definitions, and that's such an extremely low number that it would
imply Commons was doing a pretty good job of monitoring itself.

Further, Jimbo only proposed the new policy May 6th.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3ASexual_content&action=historysubmit&diff=38830945&oldid=38801972

By May 7th, 89 edits had been made, and a workable policy was
beginning to emerge:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons%3ASexual_content&action=historysubmit&diff=38893880&oldid=38830959

While there were doubts on the talk page about the record keeping act,
provisional to the Foundation making a statement, most people were
willing to wait and accept Jimbo's judgement - and he was pushing very
hard for it. It had very quickly become clear that art was
considered a protected case, but Commons was more than willing to look
into photographs and film, and deal with the legal issues that were
implied to be the reason for the policy change.

The process was working - and then Jimbo went on a rampage, deleting
art and diagrams, and wheel-warring. to keep art deleted.

This was NOT about Commons refusing to cooperate. This was Jimbo
seeking approval of a pre-defined action, which he misled the
community into thinking was for legal reasons, then when consensus
went the slightest bit differently to what he wanted, protecting
artworks and such, he went ahead and deleting art and diagrams anyway.

And for what? Is "We've deleted the pornographic photographs" really
so much worse PR than "We've deleted pornographic photographs, and
also artworks widely agreed to have strong artistic merit by art
scholars?"

I'd have said the latter was the far worse choice.

[Addendum: Right, let's see if this threading works]

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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

Given that several Commons admins had dropped out, and bearing in mind the 
clean-up campaign called for by the board and Jimbo, I put in an RFA at 
Commons, saying I would help clean up pornographic images *that are not in use 
by any project*.
The result so far: 14 Opposes, 1 Support. 
You get the same result if you nominate a pornographic image for deletion. 
Andreas

--- On Sun, 9/5/10, Anthony  wrote:

From: Anthony 
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" 
Date: Sunday, 9 May, 2010, 1:32

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 8:19 PM, David Levy  wrote:

> Anthony wrote:
> > OMG.  Red links would indicate to a human that there was a problem which
> > needed to be solved.  Then that human could go about solving the problem
> > (which very well may involve more than just delinking the image).
>
> What, other than delinking or uploading the missing image locally
> (thereby bypassing Commons), do you expect a wiki to do?

Replacing it with a different image, removing the text from the article
which refers to the image, contacting someone at Commons to argue for
reinstatement of the image...

And yeah, uploading the missing image locally (thereby bypassing Commons)
would be another possibility.

All depends on the situation.  But fortunately, the human brain (unlike the
robot brain) is very flexible in dealing with a multitude of situations.

> And how do
> you expect editors who cannot read English (particularly those whose
> native languages are among the less widespread) to even understand why
> in-use images are being deleted?
>

Maybe by finding a translator?  Alternatively, they could employ one of the
possibilities listed above which don't involve speaking English at all.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

Anthony wrote:

> > > OMG.  Red links would indicate to a human that there was a problem which
> > > needed to be solved.  Then that human could go about solving the problem
> > > (which very well may involve more than just delinking the image).

> > What, other than delinking or uploading the missing image locally
> > (thereby bypassing Commons), do you expect a wiki to do?

> Replacing it with a different image,

This assumes that a suitable alternative is readily available (which
likely isn't the case with many of the inappropriately deleted images,
including those that Jimbo wheel-warred over) and still entails
delinking the original image.

> removing the text from the article which refers to the image,

This is a highly undesirable outcome (and example of potential damage).

> contacting someone at Commons to argue for reinstatement of the image...

This is not always feasible (depending on one's native language) and
is futile when Jimbo intends to unilaterally overrule any such
decision.

Additionally, one might erroneously assume that the image was deleted
for a valid reason (e.g. copyright infringement).

> And yeah, uploading the missing image locally (thereby bypassing Commons)
> would be another possibility.

This is another highly undesirable outcome (and example of potential damage).

> All depends on the situation.  But fortunately, the human brain (unlike the
> robot brain) is very flexible in dealing with a multitude of situations.

And the point is that some solutions weaken the Wikimedia Commons
and/or the sister projects that rely upon it.

> Maybe by finding a translator?

Depending on the language, that isn't always an easy task.  And again,
that assumes that a benefit exists and is apparent.

> Alternatively, they could employ one of the possibilities listed above
> which don't involve speaking English at all.

See above.

David Levy

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

2010-05-08 Thread Andrew Garrett

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 10:07 AM, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>> So... are we now going to start writting "USfamilyfriendlypedia(tm)" ?
>> There is plenty of stuff to be delete then... not only penis and
>> vagina pictures... For example delete all biographies of porn-stars,
>> articles about addictive violent computer games, and there is tons of
>> things to be deleted in order to make our projects more "family friendy".
>
> Has it occurred to you that we could simply _age-rate_ articles, rather
> than delete them? An article on a pornographic novel could be 18-rated,
> just like the novel itself. Same with porn star bios, which aren't likely
> to be of interest to 9-year-olds.

I object to the assertion that images and discussion of reproductive
organs is "unsuitable" for children under a certain age. This is
primarily a Western Anglophone cultural assumption – and it doesn't
hold true in all such parts of the world either. There's certainly no
medical or psychological research which suggests that exposure to
educational content about reproduction has a negative impact on child
development.

I grew up in Suburban Sydney. When I was barely five years old my
parents gave me, as part of a "How My Body Works" series, a book about
human reproduction, including detailed diagrams and illustrations.

It is *NOT* *OUR* *ROLE* to decide what is and is not "appropriate"
for children to view on our website. That role is to be discharged
solely by parents and supervisors of those children.

The *ONLY* rating and classification system that I can support is a
descriptive one. That is, it describes the nature of the content, and
allows humans or computers to filter it accordingly. The
infrastructure would be technically simple.

-- 
Andrew Garrett
http://werdn.us/

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Re: [Foundation-l] What the board is responsible of (was Re: Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions)

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 9:07 PM, Mark Ryan  wrote:
> I have to agree with you, Anthere. It's starting to look like over
> time the role of the board has evolved from broad guidance and
> administration to some sort of twisted version of enwp's Arbitration
> Committee. When the board was first created, it wasn't particularly
> political and its members were simply those who were most well-known
> and respected from across the Wikimedia communities. Now, at least
> some of the board members appear to be of the opinion that they have
> become the ultimate arbiters of what should be included in Wikimedia
> projects. They are not, and this will eventually become patently clear
> to them when their seats are due for re-election.
>

Just throwing in a link to a page Anthere wrote summarizing the "role
of a board member", which might be useful here:


--
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 8:59 PM, Excirial  wrote:

> Educational and inappropriate are not static terms, as the definition can
> vary between groups of people.

I disagree with this.

> Ergo, take the group "pre-puberty kids".
> Plenty of parents would find it objectionable if their children would
> encounter any nude material, even if it is not remotely sexual. Based upon
> that definition we would have to remove every image we have that depicts a
> reproductive organs, including but not limited to photographs, diagrams and
> paintings.

Sounds like a bad definition, then.  "Plenty of parents would find it
objectionable" is a strawman.  I don't believe anyone here has claimed that
this is a sufficient grounds for removal.  I certainly haven't.

In fact, I haven't even said that the Wikimedia Foundation should strive to
create a resource which is useful for families.  If that is not the audience
you wish to target, then by all means don't target them.  But then, don't
target them.  Don't put Jimmy Wales up on your banner ads talking about how
you're creating an educational resource "for the child in Africa".  Don't
claim you're creating "a free encyclopedia for every single person on the
planet".  Leave that to someone else to do, and to do right.

Referring back to my previous response - in that reply i mentioned the
> gangrene page, which contains some rather gross images. Fit for children to
> stare at?

To stare at?  Let's ask a more reasonable question.  Is it appropriate for a
parent to show to this article to their child, assuming their child is of an
appropriate age to learn about the topic in the first place.

But let's not ask that question of this particular page.  Let's develop a
set of principles that allows us to answer it in general.

> Many parents would answer that with a firm no.

Once again, I don't care what "many parents would answer".  The question is
what ought we be creating.

If you don't think that's the kind of question that can be answered
objectively, then let's just end this whole conversation right now.  There's
no point in discussing what type of material ought to be distributed by the
WMF if you think there's no right answer to that question.

If you do think there is a right answer to that question, then by all means
let's start discussing that, and not what "many parents would answer".

> Ask yourself - why would any child be at the gangrene or sexual organ page,
> if not for their own curiosity? Explicit images tend to be placed on pages
> that children should not be at in the first place.

Wait a second.  You're saying that a child should not learn about gangrene
or sexual organs?

Sounds like you're the prude, not me.
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Re: [Foundation-l] A Board member's perspective

2010-05-08 Thread Milos Rancic

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 1:52 AM, Stuart West  wrote:
> A few of you have asked for more perspectives from Board members on the 
> goings-on at Commons. I'm happy to share some of my personal views on the 
> events of the past few days.
>
> First off, let me thank everyone who has participated in the debate. I've 
> kept up with many of the email threads, talk pages, village pumps, and some 
> IRC. I really appreciate the passion and energy, especially when 
> constructive.  I've been around the projects for about five years, and on the 
> Board for over two years, and this is one of the hardest and most substantive 
> issues we've attacked. In my view, it is also one of the most important.
>
> Here are some of my personal thoughts on the issue:
>
> - We were hosting material that was unambiguously not relevant to our 
> educational mission and it needed to go. Its presence on our projects/servers 
> alienated people (users, potential new volunteers, educators, others) who we 
> need on our side. Getting rid of it was the right answer for the long-term 
> success of our mission which is a focus both of my responsibilities as a 
> Board member and my personal motivation as a volunteer. More broadly, in 
> allowing the clearly objectionable content on one of our projects I feel the 
> community (including the Board, Foundation and Commons admins) failed in our 
> collective role as stewards of the mission.
>
> - I agree with the view that the presence of hardcore pornography on Commons 
> represents a clear failure of our community-driven consensus process and that 
> we must change the way we do things.  Among other drivers I see:  (1) There 
> were some bad actors at work (e.g. hardcore pornography distributors taking 
> advantage of our open culture to get free anonymous hosting).  (2) As a 
> community (including the Board), we debated the issue too long and failed to 
> drive closure and implement.  (3) There are complex issues around _some_ of 
> the content that is in a gray area and those complexities distracted us from 
> dealing with the clearer cut cases.
>
> - Due to the failure of the community process, something extraordinary had to 
> be done. A small step was our Board statement we hoped would focus attention. 
> A bigger step was the work by Jimmy and other individuals on Commons who took 
> bold and decisive action. Clearly it is messy, and there is room for 
> overcorrection and the removal of some materials that are indeed relevant to 
> our educational mission. This is inevitable but is certainly fixable. I want 
> to thank all those who have been working so hard on this, either the initial 
> clean-up or the ongoing review process.  It's not easy work, but it's 
> critically important.
>
> Like a lot of things within our community, the past few days have been messy. 
> But I believe the outcome is headed in the right direction:  get rid of the 
> content that is irrelevant to or hurts our mission, bring urgency to the 
> debate about the many challenges and gray areas, and most importantly fix the 
> policies/processes that have been broken. Let's get to it.

Stu, I am really frustrated with your doublethink. I can say that
Jan-Bart made his statement too early and thus that he didn't have all
necessary information, but your statement came after a day long
debate, as well as you said that you read the most of the previous
discussions.

What really frustrates me is the fact that some of the Board members
and staff (yes Mike, you too) are continuing to treat the most of the
community as idiots.

Did you read what Jimmy deleted? And how did he do that? Please, read
again those parts of the discussions if you missed . (Search for
"jpg", "png", "svg" inside of your mailbox.)

Instead of trying to find a way how to solve this situation, you are
giving a surrealistic statement characteristic for bureaucrats of
totalitarian regimes and falling corporations.

Do you actually see that this Jimmy's action made an unprecedented
revolt inside of the community? Does it matter to you?

No, this is not anymore about any kind of community problem. Board was
able to make changes as it made it for BLP. We are now three days out
of that discussion. We are now discussing about:

1. irrational and dangerous behavior of one Board member; and
2. support of that behavior by the part of the Board and staff.

At the other side, you are still free to work on some sensible
proposal to the community about solving this issue. And you can start
another thread with it. However, talking just about some "community's
failures" and not about obvious and blatant abuse of permissions is
just an example of doublethink.

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Re: [Foundation-l] What the board is responsible of (was Re: Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions)

2010-05-08 Thread Mark Ryan

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 7:24 AM, Florence Devouard  wrote:
> To be fair, I am *extremely* disturbed by the above statement.
>
> Since when is the board DEFINING the scope and basic rules of the
> projects ?
>
> As a reminder, the WMF was created two years after Wikipedia. The scope,
> the basic rules did not need WMF to be crafted. Over the following
> years, the scope and even the basic rules have evolved, usually for the
> better. The WMF certainly pushed on some issues, but largely, the rules
> and scope have been defined by the community.
>
> And this is the way it should be.
>
> You are shifting the role of the WMF in a direction that I find greatly
> impleasant.
>
> The original reason for creation of WMF was that we needed an owner for
> our servers, we needed a way to pay the bills. We needed a way to
> collect money. WMF was here to support the project and to support the
> community dealing with the project. It was here to safegard our core values.
>
> When I joined the board, I really felt WMF had to play the role of the
> mother toward a child. Listening to its stories, making suggestions,
> giving advice, providind food and shelter. Offering little presents,
> encouragement certainly. And tending the wounds.
> But a mother that would let its child decide of its own future. Letting
> the child decide of its own path and make its own experiments. Do
> mistakes, learn about mistakes, try again.
> That's what parenting is all about. Not defining the future of the
> child, but providing advice, support and helping to avoid the worst.
>
> I feel the role of the WMF is shifting. It is shifting because some
> board members and some staff members are mislead about the role of the
> WMF. Thank god, most staff and board are still on the right track.
>
> But a serious warning to me is when board members make statements such
> as yours above.

I have to agree with you, Anthere. It's starting to look like over
time the role of the board has evolved from broad guidance and
administration to some sort of twisted version of enwp's Arbitration
Committee. When the board was first created, it wasn't particularly
political and its members were simply those who were most well-known
and respected from across the Wikimedia communities. Now, at least
some of the board members appear to be of the opinion that they have
become the ultimate arbiters of what should be included in Wikimedia
projects. They are not, and this will eventually become patently clear
to them when their seats are due for re-election.

As for Jimbo, this is not the first time he has ignored community
consensus and processes because he is of the clear opinion that he is
right and everyone else is wrong. However, it is the first time I've
seen him using his Founder flag to do it. The founder flag is a bad
idea, because it gives Jimbo the false impression that he can in fact
do whatever he likes. He cannot. When he created the Foundation and
later stepped down as Chair of the Board, he effectively gave up the
right to intervene on his own whim. I think the right thing for him to
do now would be to voluntarily turn off the founder flag, and
participate in community discussions like everyone else.

~Mark Ryan

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

*You agreed yourself that there were certain images that were "inappropriate
for children", but would be educational and/or informative for certain niche
professionals.  That sounds to me like a choice needs to be made.  It's just
like the choices that are made in every encyclopedia article on Wikipedia.
Present the topic in a way geared toward niche professionals, or present it
in a way geared toward the general public.  I wouldn't consider either
choice to be "censorship", not by any reasonable definition of the term.*

Educational and inappropriate are not static terms, as the definition can
vary between groups of people. Ergo, take the group "pre-puberty kids".
Plenty of parents would find it objectionable if their children would
encounter any nude material, even if it is not remotely sexual. Based upon
that definition we would have to remove every image we have that depicts a
reproductive organs, including but not limited to photographs, diagrams and
paintings. That would - in essence - be required for a child friendly
encyclopedia.

Referring back to my previous response - in that reply i mentioned the
gangrene page, which contains some rather gross images. Fit for children to
stare at? Many parents would answer that with a firm no. However, we should
again take into account that man will not run into these images unless
looking for the topic, or for a related topic. Ask yourself - why would any
child be at the gangrene or sexual organ page, if not for their own
curiosity? Explicit images tend to be placed on pages that children should
not be at in the first place. In other words, we don't really make a choice.
We describe the topic as well as we can, even though that might mean that
certain groups disagree. Another example: Sesame Street. It is a topic that
is likely to attract children, but i can assure you that the
pagewill be quite cryptic
for them as it is written for an adult audience. Why?
Because we added all the relevant information without specifically aiming
for a certain group, and therefor it becomes unintelligible for children.

*Supplying "all the data" and letting "the user" decide what they want to
access is not at all helpful.  A raw dump of facts is not helpful.  No,
choices have to be made in order to turn that raw dump of facts into an
educational resource.  And that means choosing your audience.

*That is why we have content guidelines and policies, but i do not believe
they ever explicitly refer to a certain group of people. Instead they form a
framework which might or might not appeal to certain groups. Hence, i
clearly said that we take all the raw data and distillate it into
information as long as it is relevant for the article. We do not say "Hey,
that image of a penis is inappropriate on the penis page as children could
look at it". Instead it is deemed relevant information for that particular
page. There is, however, no need to use explicit images if not required. If
it does not illustrate an article in a reasonable way it should go.  *

Am I saying that audience should be families, and there is no other
acceptable choice.  No, I'm not.  There are plenty of other acceptable
choices.*

How about undergraduate or masters educated males aged 26,8 years without
partners or children? :)
(Link)

~Excirial
On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 2:12 AM, Anthony  wrote:

> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 5:55 PM, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:
>
> > 2010/5/8 Anthony :
> >
> > > I dunno, when framed that way it seems the answer is to be
> > family-friendly,
> > > and to let the specialists get their information in specialist
> resources.
> >
> > So... are we now going to start writting "USfamilyfriendlypedia(tm)" ?
> > There is plenty of stuff to be delete then... not only penis and
> > vagina pictures... For example delete all biographies of porn-stars,
> > articles about addictive violent computer games, and there is tons of
> > things to be deleted in order to make our projects more "family
> > friendy".
> >
>
> I don't know what you're going to do, but that's certainly not what I was
> suggesting.  I was thinking more the content that's "educational" only to a
> narrow niche of abnormal psychologists and/or medical professionals.
>
> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 6:24 PM, Excirial  wrote:
>
> > Why do you believe that there is a need to make a "choice" between groups
> > of people?
>
>
> You agreed yourself that there were certain images that were "inappropriate
> for children", but would be educational and/or informative for certain
> niche
> professionals.  That sounds to me like a choice needs to be made.  It's
> just
> like the choices that are made in every encyclopedia article on Wikipedia.
> Present the topic in a way geared toward niche professionals, or present it
> in a way geared toward the general public.  I wouldn't consider either
> choice to be "censorship", not by any

Re: [Foundation-l] A Board member's perspective

2010-05-08 Thread Guillaume Paumier

Hi,

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 4:52 PM, Stuart West  wrote:
>
> - Due to the failure of the community process, something extraordinary had to 
> be done. A small step was our Board statement we hoped would focus attention. 
> A bigger step was the work by Jimmy and other individuals on Commons who took 
> bold and decisive action. Clearly it is messy

Stu, thank you for sharing your thoughts in detail.

There are precedents in the Wikimedia movement's history where the
community process « failed » and the Board decided to take action.
They did so thoughtfully, by crafting a resolution that was refined a
lot (I seem to recall then-Board members who spent a lot of volunteer
time wording it carefully). The Board gave the community appropriate
time to implement the policy, and a deadline. The topic of this policy
was not very different from the topic we are discussing now, since it
was about Free and Non-free content:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy

From what I can see, this process, based on mutual respect and «
guidance » of the community, was highly successful:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non-free_content
And I would even say it is a model of collaboration between the Board
and local communities.

If I understand correctly, the reason why this approach was not
followed this time is because there was apparently a feeling of
urgency. I am not privy to the discussions between Jimmy and Fox News,
but I understand Fox's story is the source of Jimmy's « bold and
decisive action », as you put it.

It is not unprecedented for the Board to « guide » the community that
fails to address an issue (and we have processes for that that have
proved successful). However, I believe it is quite unprecedented for a
Board member to exercise editorial control under the pressure of
another organization (however « fair and balanced » it might be).

-- 
Guillaume Paumier
[[m:User:guillom]]

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Alec Conroy

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 8:45 PM, Larry Pieniazek
 wrote:
>
> The problem is that the community isn't "in charge" of anything. Time and
> again we've seen that without precipitious action, the consensus process
> stalls out.

I've seen Jimbo make this argument as well.   Say, in essence, "The
community couldn't reach a consensus, so I imposed mine own will in an
effect to spur the community to consensus. "

Well, it worked-- as a result of his acctions, there is an incredibly
strong consensus that Jimbo can no longer be trusted with the tools.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Aphaia

Between Wikiversity blocking and Commons ones, there is another
example of Jimmy's rushes and communal nonsupport, I think.

That is, on a "global ban" of a certain editor.

While I personally don't care if that guy is banned or not, I care the
Jimmy's claim he has a right to declare global ban in his individual
right. Respectfully I disagree. And I saw other community members do
the same: one the account of that editor in question was locked but
soon unlocked. I suppose things would have gone in a different course
if the first step had been a proposal, not declare.

One other thing I'm concerned is that Jimmy hasn't known global user
right management system - global lock in this case. It may demonstrate
he is alienated from the day-by-day project housekeeping and don't
know  how the things are managed in this level. In general I suppose
it wouldn't be a bright idea to keep someone a mop without knowledge
how wikis work.

In this dispute, we already have seen a general agreement (hardcore
porns w/o any illustration purpose are to delete) and some
disagreements in details (how such deletions are performed, if certain
images should be kept or go away etc.). Let me summarize, we are happy
to accord in general policy but still need to discuss in details. I
sincerely wish if Jimmy had kept the line of policy discussion and
taken initiative, not tipped into each controversy of corner picking.

Once Jimmy said he on Wikipedia was similar to English Queen to some
extent: regnat et non gubernat. I find it words of wisdom. Specially
right now Jimmy is much busier and have less time to give a look to
each community disputes. In other words, declaring ban an individual
or deleting an individual image is not ruling, but governing. Jimmy, I
wholeheartedly recommend you to be back to your past wisdom and
discretion. Then you will find you are in the community, of those who
have ears to you, if you speak calmly and thoughtfully.

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 9:17 AM, Florence Devouard  wrote:
> On 5/9/10 1:42 AM, Svip wrote:
>> On 9 May 2010 01:01, Florence Devouard  wrote:
>>
>>> On 5/8/10 7:31 PM, Mike Godwin wrote:
>>>
 I'm not defending such a criterion, and I do not believe that such a
 criterion informed Jimmy's actions. Jimmy can speak better than I can on
 what he was thinking,
>>>
>>> Then let him speak by himself
>>
>> I think most of us would be biased to hear him speak (well,
>> metaphorically).  I too am guilty of such, by ignoring advice (even if
>> good and useful) simply because of who the speaker is.
>>
>> Now, I would expect any public figure like Jimmy Wales to get a bit of
>> shit thrown at him occasionally, even from his own ranks.  But I have
>> to say, the tone has been far away from professional here and there.
>> So letting Godwin speaking on his behalf makes sense.
>
> Besides the fact Mike is using a language far too convoluted for many
> speakers on this list, I would argue that one of the implications of the
> abusive deletions is that Jimbo is perceived as having "lost touch with
> base". I do not think letting someone speak on his behalf will help
> restore trust.
>
>
>> It's a fresh new approach to the discussion, because we are not
>> immediately biased by it being Wales speaking.
>>
>> And not to mention that Godwin has a point; this was an opportunity in
>> disguise.  And unfortunately, in retrospect, this wasn't really picked
>> up by the community, instead it turned into another 'fight the power'
>> rebellion.
>>
>> I do not condone Wales' methods of handling the whole situation (hell,
>> I am not sure how good he is at PR!), but that is a minor issue, but
>> since of course it becomes the classic 'tyrant' in action, people
>> focuses on the small 'controversial' things.  Opportunists, I suppose.
>
> Opportunists hmmm, I am not convinced.
> But maybe is it fair to remind that the original vote to support removal
> of founder flag was NOT started because of the porn image story, but was
> started because of ANOTHER ISSUE (Wikiversity) that took place less than
> two months ago.
> In the French speaking world, editors have another grunge against WMF
> because of the deletion of all this content on the French Wikisource a
> few months ago, with the argument that it was *maybe* illegal under
> French Law.
> So, it may be that the issues individually taken are small. All together...
>
>
>
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>
>
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-- 
KIZU Naoko
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Larry Pieniazek

Anthere said:

> However, the lost perception that the community is in charge of its own
future
> (eg, the way it operates, the power structure), is not a detail.
> It will impact our entire future. 

The problem is that the community isn't "in charge" of anything. Time and
again we've seen that without precipitious action, the consensus process
stalls out. The community is leaderless. That's supposed to be a feature of
the wiki model but sometimes it's not.

Resolving BLP on en:wp had stalled out until a handful of admins (including,
I note, MZMcBride, among others) took some action. That got discussion going
and maybe some progress will be made. Or maybe things will stall out again.

Commons has too much problematic content. The [[Commons:Sexual Content]]
discussion and other policy discussions was completely stalled, with some
very vocal folks blocking progress. I'm not going to say that Jimbo handled
the best way possible but maybe now some progress in deciding what policy
will be will be made.  Or maybe things will stall out again. One can hope,
though.

Larry Pieniazek
Hobby mail: Lar at Miltontrainworks dot com 


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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 8:19 PM, David Levy  wrote:

> Anthony wrote:
> > OMG.  Red links would indicate to a human that there was a problem which
> > needed to be solved.  Then that human could go about solving the problem
> > (which very well may involve more than just delinking the image).
>
> What, other than delinking or uploading the missing image locally
> (thereby bypassing Commons), do you expect a wiki to do?

Replacing it with a different image, removing the text from the article
which refers to the image, contacting someone at Commons to argue for
reinstatement of the image...

And yeah, uploading the missing image locally (thereby bypassing Commons)
would be another possibility.

All depends on the situation.  But fortunately, the human brain (unlike the
robot brain) is very flexible in dealing with a multitude of situations.

> And how do
> you expect editors who cannot read English (particularly those whose
> native languages are among the less widespread) to even understand why
> in-use images are being deleted?
>

Maybe by finding a translator?  Alternatively, they could employ one of the
possibilities listed above which don't involve speaking English at all.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

--- On Sat, 8/5/10, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:
> Then another idea is to keep on Commons only those pictures which are
> non-controversial and suggest local project to keep their controversial 
> pictures local? For example en Wikipedia keeps fair use pictures locally 
> and it is OK. If for example nudity pictures is not a problem for Danish or > 
> French or Svedish Wikipedias - they can keep them locally... and the> 
> en-Wikipedia which is driven by anglo-saxon taboo of nudity can get rid of 
> them...

This is an elegant idea that might be worth pursuing, at least as an interim 
solution.Projects could be given ample warning that certain media files will be 
deleted atsuch and such a date, and that if any project is interested in them, 
they should transfer them to their own project space. 
Andreas


  
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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

2010-05-08 Thread Guillaume Paumier

Hi,

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 3:37 PM, Mike Godwin  wrote:
> Tomek writes:
>
>> So... are we now going to start writting "USfamilyfriendlypedia(tm)" ?
>
> For what it's worth, I personally don't see the issue as one of making
> Commons (or Wikipedia or any other project) "family-friendly."

I believe that's called Conservapedia.

-- 
Guillaume Paumier
[[m:User:guillom]]

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 8:07 PM, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
> Has it occurred to you that we could simply _age-rate_ articles, rather
> than delete them? An article on a pornographic novel could be 18-rated,
> just like the novel itself. Same with porn star bios, which aren't likely
> to be of interest to 9-year-olds.
>
> I would really like people to understand that when entering Wikipedia with
> an "adult" setting, you would never know any difference to how it is now. But 
> if you're entering with a 12-year-old setting, you would not see the
> article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogg_(novel) for example.
>
> What is so bad about that idea? Is it "censorship" to show adult-rated
> material to adults, but not to 12-year-olds?
>
> Framing this in terms of "gutting" or "censoring" Wikimedia projects
> completely misses the point.
>

We could just work within our existing category scheme and add another
tab to Special:Preferences that specifies what images you want to
see... e.g. if you want to hide sex-related images, you check a box
and wouldn't say images in the "Sex, Penis, Vagina, etc." categories.
If you're a Muslim, you can check a box so you don't see images in
Category:Muhammad.

-- 
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023

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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

2010-05-08 Thread Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

Svip wrote:
> On 9 May 2010 01:40, Anthony  wrote:
>
>   
>> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:
>>
>> 
>>> Or shut off the Commons. That would be the ultimate solution :-)
>>>   
>> Huh?  What would that solve?
>> 
>
> Considering this to be an ill conceived joke, not because it could
> appear 'controversial', but because it lacks... I dunno, humour?
> Comedy?
>
> But it raises a good point, however.  It perceives the concept of not
> dealing with a situation proportionally.
>
> 'Someone is misusing A' -> 'Let's make A illegal'.
>
> I would argue that this also sort of illustrates Wales' immediate
> behaviour.  'Bad press' -> 'Do something!'
>
> Ironically, I think the solution to this problem is status quo[...]
>   
No, it isn't!!! It's pink floyd.


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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

Tomasz Ganicz wrote:

> Well.. maybe... but bear in mind that it is really hard to discuss the
> pictures you can't see, and commons-delinker bot actions are really
> difficuilt to revert. On any other project if you delete something it
> is just a local issue. But deleting a picture on Commons which was
> used on many other project for years is really hiting all those
> projects, not only Commons.

We're arguing the same thing.  :)

Anthony wrote:

> So fix commons-delinker.  Or shut it off altogether.

1. We don't usually have this problem, as Commons administrators
seldom go on controversial deletion sprees (and when they do, other
administrators aren't powerless to counter their actions).

2. Even without CommonsDelinker, editors at the various projects will
remove broken image transclusions when they discover them.

> OMG.  Red links would indicate to a human that there was a problem which
> needed to be solved.  Then that human could go about solving the problem
> (which very well may involve more than just delinking the image).

What, other than delinking or uploading the missing image locally
(thereby bypassing Commons), do you expect a wiki to do?  And how do
you expect editors who cannot read English (particularly those whose
native languages are among the less widespread) to even understand why
in-use images are being deleted?

> And deletions are easily reversible.

I'll quote myself from earlier in the thread.

"Deletions are easily reversible.  Multi-wiki image transclusion
removals, distrust in the Wikimedia Commons and resignations from
Wikimedia projects?  Less so."

David Levy

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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

> For me, this statement is at the first line a support for Jimmy's 
> effort. It is a soft push from the board to the community to move in a 
> direction. Both Jimmy as well as me believe that the best way for the 
> board to do things is to give guidance to the communities. But, this 
> topic is already pending for years. Looking back into the archives of 
> foundation-l or village pump of Commons there were enough discussions. 
> If the problem cannot be solved inside of the community, it is my 
> believe it is the duty of the board and every board member to solve the 
> problem.

Ting

I see no indication so far that the community *is* able to solve the problem. 

Andreas


  

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Re: [Foundation-l] A Board member's perspective

2010-05-08 Thread K. Peachey

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 9:52 AM, Stuart West  wrote:
> ...snip...
> - We were hosting material that was unambiguously not
> relevant to our educational mission and it needed to go. Its presence on
> our projects/servers alienated people (users, potential new volunteers,
> educators, others) who we need on our side. Getting rid of it was the
> right answer for the long-term success of our mission which is a focus
> both of my responsibilities as a Board member and my personal motivation
> as a volunteer. More broadly, in allowing the clearly objectionable
> content on one of our projects I feel the community (including the
> Board, Foundation and Commons admins) failed in our collective role as
> stewards of the mission.
How was content that is historically art (and as far as i know, actually
displayed in some museums) not educational, How about the images that
were actually used in articles on projects, how is that not inherently
educational?

> - I agree with the view that the presence of hardcore pornography on
> Commons represents a clear failure of our community-driven consensus
> process and that we must change the way we do things. Among other
> drivers I see: (1) There were some bad actors at work (e.g. hardcore
> pornography distributors taking advantage of our open culture to get
> free anonymous hosting). (2) As a community (including the Board), we
> debated the issue too long and failed to drive closure and implement.
> (3) There are complex issues around _some_ of the content that is in a
> gray area and those complexities distracted us from dealing with the
> clearer cut cases.

They did have policies, Just because people don't agree doesn't mean
they should go on a deleting rampage deleting anything that they don't
like then wheel warring with people that are active on the project
compared to someone that to my understanding has never taken interest in
the project on a community level and had less than 30 edits before
change which tends to suggest they hasn't really had time to absorb
local policy. Some of their policies included but not limited to
Deleting unusable content, Redirecting/Suggesting people to use other
sites to submit their content, Getting people to submit content into
OTRS for verification. Oh heaven forbid people have to do work and check
on gray area situations..

> - Due to the failure of the community process, something extraordinary
> had to be done. A small step was our Board statement we hoped would
> focus attention. A bigger step was the work by Jimmy and other
> individuals on Commons who took bold and decisive action. Clearly it is
> messy, and there is room for overcorrection and the removal of some
> materials that are indeed relevant to our educational mission. This is
> inevitable but is certainly fixable. I want to thank all those who have
> been working so hard on this, either the initial clean-up or the ongoing
> review process. It's not easy work, but it's critically important.

Failure of community process? There were more than ready to discuss the
issues, They had had policies for years which foundation staff have been
involved in, Then a board member goes on a mass rampage deleting
anything they don't think abides by his view, wheel warring with
members, refusing to listen till after the matter is "dealt with" then
they publicly stating on the mailing list that it was for "Good PR" all
whilst another board member has stated the matter is still being
discussed ("Oh hai thar! I'm a cop and arresting you on something that
hasn't been made a law yet...". much?!) with the other members.

> ...snip...
> -stu

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Re: [Foundation-l] A Board member's perspective

2010-05-08 Thread Thomas Dalton

Stu,

Thank you for telling us your views. You have admitted that the way
this was dealt with was "messy". That such an approach would be messy
should have been obvious to everyone involved, so do you think it
would have been better to take a less messy approach? Perhaps the
Board could have issued a statement saying that the current situation
was unacceptable, explaining why, and that they would have to
intervene to fix it if the community didn't sort it out by a certain
deadline.

Unfortunately, this looks to me like the board couldn't really agree
on what to do so made a vague enough statement that those board
members that didn't feel it was right to go in a delete everything
wouldn't oppose it but that Jimmy could claim supported his view and
legitimised him doing whatever the hell he pleased. The board needs to
be stronger - when Jimmy does things like this it reflects badly on
all of you, so you need to keep him under control. If you can't agree
on what to do, you need to either defer to the community or come up
with a genuine compromise rather than political manoeuvring to avoid
being responsible for what happens. Also, it would help us choose
board members if you were more public about your disagreements. You
don't have to all present a united front behind Jimmy.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Florence Devouard

On 5/9/10 1:42 AM, Svip wrote:
> On 9 May 2010 01:01, Florence Devouard  wrote:
>
>> On 5/8/10 7:31 PM, Mike Godwin wrote:
>>
>>> I'm not defending such a criterion, and I do not believe that such a
>>> criterion informed Jimmy's actions. Jimmy can speak better than I can on
>>> what he was thinking,
>>
>> Then let him speak by himself
>
> I think most of us would be biased to hear him speak (well,
> metaphorically).  I too am guilty of such, by ignoring advice (even if
> good and useful) simply because of who the speaker is.
>
> Now, I would expect any public figure like Jimmy Wales to get a bit of
> shit thrown at him occasionally, even from his own ranks.  But I have
> to say, the tone has been far away from professional here and there.
> So letting Godwin speaking on his behalf makes sense.

Besides the fact Mike is using a language far too convoluted for many 
speakers on this list, I would argue that one of the implications of the 
abusive deletions is that Jimbo is perceived as having "lost touch with 
base". I do not think letting someone speak on his behalf will help 
restore trust.

> It's a fresh new approach to the discussion, because we are not
> immediately biased by it being Wales speaking.
>
> And not to mention that Godwin has a point; this was an opportunity in
> disguise.  And unfortunately, in retrospect, this wasn't really picked
> up by the community, instead it turned into another 'fight the power'
> rebellion.
>
> I do not condone Wales' methods of handling the whole situation (hell,
> I am not sure how good he is at PR!), but that is a minor issue, but
> since of course it becomes the classic 'tyrant' in action, people
> focuses on the small 'controversial' things.  Opportunists, I suppose.

Opportunists hmmm, I am not convinced.
But maybe is it fair to remind that the original vote to support removal 
of founder flag was NOT started because of the porn image story, but was 
started because of ANOTHER ISSUE (Wikiversity) that took place less than 
two months ago.
In the French speaking world, editors have another grunge against WMF 
because of the deletion of all this content on the French Wikisource a 
few months ago, with the argument that it was *maybe* illegal under 
French Law.
So, it may be that the issues individually taken are small. All together...

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 5:55 PM, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:

> 2010/5/8 Anthony :
>
> > I dunno, when framed that way it seems the answer is to be
> family-friendly,
> > and to let the specialists get their information in specialist resources.
>
> So... are we now going to start writting "USfamilyfriendlypedia(tm)" ?
> There is plenty of stuff to be delete then... not only penis and
> vagina pictures... For example delete all biographies of porn-stars,
> articles about addictive violent computer games, and there is tons of
> things to be deleted in order to make our projects more "family
> friendy".
>

I don't know what you're going to do, but that's certainly not what I was
suggesting.  I was thinking more the content that's "educational" only to a
narrow niche of abnormal psychologists and/or medical professionals.

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 6:24 PM, Excirial  wrote:

> Why do you believe that there is a need to make a "choice" between groups
> of people?

You agreed yourself that there were certain images that were "inappropriate
for children", but would be educational and/or informative for certain niche
professionals.  That sounds to me like a choice needs to be made.  It's just
like the choices that are made in every encyclopedia article on Wikipedia.
Present the topic in a way geared toward niche professionals, or present it
in a way geared toward the general public.  I wouldn't consider either
choice to be "censorship", not by any reasonable definition of the term.

We can easily supply all the data - it is up to the user to decide
> if they want to access it.
>

Supplying "all the data" and letting "the user" decide what they want to
access is not at all helpful.  A raw dump of facts is not helpful.  No,
choices have to be made in order to turn that raw dump of facts into an
educational resource.  And that means choosing your audience.

Am I saying that audience should be families, and there is no other
acceptable choice.  No, I'm not.  There are plenty of other acceptable
choices.

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 6:37 PM, Mike Godwin  wrote:

> For what it's worth, I personally don't see the issue as one of making
> Commons (or Wikipedia or any other project) "family-friendly."
>

> If we judge Commons content simply on the basis of "Does this content
> serves the mission of the projects?" there is no doubt that some content
> will removed, some offensive content will not be removed, and Commons will
> no longer be a kind of "dumping ground" for anything and everything
> regardless of whether content lacks encyclopedic usefulness.

I don't think so.  At least not by the standard deletion processes that are
currently in place.  Just about any content can be said to "contain
encyclopedic usefulness" if you take that to mean it could conceivably be
used for educational purposes by someone.  Even the most obscene and
information-lacking content can be argued to be "educational", if for no
other purpose than the purpose of giving an example of content which is
obscene and information-lacking (and moreover, I've seen these types of
arguments being made).  "Encyclopedic usefulness" is meaningless without
first defining your audience.

Yes, the term "family friendly" is often used to mean something akin to
"prudish christian conservative", but that's not the way I intended it.  I
intended it exactly the way it is written, content which is useful for
teaching within the context of a family.  That includes nudity, violence,
sex, and "Tank Man", all things which a family would be negligent in *not*
teaching their children about (or at least giving them the materials to
learn for themselves).

I didn't say anything about whether or not the images are "offensive".  The
idea that "family friendly" would mean "not offensive to anyone" is a
bastardization of the English language, not the terminology I was using.
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Re: [Foundation-l] A Board member's perspective

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 08/05/2010 20:52, Stuart West wrote:
> (1) There were some bad actors at work (e.g. hardcore pornography 
> distributors taking advantage of our open culture to get free anonymous 
> hosting).  (2) As a community (including the Board), we debated the issue too 
> long and failed to drive closure and implement.  (3) There are complex issues 
> around _some_ of the content that is in a gray area and those complexities 
> distracted us from dealing with the clearer cut cases.  

In order to help us understand better the situation, can you refer
concrete examples of 1 and a link to the discussion mentioned in 2?
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[Foundation-l] A Board member's perspective

2010-05-08 Thread Stuart West

A few of you have asked for more perspectives from Board members on the 
goings-on at Commons. I'm happy to share some of my personal views on the 
events of the past few days.

First off, let me thank everyone who has participated in the debate. I've kept 
up with many of the email threads, talk pages, village pumps, and some IRC. I 
really appreciate the passion and energy, especially when constructive.  I've 
been around the projects for about five years, and on the Board for over two 
years, and this is one of the hardest and most substantive issues we've 
attacked. In my view, it is also one of the most important.

Here are some of my personal thoughts on the issue:

- We were hosting material that was unambiguously not relevant to our 
educational mission and it needed to go. Its presence on our projects/servers 
alienated people (users, potential new volunteers, educators, others) who we 
need on our side. Getting rid of it was the right answer for the long-term 
success of our mission which is a focus both of my responsibilities as a Board 
member and my personal motivation as a volunteer. More broadly, in allowing the 
clearly objectionable content on one of our projects I feel the community 
(including the Board, Foundation and Commons admins) failed in our collective 
role as stewards of the mission.

- I agree with the view that the presence of hardcore pornography on Commons 
represents a clear failure of our community-driven consensus process and that 
we must change the way we do things.  Among other drivers I see:  (1) There 
were some bad actors at work (e.g. hardcore pornography distributors taking 
advantage of our open culture to get free anonymous hosting).  (2) As a 
community (including the Board), we debated the issue too long and failed to 
drive closure and implement.  (3) There are complex issues around _some_ of the 
content that is in a gray area and those complexities distracted us from 
dealing with the clearer cut cases.  

- Due to the failure of the community process, something extraordinary had to 
be done. A small step was our Board statement we hoped would focus attention. A 
bigger step was the work by Jimmy and other individuals on Commons who took 
bold and decisive action. Clearly it is messy, and there is room for 
overcorrection and the removal of some materials that are indeed relevant to 
our educational mission. This is inevitable but is certainly fixable. I want to 
thank all those who have been working so hard on this, either the initial 
clean-up or the ongoing review process.  It's not easy work, but it's 
critically important.

Like a lot of things within our community, the past few days have been messy. 
But I believe the outcome is headed in the right direction:  get rid of the 
content that is irrelevant to or hurts our mission, bring urgency to the debate 
about the many challenges and gray areas, and most importantly fix the 
policies/processes that have been broken. Let's get to it.

-stu

=
Stu West
Member, Board of Trustees
Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

2010-05-08 Thread Svip

On 9 May 2010 01:40, Anthony  wrote:

> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:
>
>> Or shut off the Commons. That would be the ultimate solution :-)
>
> Huh?  What would that solve?

Considering this to be an ill conceived joke, not because it could
appear 'controversial', but because it lacks... I dunno, humour?
Comedy?

But it raises a good point, however.  It perceives the concept of not
dealing with a situation proportionally.

'Someone is misusing A' -> 'Let's make A illegal'.

I would argue that this also sort of illustrates Wales' immediate
behaviour.  'Bad press' -> 'Do something!'

Ironically, I think the solution to this problem is status quo.  But
no one will accept that solution.  That's what got this whole thing
started!

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Svip

On 9 May 2010 01:01, Florence Devouard  wrote:

> On 5/8/10 7:31 PM, Mike Godwin wrote:
>
>> I'm not defending such a criterion, and I do not believe that such a
>> criterion informed Jimmy's actions. Jimmy can speak better than I can on
>> what he was thinking,
>
> Then let him speak by himself

I think most of us would be biased to hear him speak (well,
metaphorically).  I too am guilty of such, by ignoring advice (even if
good and useful) simply because of who the speaker is.

Now, I would expect any public figure like Jimmy Wales to get a bit of
shit thrown at him occasionally, even from his own ranks.  But I have
to say, the tone has been far away from professional here and there.
So letting Godwin speaking on his behalf makes sense.

It's a fresh new approach to the discussion, because we are not
immediately biased by it being Wales speaking.

And not to mention that Godwin has a point; this was an opportunity in
disguise.  And unfortunately, in retrospect, this wasn't really picked
up by the community, instead it turned into another 'fight the power'
rebellion.

I do not condone Wales' methods of handling the whole situation (hell,
I am not sure how good he is at PR!), but that is a minor issue, but
since of course it becomes the classic 'tyrant' in action, people
focuses on the small 'controversial' things.  Opportunists, I suppose.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:

> 2010/5/8 Anthony :
> > On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 5:39 PM, Tomasz Ganicz 
> wrote:
> >
> >> Well.. maybe... but bear in mind that it is really hard to discuss the
> >> pictures you can't see, and commons-delinker bot actions are really
> >> difficuilt to revert.
> >
> >
> > So fix commons-delinker.  Or shut it off altogether.
>
> Or shut off the Commons. That would be the ultimate solution :-)
>

Huh?  What would that solve?

> Shuting down commons-delinker won't much help, as deleting the picture
> on Commons leave the red links on all those projects which were using
> the picutre.

OMG.  Red links would indicate to a human that there was a problem which
needed to be solved.  Then that human could go about solving the problem
(which very well may involve more than just delinking the image).

And deletions are easily reversible.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Threading

2010-05-08 Thread Svip

On 9 May 2010 01:31, Dan Rosenthal  wrote:

> Even that solution sometimes creates new threads, for reasons unbeknownst to 
> me.

This is usually related to an error in your mail client or the mailman
server.  It is usually a mail header (if you are using gmail, try
clicking near a mail (the arrow down) and select 'show original') that
tells whether it is a reply to another mail.

Sophisticated clients like pine or mutt can figure out to draw an
accurate tree.  Of course, gmail just renders its as a conversation,
which is fine too.

But digest is in this case the origin of this issue.  And even with
gmail, using digest makes no sense, since gmail can sort it better
than mailman in most cases.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Threading

2010-05-08 Thread Dan Rosenthal


On May 8, 2010, at 7:09 PM, Casey Brown wrote:

> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 5:30 PM, Adam Cuerden  wrote:
>> If someone will tell me how to get messages to thread if you're in
>> digest mode - I've been making honest efforts to try and get threading
>> - I will happily use whatever technique is suggested. Until then, I
>> apologise for killing threads.
>> 
> 
> Well, first of all, it's best to *not* use digest.  You use gmail, so
> all of the e-mails would be threaded together automatically if you
> turned digest off.
> 
> If you won't turn off digest mode, you should probably copy the
> "Subject" for the message you're replying to and put that as the
> subject for the new e-mail you create.
> 
> -- 
> Casey Brown
> Cbrown1023
> 
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Even that solution sometimes creates new threads, for reasons unbeknownst to 
me. Turning off Digest mode is the best solution. Digest is intended for people 
who only intend on reading and replying infrequently; Adam is not that person. 
With the frequencies of his replies he'd be better suited for individual emails 
mode.

-Dan
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[Foundation-l] What the board is responsible of (was Re: Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions)

2010-05-08 Thread Florence Devouard

On 5/8/10 12:15 AM, Ting Chen wrote:
> What I can say to your questions is that Jimmy informed the board about
> his intention and asked the board for support. Don't speaking for other
> board members, just speak for myself. I answered his mail with that I
> fully support his engagement.
>
> Personally, I think that the board is responsible for defining the scope
> and basic rules of the projects. While for projects like Wikipedia,
> Wikisource, Wiktionary the scope is more or less easier to define. On
> Wikipedia we have the five pillars as our basic rules. But we have also
> some projects that have a scope that is not quite so clear and no such
> basic rules. Commons is one of these projects, and the most important one.

To be fair, I am *extremely* disturbed by the above statement.

Since when is the board DEFINING the scope and basic rules of the 
projects ?

As a reminder, the WMF was created two years after Wikipedia. The scope, 
the basic rules did not need WMF to be crafted. Over the following 
years, the scope and even the basic rules have evolved, usually for the 
better. The WMF certainly pushed on some issues, but largely, the rules 
and scope have been defined by the community.

And this is the way it should be.

You are shifting the role of the WMF in a direction that I find greatly 
impleasant.

The original reason for creation of WMF was that we needed an owner for 
our servers, we needed a way to pay the bills. We needed a way to 
collect money. WMF was here to support the project and to support the 
community dealing with the project. It was here to safegard our core values.

When I joined the board, I really felt WMF had to play the role of the 
mother toward a child. Listening to its stories, making suggestions, 
giving advice, providind food and shelter. Offering little presents, 
encouragement certainly. And tending the wounds.
But a mother that would let its child decide of its own future. Letting 
the child decide of its own path and make its own experiments. Do 
mistakes, learn about mistakes, try again.
That's what parenting is all about. Not defining the future of the 
child, but providing advice, support and helping to avoid the worst.

I feel the role of the WMF is shifting. It is shifting because some 
board members and some staff members are mislead about the role of the 
WMF. Thank god, most staff and board are still on the right track.

But a serious warning to me is when board members make statements such 
as yours above.

> Fact is, there is no consensus in the community as what is educational
> or potentially educational for Commons. And as far as I see there would
> probably never be a concensus. And I think this is where the board
> should weigh in. To define scopes and basic rules. This is why the board
> made this statement.

There is nothing wrong with this statement and certainly nothing wrong 
with the board making it.

However, if the problem is that the community can not reach a consensus 
about what "educational" is, I am not quite sure how helpful it is for 
the board to state that our scope is the "educational"

>
> For me, this statement is at the first line a support for Jimmy's
> effort.

I am not convinced it should be interpretated that way. Jimmy's is 
behaving like a vandal and breaking the very notion of our "power in the 
hands of the community". Certainly, the board is not supporting his 
breaking our internal rules crafted with great care over a 10 years period.

It is a soft push from the board to the community to move in a
> direction. Both Jimmy as well as me believe that the best way for the
> board to do things is to give guidance to the communities.

You know... guidance is only ok if the recommandation and behavior is 
reasonable and does not push people too much out of the confort zone.
"Guidance" requires acceptance.

Ant

But, this
> topic is already pending for years. Looking back into the archives of
> foundation-l or village pump of Commons there were enough discussions.
> If the problem cannot be solved inside of the community, it is my
> believe it is the duty of the board and every board member to solve the
> problem.
>
> Ting

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

2010-05-08 Thread Alec Conroy

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 6:37 PM, Mike Godwin  wrote:

> There's also no urgent legal issue driving any changes to Commons -- we
> don't have reason to believe any category of content we knowingly carry on
> Commons is definitionally illegal under U.S. law. (Obviously, when if people
> upload content that is illegal, and we're informed about its presence, we'll
> remove it -- most likely, volunteers will remove it even before it gets the
> attention of the Foundation staff.)
>
> If we judge Commons content simply on the basis of "Does this content serves
> the mission of the projects?" there is no doubt that some content will
> removed, some offensive content will not be removed, and Commons will no
> longer be a kind of "dumping ground" for anything and everything regardless
> of whether content lacks encyclopedic usefulness. As a side-effect of this,
> you probably get both (a) a resource that is somewhat more "family friendly"
> (because the sheer frequency of merely offensive images is reduced) and (b)
> a resource that remains essentially "uncensored," consistent with its
> encyclopedic mission.  (I use "uncensored" here to mean "not edited merely
> to avoid offense.")

Hi Mike!  Longtime fan, first-time emailer. :)
First of all, I want to say I've seen a couple of people questioned
your integrity today, and I was very sorry to see that.   I was really
happy when I heard you were joining us, and I haven't seen anything
here today from you but a nice guy calmly trying to help things. :)

I think the reason you're having a hard time getting people to discuss
the policy formation is that, overall, there isn't that much
disagreement among the bulk of the community.

We all basically agree that there has to be a limit to the images in
Commons.  We all agree that images which aren't helping the project or
a sibling project probably don't need to be hanging out on Commons.
It's not flickr, and we're all basically okay with the fact that it's
not flickr.

The only reason this dispute exists is because one side of the dispute
is the founder.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Threading

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 5:30 PM, Adam Cuerden  wrote:
> If someone will tell me how to get messages to thread if you're in
> digest mode - I've been making honest efforts to try and get threading
> - I will happily use whatever technique is suggested. Until then, I
> apologise for killing threads.
>

Well, first of all, it's best to *not* use digest.  You use gmail, so
all of the e-mails would be threaded together automatically if you
turned digest off.

If you won't turn off digest mode, you should probably copy the
"Subject" for the message you're replying to and put that as the
subject for the new e-mail you create.

-- 
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Florence Devouard

On 5/8/10 7:31 PM, Mike Godwin wrote:
> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 10:25 AM, Andre Engels  wrote:
>
>>
>> Defending means lessening the chance of the opponent to succeed. If
>> you throw all the riches that are demanded and then some over the city
>> wall, that's not defending, that's capitulating.
>>
>
> Wow. Even worse metaphor! "All the riches that are demanded"!
>
>
>> Not implicitly, no. But you were defending actions that in my eyes did
>> just that, namely by deleting material apparently using the criterium
>> "what might Fox object to?" rather than using the criterium "what does
>> not in any way add to our mission of spreading knowledge?"
>>
>
> I'm not defending such a criterion, and I do not believe that such a
> criterion informed Jimmy's actions. Jimmy can speak better than I can on
> what he was thinking,

Then let him speak by himself

but I'll note again that, to the extent you focus on
> retrospectively criticizing Jimmy and not on what can be done positively to
> improve Commons policy or its implementation, you are missing an
> opportunity. Think future, not past. Think project, not Jimmy.
>
>
> --Mike

Well, all we are thinking about is precisely the future and the project.
The project was built upon the perception that this project was build by 
and for the regular people. That no one was the boss and deciding for 
the others. That everyone had a say. That everyone was empowered.

The so-called porn images are a detail within the project.
However, the lost perception that the community is in charge of its own 
future (eg, the way it operates, the power structure), is not a detail. 
It will impact our entire future.

Ant


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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

Tomek writes:

So... are we now going to start writting "USfamilyfriendlypedia(tm)" ?
> There is plenty of stuff to be delete then... not only penis and
> vagina pictures... For example delete all biographies of porn-stars,
> articles about addictive violent computer games, and there is tons of
> things to be deleted in order to make our projects more "family
> friendy".
>

For what it's worth, I personally don't see the issue as one of making
Commons (or Wikipedia or any other project) "family-friendly." There will
always be content that some substantial fraction of the reading population
will find offensive. This would be true even if the projects were limited to
text.

There's also no urgent legal issue driving any changes to Commons -- we
don't have reason to believe any category of content we knowingly carry on
Commons is definitionally illegal under U.S. law. (Obviously, when if people
upload content that is illegal, and we're informed about its presence, we'll
remove it -- most likely, volunteers will remove it even before it gets the
attention of the Foundation staff.)

If we judge Commons content simply on the basis of "Does this content serves
the mission of the projects?" there is no doubt that some content will
removed, some offensive content will not be removed, and Commons will no
longer be a kind of "dumping ground" for anything and everything regardless
of whether content lacks encyclopedic usefulness. As a side-effect of this,
you probably get both (a) a resource that is somewhat more "family friendly"
(because the sheer frequency of merely offensive images is reduced) and (b)
a resource that remains essentially "uncensored," consistent with its
encyclopedic mission.  (I use "uncensored" here to mean "not edited merely
to avoid offense.")

--Mike
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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

Why do you believe that there is a need to make a "choice" between groups of
people? We can easily supply all the data - it is up to the user to decide
if they want to access it. Anyone active on the internet has the potential
to unearth vast amounts of data. There are pro-choice and pro-life sites,
there are sites about every religion, There are extremely left and extremely
right winged pages. There are pages encouraging suicide, anorexia, bulimia
and i can go on and on. Virtually everything related to humanity can be
found in the 500 petabytes or so of data we have networked together. If you
wish to find something, you can.

However, If i am not looking for a page about anorexia or bulimia, *I will
not find it*; or at least not on Wikipedia. If i don't want to see a picture
on a page, i can block it - See depictions of muhammed for an example. We -
or at least i - are not here to appease to a certain group. We are
collectively collecting data and transforming that into valid information -
as much as we can. We don't withhold or censor information simply because
some random group of people doesn't want to see or read it. We should
practice biomimicry - we won't evolve into the best source for a certain
task, but we evolve into the best source for all tasks combined. And that
means that if i search for "Penis", i will find an article about it, and
that article will likely be illustrated with a diagram or image. Why?
Because a image describes the subject better then words can do. If that
offends me, i should not be searching in the first place. Take the images on
our gangrene  page. They are in my
eyes nauseating and not child friendly, but without them i would not be able
to form an understanding of the subject. But the point is - don't search,
don't find. Any child can safely search sesame street without ever finding
pornographic content on Wikipedia.

And frankly, if we are going to appease a certain group or censor ourselves
we will head into the direction of Conservapedia, which only offers
incomplete information that only little people can use. If anything we
should be aware of possible issues. As i said before, there is no reason to
offend just to offend, so controversial topics and images should be handled
with care. There is no need to have explicit images all over the place, but
they should be present in article's which talk about them.
~Excirial

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 11:40 PM, Anthony  wrote:

> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 5:18 PM, Excirial  wrote:
>
> > Sexual and medical images might be entirely inappropriate for children,
> but
> > they provide valuable information for other groups of people - for
> example,
> > a gynecologist or a medical student might have a completely non sexual
> > reason to look at certain content. Protecting one group might well mean
> > that
> > we deny valuable data to another.
> >
>
> So which group is more important?  Which is the better answer, to tell
> families to go elsewhere, or to tell the specialists to go elsewhere?
>
> I dunno, when framed that way it seems the answer is to be family-friendly,
> and to let the specialists get their information in specialist resources.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

> 2010/5/8 Anthony :
>
>> I dunno, when framed that way it seems the answer is to be
>> family-friendly,
>> and to let the specialists get their information in specialist
>> resources.
>
> So... are we now going to start writting "USfamilyfriendlypedia(tm)" ?
> There is plenty of stuff to be delete then... not only penis and
> vagina pictures... For example delete all biographies of porn-stars,
> articles about addictive violent computer games, and there is tons of
> things to be deleted in order to make our projects more "family
> friendy".

All I'm talking about is a children's edition, not gutting En. It could
be even more free than it already is, if we chose it to be.

Fred


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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

2010-05-08 Thread Tomasz Ganicz

2010/5/8 Anthony :
> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 5:39 PM, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:
>
>> Well.. maybe... but bear in mind that it is really hard to discuss the
>> pictures you can't see, and commons-delinker bot actions are really
>> difficuilt to revert.
>
>
> So fix commons-delinker.  Or shut it off altogether.

Or shut off the Commons. That would be the ultimate solution :-)
Shuting down commons-delinker won't much help, as deleting the picture
on Commons leave the red links on all those projects which were using
the picutre. Thats the idea of Commons - to be the central repository
of multimedia files - which strikes back in an effect - that if you
delete something on Commons you hit not only Commons but also all
those projects which are using it.

-- 
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

2010-05-08 Thread Tomasz Ganicz

2010/5/8 Anthony :

> I dunno, when framed that way it seems the answer is to be family-friendly,
> and to let the specialists get their information in specialist resources.

So... are we now going to start writting "USfamilyfriendlypedia(tm)" ?
There is plenty of stuff to be delete then... not only penis and
vagina pictures... For example delete all biographies of porn-stars,
articles about addictive violent computer games, and there is tons of
things to be deleted in order to make our projects more "family
friendy".



-- 
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content


>
> So which group is more important?  Which is the better answer, to tell
> families to go elsewhere, or to tell the specialists to go elsewhere?
>
> I dunno, when framed that way it seems the answer is to be
> family-friendly,
> and to let the specialists get their information in specialist resources.

Those will special interests should have no difficulty creating
specialized reference resources. Certainly those who are into pornography
have.

Fred Bauder


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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 5:39 PM, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:

> Well.. maybe... but bear in mind that it is really hard to discuss the
> pictures you can't see, and commons-delinker bot actions are really
> difficuilt to revert.

So fix commons-delinker.  Or shut it off altogether.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

If you intend to build a house, you build some foundations first, or at the
very least you create a plan to follow. Quick solutions are not necessarily
a bad thing, but there is a difference between a solution and actions that
only cause damage. Personally i doubt that this would have generated the
same amount of controversy and debate if this was laid out or at least
communicated and planned before actions were taken. Keep in mind that a 30%
revert rate is massive, and an indication that large amounts of collateral
damage were done. To state something that has been said to many times
already: Removing works of art (Paintings) on the basis that they appeared
to be explicit is simply not well though off, especially if that same
painting was the subject (or used) in multiple article's on carious
incarnations of Wikipedia.

I would also point out that a policy was being discussed and finalized. Even
without suck a policy a simple statement explaining what was going on would
have helped tremendously. Instead most users were left in the dark with no
indication about the magnitude or reason for the removals. If anything we
are expected to operate on a consensus basis, which tends to be slower but
generally produces good results. I don't doubt Jimbo had good intentions,
but i also know that no other admin could have gotten away with a case like
this.

As a sidenote i would point out that while we are indeed accessible to
children, we always state that we are not censored and therefor not
appropriate for minors. Italy's law does not apply to Wikipedia servers -
after all we don't have to submit to China's Golden Shield Project either.
And while it is a WAX argument - if those children search for pornographic
content they can easily find a lot more explicit content then Wikipedia
offers. At least we handle it with a bit more care then most sites do.

~Excirial

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 11:24 PM, Ilario Valdelli  wrote:

> On 08.05.2010 23:02, Victor Vasiliev wrote:
> >> Think future, not past. Think project, not Jimmy.
> >>
> > We do think future: if Jimmy had already carelessly intervened twice
> > and caused controversies both time, how can we except the story will
> > not repeat.
> >
>
> Probably this is happened twice because twice the community has been too
> weak to find a "quick" solution.
>
> The legal involvement of publication of explicit sexual images
> accessible to children is something established a lot of year ago in
> different legal systems, this is nothing that is happened only one or
> two months ago.
>
> The community has had time (and a lot of time).
>
> The request of a wake up of Jimbo is not an excuse.
>
> Ilario
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 5:18 PM, Excirial  wrote:

> Sexual and medical images might be entirely inappropriate for children, but
> they provide valuable information for other groups of people - for example,
> a gynecologist or a medical student might have a completely non sexual
> reason to look at certain content. Protecting one group might well mean
> that
> we deny valuable data to another.
>

So which group is more important?  Which is the better answer, to tell
families to go elsewhere, or to tell the specialists to go elsewhere?

I dunno, when framed that way it seems the answer is to be family-friendly,
and to let the specialists get their information in specialist resources.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

2010-05-08 Thread Tomasz Ganicz

2010/5/8 David Levy :
> Samuel Klein wrote:
>
>> I don't think this is a technical issue at all.   Considering how
>> flexible and reversible wiki-actions are, it seems eminently
>> appropriate to me for the project founder to have 'unlimited
>> technical power' on the projects -- just as you and all of our
>> developers do, at a much higher level.
>
> Deletions are easily reversible.  Multi-wiki image transclusion
> removals, distrust in the Wikimedia Commons and resignations from
> Wikimedia projects?  Less so.

Well.. maybe... but bear in mind that it is really hard to discuss the
pictures you can't see, and commons-delinker bot actions are really
difficuilt to revert. On any other project if you delete something it
is just a local issue. But deleting a picture on Commons which was
used on many other project for years is really hiting all those
projects, not only Commons. The side effect of Jimbo action might be a
general move toward keeping pictures on local projects instead of
using Commons... Maybe we should have common-prolinker bot to work in
opposite way, after undeleting pictures?

The another idea is to keep on Commons only those pictures which are
non-controversial and suggest local project to keep their
controversial pictures local? For example en Wikipedia keeps fair use
pictures locally and it is OK. If for example nudity pictures is not a
problem for Danish or French or Svedish Wikipedias - they can keep
them locally... and the en-Wikipedia which is driven by anglo-saxon
taboo of nudity can get rid of them...

-- 
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html

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[Foundation-l] Threading

If someone will tell me how to get messages to thread if you're in
digest mode - I've been making honest efforts to try and get threading
- I will happily use whatever technique is suggested. Until then, I
apologise for killing threads.

-Adam.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread teun spaans

Adam,

could you please continue existing discussions instead of creating new ones
again and again?

kind regards
teun spaans

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 11:19 PM, Adam Cuerden  wrote:

> (Sorry, ignore the last two sentences - they're left over from a previous
> draft)
>
> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 10:18 PM, Adam Cuerden  wrote:
> > Mr. Godwin, are you aware that, before Jimbo acted unilaterally, that
> > a discussion of policy had been opened by him, and was proceeding
> > towards something that had reasonable support, based on the legal
> > issues that he implied were the source  of his hurry to do something.
> >
> > That was derailed by his actions, which also completely ignored the
> > evolving community decision, and has been completely derailed as it
> > turns out completely different motives (Public relations) were, in
> > fact, the real ones.
> >
> > If you want policy discussions, first regain the trust of the
> > community Jimbo lied to in what turned out to be a sham effort to
> > develop a consensus policy about the reporting issues for photographic
> > and filmed pornography.
> >
> > After actively deceiving us as to the reasons for a policy discussion,
> > Jimbo needs dealt with, and someone we can trust to play fair and give
> > us the actual reasons - and who won't pretend to be cooperating on
> > building policy, then ignore every single bit of community consensus -
> > because community consensus came down hard on the side of keeping
> > artworks - before we can go back to trying to restart a policy
> > discussion which began with active deceit of the community, first off
> > as to the reasons, and secondly, that it was a discussion.
> >
> >
> > We now are told this is a free speech issue.
> >
> > So what policy
> >
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Ilario Valdelli

On 08.05.2010 23:02, Victor Vasiliev wrote:
>> Think future, not past. Think project, not Jimmy.
>>  
> We do think future: if Jimmy had already carelessly intervened twice
> and caused controversies both time, how can we except the story will
> not repeat.
>

Probably this is happened twice because twice the community has been too 
weak to find a "quick" solution.

The legal involvement of publication of explicit sexual images 
accessible to children is something established a lot of year ago in 
different legal systems, this is nothing that is happened only one or 
two months ago.

The community has had time (and a lot of time).

The request of a wake up of Jimbo is not an excuse.

Ilario

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Gregory Maxwell

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 5:02 PM, Victor Vasiliev  wrote:
>> Think future, not past. Think project, not Jimmy.
>
> We do think future: if Jimmy had already carelessly intervened twice
> and caused controversies both time, how can we except the story will
> not repeat.
> We do think project: if we already had careless interventions with
> desysopping, users retiring and wheelwarring, how can we except we
> will not have more users leaving and more users getting upset by being
> ignored?
>
> The deletions themselves aren't the problem; the manner in which they
> were carried out is. As a lawyer you should understand that the due
> process is important.

Well— some of the deletions were clearly a problem. Currently 30% of
Jimmy's deletions have been undone.

The deletions of in use images isn't something we would have decided
to do outright. Instead we probably would have worked to find
replacements if the images were decided to be problematic. The
deletion of in-use work have eroded the trust our customer projects
have in commons (the Germans are referring to this incident as "Vulva
reloaded")... resulting in plans to mass-reupload the deleted works
locally which have mostly been forestalled based on the diligent work
commons admins are performing in getting images which were in use
restored.

To the best of my ability to discern,  none of our customer projects
(many of which allow local image uploads) have guidelines which would
have resolved the concerns with sexually explicit images had they been
applied to commons. This is one of the major complicating factors:
While commons is also in independent educational resource, we are
_also_ a service project for the other projects.

When commons deletes in image a local project would have allowed this
can produce significant bad blood. We have mostly established a good
working relationship around copyright and other areas where commons
tends to be restrictive. But in the case of copyright we could lean on
an understanding of copyright concerns local to every project.
"Commons must be restrictive because it is used by everyone, we can't
let ourselves be used as a back door to violate the policies of XYZ
Wiki". But, example restrictions on sexual content basically do not
exist.  So instead this activity comes off as a back door effort by
commons to override the community decision making on every Wikimedia
project.

(I should be noted that every complaint I'm raising in this message
could have been avoided by simply skipping the images which were in
active use)

If one of the major wikipedia had sexual content restrictions we'd
have an easier time developing a process for commons.  In the absence
of such a restriction on a Wikipedia it's harder to even make the case
that such a rule is even required for commons.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

(Sorry, ignore the last two sentences - they're left over from a previous draft)

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 10:18 PM, Adam Cuerden  wrote:
> Mr. Godwin, are you aware that, before Jimbo acted unilaterally, that
> a discussion of policy had been opened by him, and was proceeding
> towards something that had reasonable support, based on the legal
> issues that he implied were the source  of his hurry to do something.
>
> That was derailed by his actions, which also completely ignored the
> evolving community decision, and has been completely derailed as it
> turns out completely different motives (Public relations) were, in
> fact, the real ones.
>
> If you want policy discussions, first regain the trust of the
> community Jimbo lied to in what turned out to be a sham effort to
> develop a consensus policy about the reporting issues for photographic
> and filmed pornography.
>
> After actively deceiving us as to the reasons for a policy discussion,
> Jimbo needs dealt with, and someone we can trust to play fair and give
> us the actual reasons - and who won't pretend to be cooperating on
> building policy, then ignore every single bit of community consensus -
> because community consensus came down hard on the side of keeping
> artworks - before we can go back to trying to restart a policy
> discussion which began with active deceit of the community, first off
> as to the reasons, and secondly, that it was a discussion.
>
>
> We now are told this is a free speech issue.
>
> So what policy
>

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[Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

Mr. Godwin, are you aware that, before Jimbo acted unilaterally, that
a discussion of policy had been opened by him, and was proceeding
towards something that had reasonable support, based on the legal
issues that he implied were the source  of his hurry to do something.

That was derailed by his actions, which also completely ignored the
evolving community decision, and has been completely derailed as it
turns out completely different motives (Public relations) were, in
fact, the real ones.

If you want policy discussions, first regain the trust of the
community Jimbo lied to in what turned out to be a sham effort to
develop a consensus policy about the reporting issues for photographic
and filmed pornography.

After actively deceiving us as to the reasons for a policy discussion,
Jimbo needs dealt with, and someone we can trust to play fair and give
us the actual reasons - and who won't pretend to be cooperating on
building policy, then ignore every single bit of community consensus -
because community consensus came down hard on the side of keeping
artworks - before we can go back to trying to restart a policy
discussion which began with active deceit of the community, first off
as to the reasons, and secondly, that it was a discussion.


We now are told this is a free speech issue.

So what policy

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

Is it really our task to worry about the impact certain content might have
in a certain culture? There will always be people who are offended by a
certain image, phrase or comment, and we cannot possibly accommodate
everyone. I would argue that we *should not *consider ourselves educators
who's goal is to teach students. Instead, we should think of ourselves as
enablers - we create a large repository of (as far as possible) unbiased
information that anyone can access and learn from if desired. If someone
objects to certain content he or she can choose to discuss it, or otherwise
they can refuse to "Learn" from it. Yet if they refuse, it is not our task
to appease them by changing our content.

Neither should we strive to be family friendly or politically correct.
Sexual and medical images might be entirely inappropriate for children, but
they provide valuable information for other groups of people - for example,
a gynecologist or a medical student might have a completely non sexual
reason to look at certain content. Protecting one group might well mean that
we deny valuable data to another. We should also keep in mind that the
Internet hosts vast quantities of porn, which is often easier found then
looking it up on Wikipedia. Therefor i would argue that a well written
article illustrated with (possibly) explicit content can have educational
value as well, if only to offset "Porn industry" style education.

Having said all that i would also point out that i wholeheartedly agree we
are not a porn repository or a web host for images. We don't need a million
pornographic images just "to have them"; There are only so many places where
those images have added value anyway. And equally we should stay well within
bounds of the law, and take care that we don't go overboard adding explicit
content;  Any objectionable content should be handled with care, and has to
be added in limited amounts as there is no need to offend people just for
the sake of being offensive. But that doesn't mean we should swing the
entirely opposite way. Removing old paintings because they contain nudity
is, in my eyes, not helping anyone.

~Excirial

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 10:04 PM, Fred Bauder  wrote:

> It comes down to the size of the tent. If you want students in Saudi
> Arabia to be able to use Wikipedia it has to be structured one way. If
> you want to please gay college students you structure it another way.
>
> Really there is no right or wrong; it's a matter of who the resource is
> going to be available to. We have no power to resolve the cultural
> differences. We can only be aware and make decisions accordingly.
>
> Fred Bauder
>
> > H...
> >
> >> The vast majority of that material is entirely uncontroversial, but the
> >> projects do contain material that may be inappropriate or offensive to
> >> some audiences, such as children or people with religious or cultural
> >> sensitivities.
> >
> > Time to delete
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead
> >
> > I guess...
> >
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> >
>
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Ilario Valdelli

On 08.05.2010 17:48, Mike Godwin wrote:
> I think it's also worth remembering that when an individual like Jimmy is
> given extraordinary cross-project powers to use in extraordinary
> circumstances, this more or less guarantees that any use of those powers
> will be controversial. (If they were uncontroversial, nobody would need
> them, since consensus processes would fix all problems quickly and
> effectively.) But rather than focus on whether your disagreement with the
> particulars of what Jimmy did means that Jimmy's powers should be removed,
> you should choose instead, I believe, to use this abrupt intervention as an
> opportunity to discuss whether Commons policy and its implementation can be
> improved in a way that brings it more into line with the Wikimedia projects'
> mission. Once this discussion happens, it would not surprise me if the
> result turned out to be that some of the material deleted by Jimmy will be
> restored by the community -- probably with Jimmy's approval in many cases.
>
>

I agree most of all with this point.

I don't understand this dissatisfaction generated by Jimbo's decision.

Commons is so careful with the copyright's violation and some decisions 
of Commons community has been perceived to be excessively "severe" to 
other communities, but in other ways Commons seems to be so unconnected 
with other kind of "legal" problems that I personally have thought to be 
in mistaken.

In Italy, for example, the explicit publication of pornographic content 
in a public web sites is not allowed and any deficiency is treated *with 
"criminal" law*.

The deleted images and the free access for children has been a strange 
situation until now with legal involvement in a lot of countries.

The images have had neither a disclaimer or a warning concerning the 
children access and the feeling given to the users has been that of the 
indifference to the problem.

I have never understood why the Commons community has not treated this 
matter so careful than the copyright's violation and the reaction of the 
community to Jimbo can only confirm me the feeling of "indifference".

Now I see that Jimbo has managed the problem with urgency and asked to 
the community to fix the problem at last.

I cannot see any other problem.

Ilario

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 4:04 PM, Fred Bauder 
> wrote:
>> It comes down to the size of the tent. If you want students in Saudi
>> Arabia to be able to use Wikipedia it has to be structured one way. If
>> you want to please gay college students you structure it another way.
> [snip]
>
> The deletions performed would not have done even a bit of good making
> Wikipedia more useful to students in Saudi Arabia.  For that we must
> first start with
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy.
>
> In the access to wikipedia to the general public was inhibited due to
> a commercially available album cover. I expect that Chinia is still
> very unhappy with our coverage of human rights and other political and
> historical subjects.
>
> Even in US schools, I can't believe that ones who would inhibit
> schools over risquÃ© drawings from the 1800s sourced from the US
> library of congress would suddenly permit access while we still
> detailed anatomical photographs.
>
> (As far as I can tell Jimmy's "almost complete cleanup" included only
> one of the almost 300 human penis pictures â is anyone actually
> proposing we remove all the anatomical images?)
>
> It's important to state a goalâ it might be arguable to continue
> deleting educational images if it would cause Wikipedia to be usable
> in more places... but without a stated goal all we could hope to do is
> cause the harm without enjoying the benefit.
>

We can make choices and commit to those choices, if we chose. Probably
creation of a children's fork, a PRC fork, and a fundamentalist Muslim
fork would solve the main problems. I can't see it happening, but that
would be a solution. It's no different from a car company putting out
several different models.

Fred Bauder


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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Victor Vasiliev

> Think future, not past. Think project, not Jimmy.

We do think future: if Jimmy had already carelessly intervened twice
and caused controversies both time, how can we except the story will
not repeat.
We do think project: if we already had careless interventions with
desysopping, users retiring and wheelwarring, how can we except we
will not have more users leaving and more users getting upset by being
ignored?

The deletions themselves aren't the problem; the manner in which they
were carried out is. As a lawyer you should understand that the due
process is important.

--vvv

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 1:46 PM, Keegan Peterzell wrote:

> While there is much to be said about Jimbo's role from everyone, that's not
> Mike's point.  His is, and correct me if I'm wrong, Mike, "Sit down and work
> out the issue of the images, which is the most important, and then revisit
> social constructs".  Work first, then have a cup of coffee and talk.
>

You're not wrong. You've restated my views better than I stated them.


--Mike
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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Keegan Peterzell

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 3:20 PM, Mike Godwin  wrote:
>
> I've always loved that quote. Me, I want neither to create disorder nor to
> preserve disorder. It's not the nature of disorder to need creating or
> preserving.
>
> Creating and preserving order is a much harder challenge. Obviously,
> creativity needs freedom and diversity, but it also needs rules. Striking
> the right balance between freedom and rules is especially hard, but if the
> recent debate leads people to reflecting on what a better balance is,
> that's
> a good result, even if people remain (understandably) unhappy with certain
> particular actions that gave rise to the debate.
>
> I know a lot of people suppose that the attack from Fox is the trigger for
> discussion of review of Commons policy, but in fact Commons policy has been
> subject to ongoing review and discussion for some time now, as FloNight has
> mentioned. Fox's maliciousness, and Jimmy's unilateral response to it, may
> have added some urgency to the discussion, but I think the discussion needs
> to happen.
>
>
> --Mike
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I don't follow Commons, and I've only an inkling of this debate, but this
comment is strikingly familiar.

It wasn't Jimmy but a couple rogue admins that launched a fury and later
fruitful discussion on Biographies of Living Persons on the English
Wikipedia back in January.  Finger wagging at Jimbo isn't the point, because
whomever did such an action would be excoriated.  This doesn't mean the
theoretical conversation shouldn't be had, or isn't valid, but more to
Mike's point of a catalyst for resolution of a long-term, ongoing
discussion.

While there is much to be said about Jimbo's role from everyone, that's not
Mike's point.  His is, and correct me if I'm wrong, Mike, "Sit down and work
out the issue of the images, which is the most important, and then revisit
social constructs".  Work first, then have a cup of coffee and talk.
 Stepping on project toes and upsetting communities is bad, but this was
bound to happen on Commons at some point and Jimbo was the one that did it.
 Argue about respecting community rights later, it's an apt argument.  So is
the discussion of Jimbo.  But focus on Commons now while it's on the front
burner before it is scorched.

Just my two cents.

-- 
~Keegan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 12:57 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen  wrote:

> Mayor of Chicago, Richard J. Daley:
>
> "The policeman isn't there to create disorder;
> the policeman is there to preserve disorder."
>
>
> Sorry, couldn't resist. ;-D
>

I've always loved that quote. Me, I want neither to create disorder nor to
preserve disorder. It's not the nature of disorder to need creating or
preserving.

Creating and preserving order is a much harder challenge. Obviously,
creativity needs freedom and diversity, but it also needs rules. Striking
the right balance between freedom and rules is especially hard, but if the
recent debate leads people to reflecting on what a better balance is, that's
a good result, even if people remain (understandably) unhappy with certain
particular actions that gave rise to the debate.

I know a lot of people suppose that the attack from Fox is the trigger for
discussion of review of Commons policy, but in fact Commons policy has been
subject to ongoing review and discussion for some time now, as FloNight has
mentioned. Fox's maliciousness, and Jimmy's unilateral response to it, may
have added some urgency to the discussion, but I think the discussion needs
to happen.

--Mike
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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

2010-05-08 Thread Gregory Maxwell

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 4:04 PM, Fred Bauder  wrote:
> It comes down to the size of the tent. If you want students in Saudi
> Arabia to be able to use Wikipedia it has to be structured one way. If
> you want to please gay college students you structure it another way.
[snip]

The deletions performed would not have done even a bit of good making
Wikipedia more useful to students in Saudi Arabia.  For that we must
first start with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy.

In the access to wikipedia to the general public was inhibited due to
a commercially available album cover. I expect that Chinia is still
very unhappy with our coverage of human rights and other political and
historical subjects.

Even in US schools, I can't believe that ones who would inhibit
schools over risqué drawings from the 1800s sourced from the US
library of congress would suddenly permit access while we still
detailed anatomical photographs.

(As far as I can tell Jimmy's "almost complete cleanup" included only
one of the almost 300 human penis pictures — is anyone actually
proposing we remove all the anatomical images?)

It's important to state a goal— it might be arguable to continue
deleting educational images if it would cause Wikipedia to be usable
in more places... but without a stated goal all we could hope to do is
cause the harm without enjoying the benefit.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

It comes down to the size of the tent. If you want students in Saudi
Arabia to be able to use Wikipedia it has to be structured one way. If
you want to please gay college students you structure it another way.

Really there is no right or wrong; it's a matter of who the resource is
going to be available to. We have no power to resolve the cultural
differences. We can only be aware and make decisions accordingly.

Fred Bauder

> H...
>
>> The vast majority of that material is entirely uncontroversial, but the
>> projects do contain material that may be inappropriate or offensive to
>> some audiences, such as children or people with religious or cultural
>> sensitivities.
>
> Time to delete
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead
>
> I guess...
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> Mike Godwin wrote:
>>
>> You're misunderstanding what I wrote here. The words "not individually" were
>> chosen for a reason.
>>
>> Let me put it this way -- sometimes a police officer has to use physical
>> force to stop further violence from having. If you inferred from this
>> statement that that I favor police intervention as a first resort, or that I
>> favor physical force, you would properly be criticized as misrepresenting my
>> views.
>>
>>
>> 

Mayor of Chicago, Richard J. Daley:

"The policeman isn't there to create disorder;
the policeman is there to preserve disorder."


Sorry, couldn't resist. ;-D


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen



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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

2010-05-08 Thread Magnus Manske

H...

> The vast majority of that material is entirely uncontroversial, but the
> projects do contain material that may be inappropriate or offensive to
> some audiences, such as children or people with religious or cultural
> sensitivities.

Time to delete

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead

I guess...

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

"Imagine a world where every single media and government on the planet
is given free censorship on the sum of all human knowledge. That's what
we're king of."

I agree with Mike Godwin that this crisis is an constructive
opportunity, not just a destructive event about fears (of FBI, of Fox
News, of dictatorship), angers and disappointments.

But an opportunity for what?
- - to constructively discuss the censorship problem.
- - to constructively discuss the vulnerability of the WMF
- - to constructively discuss the Commons policy

Let's start to pinpoint and synthesize the few big problems and link to
a wikipage to BUILD discussion and answer. 200 mails a day is not the
way, in my opinion, besides the fact that this current discussion is not
(and should not be) restricted to this mailing list.

Do we already have appropriate wikipage (or another collaborative
structure) to discuss these points?



On 08/05/2010 12:48, Mike Godwin wrote:
> I want to write personally -- not speaking on behalf of the Foundation but
> instead as a longtime participant in online communities who has worked
> extensively on free-speech issues -- to offer my perspective on a couple of
> themes that I've seen made in threads here. The first is the claim that
> Jimmy's actions represent a collapse in the face of a threat by Fox News
> (and that this threat was somehow small or insignificant). The second is the
> idea that the proper focus of the current discussion ought to be focused on
> Jimmy (and anger against Jimmy's taking action, or against particular
> aspects of the actions he took) to the effective exclusion of discussion of
> whether Wikimedia Commons policy should be revisited, refined, or better
> implemented.
> 
> First, my belief as a former journalist is that Fox News is not a
> responsible news organization. This means that they get too many stories
> wrong in the first place (as when they uncritically echo Larry Sanger's
> uninformed and self-interested assertions), and it also means that when
> their mistakes are brought to their attention, they may redouble their
> aggressive attacks in the hope of somehow vindicating their original story.
> This I believe is what Fox News (or at least its reporter and her editors)
> were trying to do. If the media culture in the United States were such that
> Fox News had no influence outside itself, we could probably just ignore it.
> But the reality is that the virulent culture of Fox News does manage to
> infect other media coverage in ways that are destructive to good people and
> to good projects.
> 
> I disagree with the suggestion that it would have been better for Fox to
> have gone with the original story they were trying to create rather than
> with the story Jimmy in effect created for them.  Jimmy's decision to
> intervene changed the narrative they were attempting to create. So even if
> you disagree with some or all of the particulars of Jimmy's actions, you may
> still be able to see how Jimmy's actions, taken as a whole, created
> breathing space for discussion of an issue on Commons that even many of
> Jimmy's critics believe is a real issue.
> 
> The question then becomes whether we're doing to discuss the issues of
> Commons policy or discuss whether Jimmy's actions themselves signify a
> problem that needs to be fixed.  You may say we can discuss both, and
> technically you'd be right, but the reality of human discourse is that if
> you spend your time venting at Jimmy, you won't be discussing Commons
> policy, and you'll be diverting attention from Commons policy. My personal
> opinion is that this would be the waste of an opportunity.
> 
> I think it's also worth remembering that when an individual like Jimmy is
> given extraordinary cross-project powers to use in extraordinary
> circumstances, this more or less guarantees that any use of those powers
> will be controversial. (If they were uncontroversial, nobody would need
> them, since consensus processes would fix all problems quickly and
> effectively.) But rather than focus on whether your disagreement with the
> particulars of what Jimmy did means that Jimmy's powers should be removed,
> you should choose instead, I believe, to use this abrupt intervention as an
> opportunity to discuss whether Commons policy and its implementation can be
> improved in a way that brings it more into line with the Wikimedia projects'
> mission. Once this discussion happens, it would not surprise me if the
> result turned out to be that some of the material deleted by Jimmy will be
> restored by the community -- probably with Jimmy's approval in many cases.
> 
> To the extent that Jimmy's intervention has triggered a healthy debate about
> policy, I think the powers he used, and the decisions -- not individually
> but taken as a whole -- that he made are justified. (Like many of you, I
> would probably disagree with some of his particular decisions, but I
> recognize that I'd

Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo Wales acting outside his remit

> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 9:24 AM, Fred Bauder 
> wrote:
> > Note however, "We were about to be smeared in all media as hosting
> > hardcore pornography with zero educational value and doing nothing about
> > it."
> >
> > Fred Bauder
>

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 12:39 PM, David Goodman  wrote:

> And we are about to be presented in all responsible free culture media
> as having
> acted as if such false accusations were true.
>
> David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
>

You mean they weren't true?  Which part is false, that Commons hosted (and,
still continues to host) hardcore pornography with zero educational value,
or that you hadn't done anything about it?

"Much of the cleanup is done, although there was so much hardcore
pornography on commons that there's still some left in nooks and crannies."

Is that another one of those false accusations?
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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Marc Riddell

> Marc Riddell writes:
> 
> 
>> Mike, please stop and listen. The Community, which is the heart and soul of
>> this very Project, is ventilating, and making some extremely important
>> points. Please stop trying to control, and re-direct, this dialogue in a
>> more Foundation-comfortable direction. Listen and Learn.
>> 
> 
> Marc, I've been listening all along. Neither expression of disagreement nor
> an effort to focus on constructive solutions entails the conclusion that
> someone isn't listening.
> 
> Now, did you hear and learn from what I just said?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> 
> --Mike

Mike, my ability to hear is good and I learn from everything I hear, my
ability to listen is excellent, and my ability to analyze is awesome :-).
This Community is trying to tell you something and, via this List, the
entire Foundation staff. Their anger right now is directed at a person whose
recent actions have shown a total disregard of their existence. And they
want some concrete assurance that it will not happen again. That is what
they want to talk about. Yet you insist on trying to steer the conversation
toward dealing rationally with policy. That rationality cannot be
accomplished with the level of emotion that exists within the group you are
trying to steer.

In psychological terms, denial of an issue is really saying, "Anything but
that". To admit that the "that" is the problem might mean having to
confront, and possibly get rid of, the "that". There is a hint of that in
your trying to steer this conversation.

Marc Riddell

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Nathan

I'm generally in favor of Jimmy's leadership, or the idea of project
leadership in general. See my March 27 post opposing the poll to
remove his Founder flag, on meta. I'm also strongly in favor of reform
in the area of sexually explicit imagery on Commons and other
projects, see the many threads I've started or participated in over
the past three years on this subject. A week ago, I would have said
I'd very much like to see Jimmy's leadership in this particular area.

On the other hand, leadership is more than taking unilateral action.
It's more than power, and more than authority. If Jimmy had explained
himself fully, perhaps with a statement very similar to what Mike has
written in this thread, the reaction would have been much more muted.
He may have had active assistance from the Commons community instead
of active opposition and an angry backlash. The "GodKing" status is
the result of political capital; the goal should be to provide
leadership while expending as little of that as necessary, because
once it's gone it's gone for good - c.f. Jimmy's relinquishing of
certain rights on the English Wikipedia.

Lastly, I think his recent activity has been clumsy and amateurish,
particularly prompted as it was by Fox News. For those not familiar
with Fox News, its impact and its reputation... The rest of the
mainstream media views its claims with suspicion and some degree of
disdain, and with good reason. By reacting so aggressively to Fox's
counter-factual claims, we make it harder for our allies and
responsible journalists to argue and prove that we are not guilty of
hosting "child pornography" and tolerating pedophilia. That's too bad
- as they say, the coverup is usually worse than the crime.

Nathan

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 11:15 AM, MZMcBride  wrote:

>
>
> However, as someone who doesn't have a financial stake, as a non-Wikimedia
> Foundation employee, as an Internet libertarian, I don't see where you get
> off doing anything _but_ admonishing Jimmy's actions. His actions appear to
> be completely at odds with your past positions in this area.
>

When you are referring to my "past positions in this area," could you say
which works of mine you have read, and which passages you believe stand in
opposition to Jimmy's deleting content he believes are triggering attacks on
the projects?

I hope you'll understand my skepticism as to whether you have read CYBER
RIGHTS. I hardly know anyone who's read it.  ;)

--Mike
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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread Kim Bruning

On Sat, May 08, 2010 at 02:06:09PM -0400, David Levy wrote:
> Mike Godwin wrote:
> 
> > All metaphors are at least somewhat misleading, and some metaphors are
> > deeply misleading.
> 
> At least no one is comparing Jimbo with Nazis or Hitler yet.
> 

Idiot! 

That's his
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BerserkButton ! %-/


You better apologise. Maybe he'll let you live. ;-)

sincerely,
Kim Bruning

Ps. You lose.




-- 
[Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72
5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

2010-05-08 Thread MZMcBride

Mike Godwin wrote:
> Similarly, I don't favor "attacks on free speech" -- but like Nat Hentoff and
> other free-speech theorists, I recognize that free speech depends on active
> intervention and rule-making sometimes.  I know you are trying to be
> provocative, but what you write here suggests that you don't actually
> understand much of the nuance of free-speech principles.

And once again, the goalposts are shifting. In Jimmy's original comments on
Commons, he paints this as a legal issue.[1] In subsequent posts to this
mailing list, he paints this as a public relations issue.[2] Now you're
trying to suggest that it's a free speech issue and that he was acting in
the interest of promoting free speech (in a rather roundabout way, I'll
add).

That isn't to say that it's impossible that Jimmy _might_ have been doing
all three at once, but the odds favor the conclusion that he's simply acting
to serve his own interests and using whatever storyline justifies his action
the most when people call him out on his poor behavior.

I'm not trying to be provocative, I'm trying to figure out where these views
of yours are coming from, especially if they're not coming from your role as
a Wikimedia Foundation employee. If you were speaking as an employee,
standing behind Jimmy makes perfect sense: he's the one who, in many ways,
pays the bills. It's his face on the donation banners that bring in the
funds needed to keep your job and the Wikimedia Foundation sustainable.

However, as someone who doesn't have a financial stake, as a non-Wikimedia
Foundation employee, as an Internet libertarian, I don't see where you get
off doing anything _but_ admonishing Jimmy's actions. His actions appear to
be completely at odds with your past positions in this area. Perhaps you can
explain how Jimmy's "active intervention and rule-making" promote free
speech or, at a minimum, do it no harm. I'm still not seeing it.

MZMcBride

[1] 
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?diff=38835388&oldid=38835233#Record
_keeping
[2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057896.html

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

Mike Godwin wrote:

> All metaphors are at least somewhat misleading, and some metaphors are
> deeply misleading.

At least no one is comparing Jimbo with Nazis or Hitler yet.

David Levy

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

Marc Riddell writes:

> Mike, please stop and listen. The Community, which is the heart and soul of
> this very Project, is ventilating, and making some extremely important
> points. Please stop trying to control, and re-direct, this dialogue in a
> more Foundation-comfortable direction. Listen and Learn.
>

Marc, I've been listening all along. Neither expression of disagreement nor
an effort to focus on constructive solutions entails the conclusion that
someone isn't listening.

Now, did you hear and learn from what I just said?

Best regards,

--Mike
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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

2010-05-08 Thread David Gerard

On 8 May 2010 18:35, Samuel Klein  wrote:
> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 10:45 AM, Ting Chen  wrote:

>> Commons, Wikiquote and Wikisource has by themselves no educational
>> value. They gain their educational value in the way that they provide
>> repositories for the other WMF projects.

> Hold on, now.  These are all awesome educational projects in their own right.


Indeed. This is a strange position for a WMF board member to espouse.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 10:47 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

>
> > Wow. Even worse metaphor! "All the riches that are demanded"!
>
> Perhaps, but yours is no better. When you attack a village it is
> because you want something they have (riches, land, women) or you just
> want revenge for something. FOX don't want anything we have and they
> don't really dislike us (sure, they would rather people went to them
> for knowledge than us, but that isn't really what this is about). They
> are attacking us simply because it makes exciting news and makes them
> more money. That is a completely different motive to an attack on a
> village so a defence based on a metaphor of an attack on a village is
> bound to fail.
>

All metaphors are at least somewhat misleading, and some metaphors are
deeply misleading. But I'll do my best to avoid bad metaphors in the future
if Andre will join me in doing so.


--Mike
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Re: [Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates