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

[Samuel Klein]

Hello Elias,

Welcome to the mailing list.


On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 1:25 AM, Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva
 wrote:
> 2010/5/9 Andreas Kolbe :
> (..)
>>> 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.
>
> Sorry, I have never posted here, but I feel so sad reading such
> words... and other words spoken here at foundation-l.. the projects
> under the umbrella of WMF are so beautiful, so precious, to be treated
> this way... =

Thank you for your kind words for the projects.

> But well, so that's the reason Jimmy Wales must be so authoritarian?
> Because the Community of Commons can't solve this issue through
> consensus?
>
> Is solving this particular issue really more important than reaching
> consensus? Why?

It seems to me the only way a project can work through this sort of
complex issue is through careful consensus and decision-making.

I do not think solving it somehow is more important than reaching
consensus, or a decision that everyone can live with.  Questions of
how to deal with highly controversial content -- from images of
Muhammad to private personal information to explicit images of sex --
are often difficult to solve.

This may be the sort of complex decision that would benefit from a
community-run advisory or policy group, with representatives from many
projects.  Such decision making can take many months, and needs slow
but persistent attention and progress towards a balanced resolution.
[often our current practices of wiki-based decision making simply lose
steam after an initial burst of interest, and future iterations on the
theme have to start over from scratch.]

> Are you a member of the Board of Trustees or something?
> Could you inform me if the whole board has this kind of position?

No, the whole Board does not have this position.  (not to speak for
others -- I am on it, and I am opposed to the idea.)

This is out of scope for the Board, which like the Foundation itself
generally stays out of content creation, policy-making, and governance
of the individual Projects.


> BTW, I also have a broader question. Who entrusted power to the Board
> of Trustees? They are serving the interests of who? And who can revoke
> the trust upon a specific trustee, or the entire board, in the event
> it was misused?

The Board governs the Foundation to support the interests of the
mission and the needs of the Projects.

In an emergency, the Board itself could remove a Trustee; in practice
there are elections and appointments each year.  Of our ten trustees,
there are six 'community trustees': three elected by the editing
community every two years, two selected by the national Chapters every
[other] two years, and Jimmy as founding trustee, reappointed each
year.  The other four trustees are appointed each year by the
community trustees.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_board_manual
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_member


> PS: I may look inquisitive, but I see this anti-porn campaign
> contrasting to the complete lack of action when it was found that
> wiki-en was grossly offending Islam for no better reason.

I agree that the issue of images of Muhammad is similar to that of
explicit sexual content -- both are highly controversial, considered
by some to be educational or important; and by others to be useless
and offensive.  We must find a way to deal evenly with all
controversial material, and to understand the perspectives of
different audiences.

SJ

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[David Goodman]

There is no general agreement here that any system of filtering for
any purpose is ever necessary, and I think it is totally contrary to
the entire general idea behind the the free culture movement.

But people have liberty do do as they please with our content, and if
someone wants to filter  for their own purposes we cannot and should
not prevent them.  Neither should we assist them.

For JV to suggest assisting censorship by doing something that will
not "feel" like censorship is not in my opinion forthright. We should
have good descriptors because that's part of the context for the
images, but this should be decided without the least concern about
anything other than finding the images a user might want to find.
Agreed that one part of that is avoiding retrieving what they do not
want to receive, but there are many such criteria, such as size, date,
and the like. It can be argued that we have some responsibility to
those of o  users who can not access unfiltered content, but the least
  judgmental way is to provide ourselves for a option to display
images as text descriptors only, rather than leave it to
browsers--especially since a text-only view is appropriate for other
purposes also.

We could show the proper approach by working on better descriptors for
more important things than sexual images first.  The necessary
distinctions for any filtering service that does aim at restricting
concept in a way which is not grossly heavy handed would require very
detailed separation of the various types of breast images, and I do
not see why distinguishing between such things as the different
degrees of nudity is all that important in an encyclopedic sense.


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



On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
 wrote:
> Sue Gardner wrote:
>> Hi Derk-Jan,
>>
>> Thank you for starting this thread.
>>
>> There is obviously a range of options -- let's say, on a 10-point
>> scale, ranging from 0 (do nothing but enforce existing policy) to 10
>> (completely purge everything that's potentially objectionable to
>> anyone, anywhere).  Somewhere on that continuum are possibilities like
>> i) we tag pages so that external entities can filter, ii) we point
>> parents towards content filtering systems they can use, but make no
>> changes ourselves, iii) we implement our own filtering system so that
>> people can choose to hide objectionable content if they want, or iv)
>> we implement our own filtering system, with a default to a "safe" or
>> "moderate" view and the option for people to change their own
>> settings.  Those are just a few: there are lots of options.  (e.g.,
>> Google Images and Flickr I believe do different versions of option iv.
>>  I'm not saying that means we should do the same; it does not
>> necessarily mean that.)
>>
>> I would love to see a table of various options, with pros and cons
>> including feedback from folks like EFF.  If anyone feels like starting
>> such a thing, I would be really grateful :-)
>>
>>
> Hi Sue,
>
> Is it okay if I first explain why none of the examples
> you mention are a good fit for us; and then pull a
> rabbit out of my hat, and explain how one of them
> can be salvaged and made into an excellent system?
>
> Rating by level is fixed, and it will never be culturally
> sensitive. And on wikipedia no matter how it is rigged
> people who edit will just get frustrated for both the
> right and the wrong reasons.
>
> Using words like "safe" etc, will certainly offend
> cultures, which are very very strict, for instance
> in terms how much flesh can be seen of women.
>
> Pointing parents to systems of filtering, that is
> half a solution, and the problem would be we
> would have to keep vetting what the filtering
> systems are basing their filtering, so our site
> doesn't look ridiculous in some form or another,
> either accidentally failing and offending the
> viewer (ask me sometime, I have tales to tell),
> or going to the other extreme, and leaving the
> viewer without a perfectly nice result.
>
> The last problem, but certainly not the least one.
> All of these are a *hard* *sell*. They are a hard
> sell to the wikimedian community. They are also
> a hard sell to a huge sector of our readers, and
> those who love us, even enough to give us small
> donations. Our community must matter to us,
> our readers must matter to us, those who love
> us should matter to us, and well, those who
> give us small donations -- I am not in a place
> to tell how much they matter to us.
>
> So now we come to the rabbit time!!!
>
> (DRUM-ROLL PLEASE!)
>
> If it is a hard sell, find a way to soften it, without
> forcing the issue. How? First, be very canny about
> how the tags are named. Tits vs. Breasts, Butt vs.
> Rear-end, Baretits vs. Topless and so forth. Second
> do *not* limit the tags to such content tags which
> are useful for _avoiding_ content, but add in also
> positive tags (I know, for some all those above 

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

[Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva]

2010/5/9 Andreas Kolbe :
(..)
>> 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.

Sorry, I have never posted here, but I feel so sad reading such
words... and other words spoken here at foundation-l.. the projects
under the umbrella of WMF are so beautiful, so precious, to be treated
this way... =

But well, so that's the reason Jimmy Wales must be so authoritarian?
Because the Community of Commons can't solve this issue through
consensus?

Is solving this particular issue really more important than reaching
consensus? Why?

Are you a member of the Board of Trustees or something? Could you
inform me if the whole board has this kind of position?

BTW, I also have a broader question. Who entrusted power to the Board
of Trustees? They are serving the interests of who? And who can revoke
the trust upon a specific trustee, or the entire board, in the event
it was misused?

Please don't say "the community".

PS: I may look inquisitive, but I see this anti-porn campaign
contrasting to the complete lack of action when it was found that
wiki-en was grossly offending Islam for no better reason. I must cite
this post:

2010/5/7 Milos Rancic :
(..)
> Did you see what Jimmy deleted? For example, Franz von Bayros painting
> [1]. That guy is not so famous, but I don't see anymore any sane rule,
> except: What Jimmy's sexually impaired super rich friend wish, Jimmy
> do and then Board transform into the rule or a statement.
>
> Besides the fact that he was dealing just with Western taboos of naked
> body and sexual act, not with Mohamed cartoons [2] at English
> Wikipedia, where he is the God King.
>
> If the Board stays behind such action, this is a very clear signal
> that Wikimedia projects are becoming censored. And if Jyllands-Posten
> Muhammad cartoons won't be deleted, then Wikimedia projects are a tool
> of Western cultural imperialism.
>
> I want to hear other Board members before making my decision about staying 
> here.

Since Jimmy is "special", for some reason, and his actions will not
face the consequences that is expected for common editors, admins,
bureaucrats, etc. I must say that images of Muhammad is not being
deleted *just because Jimmy is not Muslim*.

-- 
Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva 

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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

[Samuel Klein]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 6:43 PM, THURNER rupert
 wrote:

> i might be wrong, but wasn't it _very_ important to have a clear
> separation of concerns?

Whether or not this is legally important, it is socially essential.

> on the other hand, i consider jimbo trying it and proving that it
> finally fails  a brilliant idea and a very good case to prevent future
> legal actions against the wmf and the chapters :)

Now there's a thought...

SJ

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[Samuel Klein]

Hi Przykuta,

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 6:16 PM, Przykuta  wrote:
>
> We need to talk as Wikimedia Community. There is no authority without 
> communication - face to face(s); keyboard to keyboard.
<
> Maybe the best way will be to start special IRC debate - about past, present 
> and future. (and again, and again, and again - yeah)

This is a good topic for an open Wikimedia meeting.  I propose having
a chat in #wikimedia on Wednesday, at 1900 UTC:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_meetings#May_12,_2010

I hope to see you there (or to the next iteration, as we do it again and again).

SJ

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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

[Keegan Peterzell]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 5:39 PM, stevertigo  wrote: For
one, successful companies can get too
>
> big and lose focus: Drifting into "wiki" priorities instead of
> "encyclopedia" priorities, for example, would be the albatross here.
> That's not to say that we shouldn't further pursue the science of
> collaborative database interfaces (ie. "wikis").
>
> -Stevertigo
>
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


And when you're in your bigger room, you might not know what to do.  Might
start thinking how you got started, working in your little room.  ~The White
Stripes.
-- 
~Keegan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Sue Gardner wrote:
> Hi Derk-Jan,
>
> Thank you for starting this thread.
>
> There is obviously a range of options -- let's say, on a 10-point
> scale, ranging from 0 (do nothing but enforce existing policy) to 10
> (completely purge everything that's potentially objectionable to
> anyone, anywhere).  Somewhere on that continuum are possibilities like
> i) we tag pages so that external entities can filter, ii) we point
> parents towards content filtering systems they can use, but make no
> changes ourselves, iii) we implement our own filtering system so that
> people can choose to hide objectionable content if they want, or iv)
> we implement our own filtering system, with a default to a "safe" or
> "moderate" view and the option for people to change their own
> settings.  Those are just a few: there are lots of options.  (e.g.,
> Google Images and Flickr I believe do different versions of option iv.
>  I'm not saying that means we should do the same; it does not
> necessarily mean that.)
>
> I would love to see a table of various options, with pros and cons
> including feedback from folks like EFF.  If anyone feels like starting
> such a thing, I would be really grateful :-)
>
>   
Hi Sue,

Is it okay if I first explain why none of the examples
you mention are a good fit for us; and then pull a
rabbit out of my hat, and explain how one of them
can be salvaged and made into an excellent system?

Rating by level is fixed, and it will never be culturally
sensitive. And on wikipedia no matter how it is rigged
people who edit will just get frustrated for both the
right and the wrong reasons.

Using words like "safe" etc, will certainly offend
cultures, which are very very strict, for instance
in terms how much flesh can be seen of women.

Pointing parents to systems of filtering, that is
half a solution, and the problem would be we
would have to keep vetting what the filtering
systems are basing their filtering, so our site
doesn't look ridiculous in some form or another,
either accidentally failing and offending the
viewer (ask me sometime, I have tales to tell),
or going to the other extreme, and leaving the
viewer without a perfectly nice result.

The last problem, but certainly not the least one.
All of these are a *hard* *sell*. They are a hard
sell to the wikimedian community. They are also
a hard sell to a huge sector of our readers, and
those who love us, even enough to give us small
donations. Our community must matter to us,
our readers must matter to us, those who love
us should matter to us, and well, those who
give us small donations -- I am not in a place
to tell how much they matter to us.

So now we come to the rabbit time!!!

(DRUM-ROLL PLEASE!)

If it is a hard sell, find a way to soften it, without
forcing the issue. How? First, be very canny about
how the tags are named. Tits vs. Breasts, Butt vs.
Rear-end, Baretits vs. Topless and so forth. Second
do *not* limit the tags to such content tags which
are useful for _avoiding_ content, but add in also
positive tags (I know, for some all those above are
positive tags ;-) puppies, kittens, funny, horsies,
etc.

I am sure someone can think of even better and
smoother tagnames. But teh advantages of this
approach are that it doesn't *feel* like censorship,
but more like a value added service. I won't
talk about how the system of selecting which stuff
to see should be constructed, but I am sure
someone has ideas. I do think though that the
system should be reversible, that is essential to
sell it not as censorship, so that those who only
want to see naughty bits can do so, or for that
matter somebody can see only cute animals.

There is one additional benefit in terms of our
community too. It is much more fun to add those
kinds of tags, and much less drudge-work.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[Mike Godwin]

Geoffrey Plourde writes:

Wouldn't regulating content mean abdicating the role of webhost, which would
> call Section 230 into question?
>

 Mere removal of content posted by others does not create a Section 230
problem or a problem under equivalent provisions elsewhere in the law. A
guideline or policy urged by the Wikimedia Foundation and
adopted/implemented by the volunteer-editor community would not create such
a problem either.


--Mike
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] [OT] Am I the only one...

[Ryan Lomonaco]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 8:48 PM, Aphaia  wrote:

> Is there any option to tell them commons has its own mailing list
> instead of adding it to the foundation-l?
>

I think Austin touched upon this as well, but, yes, I would remind everyone
that discussions are occurring now on Meta, Commons and the English
Wikipedia, as well as their respective mailing lists.  Aspects of this
discussion specific to certain projects are probably better suited to those
projects.

-- 
[[User:Ral315]]
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[John Vandenberg]

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 1:04 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
 wrote:
> Derk-Jan Hartman wrote:
>> This message is CC'ed to other people who might wish to comment on this 
>> potential approach
>> ---
>>
>>
>
>
> You asked for comments... Here is one we prepared earlier...
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_censorship#ICRA

That was on English Wikipedia, a very long time ago.

The current discussion is about Commons, and affects other projects
where there is less editorial input to ensure the content is
"educational".

--
John Vandenberg

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[David Goodman]

I can   think of other concerns.

The main one is that of our competence to form judgements. On some
things we can: though nudity would seem something obvious, deciding on
the various degrees of it is not: I do not think we are likely to
agree on whether any particular nude image is primarily sexual,m or
primarily non-sexual. If we tried to be precise, we would degenerate
towards a situation like some legal codes which state exactly what
portions of a female breast may be displayed in a particular context,
or in just what way something must be covered to make it non-nude.

Further, though I consider it essential that Commons should include
appropriately educational sexual and even pornographic   content, I do
not think it should concentrate on that; important though education
about human sexuality is, there are other things to educate about
also, many just as much dependent upon images. A project to minutely
categorize pages on sexuality would concentrate much of the volunteer
effort on this portion of the contents.   We need some editors who
want to work on this field primarily, but we do not need everybody.



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



On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 6:26 PM, Excirial  wrote:
> *That is why it was addressed to FOSI and cc'ed to some parties that might
> have clue about such systems. The copy to foundation-l was a courtesy
> message. You are welcome to discuss censorship and your opinion about it,
> but I would appreciate it even more if people actually talked about rating
> systems.*
>
> Very well, lets see if i can write up some something more on the point then:
>
> *Definition and purpose*: The purpose of such a system would be to allow
> certain content to be filtered from public view. The scope of such a project
> is discussable, and dependent upon the goals we wish to reach.
>
> *Rating System*: In order to decide a contents category and offensiveness
> there has to be a method to sort the images. Multiple options are available:
>
> *Categorization:* Categories could be added to images to establish the
> subject of an image. For example, one image might be categorized nudity, the
> other might be categorized as sexual intercourse and so on. The
> categorization could be similar to the way we categorize our stub templates
> - we could create a top-level filter for "Nudity" and create more specific
> categories under that. That way it is possible to fine-tune the content one
> might not wish to see.
> *Rating:* Another method is rating each image. Instead of using a category
> tree we might use a system that allows users to set a level of explicitness
> or severity for each image. An image which shows non sexual nudity would be
> rated lower then an image which shows a high level of nudity. Note that such
> a system would require a clear set of rules as a rating might be subject to
> ones personal idea's and feelings towards a certain subject.
>
> *Control mechanism*:There are various levels at which we can filter content:
>
> *Organization wide:* An organization wide filter would allow an organization
> to block content based upon site-wide settings. Techically this would likely
> prove to be the more difficult option to implement as it would require both
> local and external changes. There are multiple methods to execute this
> though. For example a server may rely a certain value to Wikipedia at the
> start of each session detailing the content that should not be forwarded
> over this connection. Based on such a value the server could be programmed
> in such a way that images of a certain category won't be forwarded, or would
> be replaced by placeholders.
> The advantage of this method is that it allows organizations such as schools
> to control which content should be shown, therefor possibly negating
> complete blocks of Wikipedia. The negative is that it takes away control
> from the user.
> *Par-user:* A second method is allowing par-user settings. Such a system
> would be easier to build and integrate as it only requires changes on
> wikipedia's side. A seperate section could be made under "My preferences"
> which would include a set of check boxes where a user could select which
> content he or she prefers not to see. Images falling under a certain
> category could be replaced with the images alt text or with an image stating
> something akin to "Par your preferences, this image was removed".
> *Hybrid*: A hybrid system could integrate both systems. A user might
> override or increase organization level settings if he or she has personal
> preferences.
>
> *Possible concerns*
> *Responsibility and vandalism: *One risk with rating systems is that they
> might be abused for personal goals, akin to article vandalism. Therefor
> there should be some limit on who can rate an image - anonymous rating could
> change images in such a way that they may be visible or invisible to people
> who might or might not want this.
> *Volunteer interest:* 

Re: [Foundation-l] [OT] Am I the only one...

[Aphaia]

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 9:35 AM, Ryan Lomonaco  wrote:
> On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 7:50 PM, K. Peachey  wrote:
>
>> I do to, depending on how they are applied, for example I would much
>> prefer on a case by case basis compared to everyone, since a few
>> people are bring active and decent discussion where as some people are
>> just trolling/omg censorship is bad type stuff.
>>
>> -Peachey
>>
>
> The issue hasn't come up yet, but I would approach things on a case-by-case
> basis - for example, I wouldn't moderate a Wikimedia staff member who posted
> more than 30 times because they were answering questions from other list
> members.  Also, if someone is moderated for hitting the limit, I would
> approve posts beyond their initial 30 posts if I think that the post is
> useful, and adds to the discussion.

Is there any option to tell them commons has its own mailing list
instead of adding it to the foundation-l?

Cheers,

> If anyone has any questions about the post limit, please feel free to talk
> to either myself or Austin, on-list or privately.
>
> --
> [[User:Ral315]]
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>



-- 
KIZU Naoko
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Towards actual clean-up...

[Guillaume Paumier]

Hi,

Le dimanche 9 mai 2010 17:33:42, David Goodman a écrit :
> 
>  A secondary purpose of Commons in for material to be used
> elsewhere--have we any way for checking that?   I'd even say that the
> true success of Commons is when the material there is used elsewhere,
> not just in Wikimedia projects..

Not yet, but it is definitely a feature we're considering. There was a 
discussion about a "pinging" system during the Multimedia meeting in Paris 
last October, but we have more critical issues to address first. 

-- 
Guillaume Paumier
Product Manager, Multimedia Usability
Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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

[Aphaia]

Not knowing, but Commons has their own VPs (in many langs), IRC
channel and mailing list. I don't see the good reason those particular
things on the project are continued to discuss on this list.

Cheers,

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 3:28 AM, Anthony  wrote:
> On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Jimmy Wales  wrote:
>
>> We are engaged in a process that will lead to some
>> much-needed changes at Commons, including the continued deletion of some
>> of the things that we used to host.
>>
>
> Where?  Behind the scenes?  On one of the internal mailing lists?
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>



-- 
KIZU Naoko
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] [OT] Am I the only one...

[Ryan Lomonaco]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 7:50 PM, K. Peachey  wrote:

> I do to, depending on how they are applied, for example I would much
> prefer on a case by case basis compared to everyone, since a few
> people are bring active and decent discussion where as some people are
> just trolling/omg censorship is bad type stuff.
>
> -Peachey
>

The issue hasn't come up yet, but I would approach things on a case-by-case
basis - for example, I wouldn't moderate a Wikimedia staff member who posted
more than 30 times because they were answering questions from other list
members.  Also, if someone is moderated for hitting the limit, I would
approve posts beyond their initial 30 posts if I think that the post is
useful, and adds to the discussion.

If anyone has any questions about the post limit, please feel free to talk
to either myself or Austin, on-list or privately.

-- 
[[User:Ral315]]
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Towards actual clean-up...

[David Goodman]

I expected, in fact, a considerably lower figure, perhaps 25%, so it
It seems to me that 50% being used is a very high proportion ,
indicating good selectivity.

 A secondary purpose of Commons in for material to be used
elsewhere--have we any way for checking that?   I'd even say that the
true success of Commons is when the material there is used elsewhere,
not just in Wikimedia projects..

I interpret your number as a demonstration that there is no serious
problem of excess on this particular topic. Perhaps other topics in
the field will be lower or higher--my guess is that all or almost will
be higher, because I think you have indeed selected the category most
likely to be abused,.

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



On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Robert Rohde  wrote:
> Many people have generally agreed that there are or have been a large
> number of redundant, low-quality penis pics on Commons.
>
> Towards understanding this better, I wrote a script to traverse
> [[:Category:Human genitalia]] and all of it's subcategories (it is
> refreshingly finite).
>
> In this category we have 772 images of male and female genitalia.
> Most appear to photographs, though some are illustrations or other
> art.
>
> For each image, I then determined whether it was in use in the main
> namespace of any Wikimedia project.  Of the 772 genitalia images, 347
> are currently being used to illustrate some page in the main namespace
> of some project.  (That's still a lot of penis / vulva pics but I'll
> assume that the projects are at least somewhat reasonable about their
> uses.)
>
> The remaining 425 images aren't used in the main namespace of any
> project.  They may still appear in other places, such as discussion
> pages or user pages, but are likely to be less valuable.  I would
> assume it is images like these that are most likely to warrant
> exclusion by any policy that aims to address the proliferation of
> low-quality and redundant penis pics.  Perhaps by looking at this list
> one can get an idea of what the issue is and consider the best ways to
> address it.
>
> I've compiled the list at:
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:List_of_genitalia_for_review
>
> (There are actually only 411 on the list, as I dropped 14 after my
> editor mangled the UTF8).
>
> -Robert Rohde
>
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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

[stevertigo]

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.

Samuel Klein  wrote:
> Hold on, now.  These are all awesome educational projects in their own right.
>... Commons resolved the "are we our own project or are we a technical
> solution for other projects" question early in its evolution.   And
> its great that it became its own community, because its culture has
> developed some of the best examples of multilingual collaboration we
> have.

To be fair to Ting, I think he meant what others have pointed out
before that Wikipedia is the flagship project - not just in name and
not just in numbers. This is not to denegrate any of the other
projects, but to remember that they all started in large part because
"the wiki" (en.wp) conquered the "where's the content" paradigm and it
started receiving materials that were beyond the scope of an
encyclopedia. News, sources, images, etc. Of course Sam is absolutely
right about the value that each of the once satellite projects have
gained on their own.

There are a number of reasons why it's important to remember that the
encyclopedia comes first. For one, successful companies can get too
big and lose focus: Drifting into "wiki" priorities instead of
"encyclopedia" priorities, for example, would be the albatross here.
That's not to say that we shouldn't further pursue the science of
collaborative database interfaces (ie. "wikis").

-Stevertigo

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[Geoffrey Plourde]

Wouldn't regulating content mean abdicating the role of webhost, which would 
call Section 230 into question? 





From: David Gerard 
To: susanpgard...@gmail.com; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List 

Sent: Sun, May 9, 2010 4:21:46 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is 
happening

On 10 May 2010 00:04, Sue Gardner  wrote:

> My view is that Jimmy and others have brought closure to the "scope of 
> Jimmy's authority" question. In saying that, I don't mean to diminish the 
> importance of that question -- I realize that many people are angry about 
> what's happened over the past week, and it will take time for them to be less 
> angry.


Ting's statements on the role of the Board (that it should regulate
project content) will also take some digesting. I doubt chapters
outside the US put people forward for the Board thinking this would
mean the Board supporting content removal to appease Fox News.


- d.

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l



  
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Commons:Sexual content

[Kim Bruning]

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 12:23:28AM +0200, Andre Engels wrote:
> Being educational should be just another word for being in scope, and
> in scope are, in my opinion, in the first place those files that are
> usable for the projects. That is the first thing that we should be
> judging things by.

I've already emphasized that a bit already on the page, but more from
the WARNING angle. 

Could you edit or comment on the page in a way that reflects what you
just stated? :-)

sincerely,
Kim Bruning

-- 
[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

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] [OT] Am I the only one...

[K. Peachey]

I do to, depending on how they are applied, for example I would much
prefer on a case by case basis compared to everyone, since a few
people are bring active and decent discussion where as some people are
just trolling/omg censorship is bad type stuff.

-Peachey

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[Sue Gardner]

Yeah. I don't remember exactly what Ting said, and even if I did, I wouldn't 
comment on it.  But FWIW to your point, Ting's not in a chapters-selected seat; 
Ting was elected by the Wikimedia community.

--Original Message--
From: David Gerard
To: Sue Gardner GMail
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is 
happening
Sent: 9 May 2010 4:21 PM

On 10 May 2010 00:04, Sue Gardner  wrote:

> My view is that Jimmy and others have brought closure to the "scope of 
> Jimmy's authority" question. In saying that, I don't mean to diminish the 
> importance of that question -- I realize that many people are angry about 
> what's happened over the past week, and it will take time for them to be less 
> angry.


Ting's statements on the role of the Board (that it should regulate
project content) will also take some digesting. I doubt chapters
outside the US put people forward for the Board thinking this would
mean the Board supporting content removal to appease Fox News.


- d.

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

[Foundation-l] Towards actual clean-up...

[Robert Rohde]

Many people have generally agreed that there are or have been a large
number of redundant, low-quality penis pics on Commons.

Towards understanding this better, I wrote a script to traverse
[[:Category:Human genitalia]] and all of it's subcategories (it is
refreshingly finite).

In this category we have 772 images of male and female genitalia.
Most appear to photographs, though some are illustrations or other
art.

For each image, I then determined whether it was in use in the main
namespace of any Wikimedia project.  Of the 772 genitalia images, 347
are currently being used to illustrate some page in the main namespace
of some project.  (That's still a lot of penis / vulva pics but I'll
assume that the projects are at least somewhat reasonable about their
uses.)

The remaining 425 images aren't used in the main namespace of any
project.  They may still appear in other places, such as discussion
pages or user pages, but are likely to be less valuable.  I would
assume it is images like these that are most likely to warrant
exclusion by any policy that aims to address the proliferation of
low-quality and redundant penis pics.  Perhaps by looking at this list
one can get an idea of what the issue is and consider the best ways to
address it.

I've compiled the list at:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:List_of_genitalia_for_review

(There are actually only 411 on the list, as I dropped 14 after my
editor mangled the UTF8).

-Robert Rohde

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[David Gerard]

On 10 May 2010 00:04, Sue Gardner  wrote:

> My view is that Jimmy and others have brought closure to the "scope of 
> Jimmy's authority" question. In saying that, I don't mean to diminish the 
> importance of that question -- I realize that many people are angry about 
> what's happened over the past week, and it will take time for them to be less 
> angry.


Ting's statements on the role of the Board (that it should regulate
project content) will also take some digesting. I doubt chapters
outside the US put people forward for the Board thinking this would
mean the Board supporting content removal to appease Fox News.


- d.

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] On problems in commons

[Mikemoral]

Well, the point is we should keep our content US-legal.

>From the project scope of Commons, "Commons is not censored, and does quite
legitimately include content which some users may consider objectionable or
offensive. The policy of *"Commons is not censored"* means that a
lawfully-hosted file, which falls within Commons' definitions of scope, will
not be deleted solely on the grounds that it may not be "child-friendly" or
that it may cause offense to you or others, for moral, personal, religious,
social, or other reasons."

Clearly the policy says that media should not be remove unless it meets
deletion criteria is illegal, etc.

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Platonides  wrote:

> Mikemoral wrote:
> > But Muhammad's image is not illegal in the US, so why remove them? That
> has
> > no point. Why do we have to remove content perfectly legal under US law?
> > Please educate me why.
>
> Who said that the images Jimmy deleted (and which started all this
> debate) were illegal in the US?
> If they were, we would all agree that kind of images should be deleted.
> The problem are borderline, legal images, with a bit of enciclopedical
> value, and that nevertheless many people find objectionable.




-- 
Regards,

Mike
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Mikemoral
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mikemoral
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[Sue Gardner]

Yeah, Pryzkuta, I know there are lots of debates happening everywhere; that's a 
good thing --- obviously talking about all this stuff is good, and people 
should use whatever mechanisms work for them. All the discussions are good, and 
everybody is bringing useful stuff to the table.

Re Jimmy, my understanding is that he has voluntarily relinquished the ability 
to act globally and unlilaterally, in an attempt to bring closure to that 
thread of discussion, because he thinks it's a distraction from the main 
conversation.  Which is, the projects contain, and have contained, material 
which many people (different groups, for different reasons) find objectionable. 
The main question at hand is: what, if anything, should be done about the 
inclusion in the projects of potentially objectionable material.  Should we 
provide warnings about potentially objectionable material, should we make it 
easy for people to have a "safe" view if they want it, should we make a "safe" 
view a default view, and so forth.

My view is that Jimmy and others have brought closure to the "scope of Jimmy's 
authority" question. In saying that, I don't mean to diminish the importance of 
that question -- I realize that many people are angry about what's happened 
over the past week, and it will take time for them to be less angry.   But I 
think Jimmy's goal --which I support-- is to enable people to now move on to 
have the more important conversation, about how to resolve the question of 
objectionable material.

To recap: it's a big conversation, and it's happening in lots of places. That 
may need to happen for a while. I would like to see us move into a synthesis 
phase, where we start talking in a focused way, in a few places, about what we 
should do to resolve the question of objectionable material.  I think the 
thread by Derk-Jan is a step towards that.  But it may be that we're not ready 
to move into a synthesis phase yet: people may still need to vent and 
brainstorm and so forth, for a while.

Thanks,
Sue

-Original Message-
From: Przykuta przyk...@o2.pl
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 00:16:02 
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l]
Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the d
iscussion ishappening


> 1) There has been a very active strand about Jimmy's actions over the
> past week and his scope of authority, which I think is now resolving.
> That's mostly happened here and on meta.
> 
Sue - everywhere - mailing lists, IRC channels, village pumps... 

We need to talk as Wikimedia Community. There is no authority without 
communication - face to face(s); keyboard to keyboard. The biggest fire (RfC 
flame) is here: 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Remove_Founder_flag

400 votes - 400 users 

Maybe the best way will be to start special IRC debate - about past, present 
and future. (and again, and again, and again - yeah)

Yes... We have bigger problems, but... maybe not. This is real trouble.

przykuta

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] On problems in commons

[Platonides]

Mikemoral wrote:
> But Muhammad's image is not illegal in the US, so why remove them? That has
> no point. Why do we have to remove content perfectly legal under US law?
> Please educate me why.

Who said that the images Jimmy deleted (and which started all this
debate) were illegal in the US?
If they were, we would all agree that kind of images should be deleted.
The problem are borderline, legal images, with a bit of enciclopedical
value, and that nevertheless many people find objectionable.


___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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

[THURNER rupert]

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 00:15, 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
i might be wrong, but wasn't it _very_ important to have a clear
separation of concerns?

say, if the foundation or a chapter or one of its officers would be able to
change the contents of wikipedia by bypassing the established
community processes, even more so if it is done with an official board
voting:

would this not put _all_ the organisations and its officers in the
wiki*sphere at risk beeing sued by anybody not happy about the
contents of wikipedia - because jimbo proved that one can change the
contents via board resolution or "just like that"?

on the other hand, i consider jimbo trying it and proving that it
finally fails  a brilliant idea and a very good case to prevent future
legal actions against the wmf and the chapters :)

rupert.

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

[Foundation-l] On problems in commons

[marcos]

Well, I understand you, but I think you don´t understand me...First i 
write "the law"...If the laws of your country prohibit certain images, 
wikimedia cannot go in opposition to these laws ... they will be able to
 be more just or fewer jousts, but  does not correspond to us to decide 
on it.

Nobody, certainly, speaks here about scientific images, 
though well it is true that there are persons to whom the image of a 
penis can look like an offensive, but it is not this problem.

I 
do not believe that there exists doubt that certain contents are not acceptable.
 The sexual relations adult - minor are not  acceptable, and it is like 
that in a
 widespread majority of countries of the world and of peoples of the 
world. 

Probably it would be a good idea to make a kind of place reserved to deposit 
there all these images, having good care of warning clearly to the whole
 world of which to enter this place could be opposite to the laws of 
certain countries, that the content can offend the spectator and that 
Wikimedia is not played the role responsible for the contents not of 
whom sees them.

And not, the common sense can never be confused 
with the censorship. For the former Romans, the censorship was not any 
more than to form a judgment of a work or other one sews. For us it is 
something upside-down, it is to manipulate the truth in order that 
others could not know her.

But not the whole censorship is wrong,
 since not the whole knowledge is worth being known. In fact, so much in
 wikipedia as in commons already it is censured ... it was
 done before this problem and it will continue done  so, perhaps is 
not it a censorship to erase certain contents for considering them to be
 irrelevant? Or certain images for which they do not expire with the 
legislation on copy-right of the country in question?

I also believe strongly in the right to choose, but I believe even stronger 
that not the whole world has the same aptitudes to choose ... the entire 
content of wikimedia is accessible to the whole world ... I have two daughters 
minors ... I would not like that they were agreeing to see images that are not 
prepared to see. Before the right to choose debit to there have been an 
education that it teaches to choose.

--- El dom, 9/5/10, Excirial 
 escribió:

De: Excirial 

Asunto: Re: [Foundation-l] On problems 
in commons
Para: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" 

Fecha: domingo, 9 de mayo, 
2010 23:47

*Please, read good. Common 
Sense. Do you think it´s of common sense delete
this?...*

Common
 sense is not
Common.
In
 the Islamic world depictions of Muhammad are considered to be highly
offensive,
 akin to western views on child pornography. I am not offended in
the
 least by images of muhammed, but other people are. By your rationale we
would
 have to remove every image or content that might be considered
offensive
 due to it being a matter of respect. It would mean that every
pornographic
 diagram, drawing or image would have to be removed. We would
have to
 remove the Muhammad category. We would have to clean our medical
pages
 which contain photo's of certain diseases that can be considered
gross.
 We would have to remove logo's from pages on secret societies as
these
 societies often consider those logo's "Secret". In fact, there is
little
 to no content that is not considered offensive by at least part of
the
 population.

Therefor we include
 relevant images as long as they are not against the law.
Images with
 a high level of "Offensiveness" to a large group of people
should be
 handled with care, but not evaded. One persons "common sense
removal"
 is another persons censorship. I strongly believe in the right to
choose
 - we should not enforce people to look at content they do not wish to
see.
 But equally we should not remove content merely on the basis that
someone
 doesn't like it.

~Excirial




  
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] On problems in commons

[Tomasz Ganicz]

2010/5/9 marcos :
> Please, read good. Common Sense. Do you think it´s of common sense delete 
> this?...
>
>

Yes. If we are really to follow your POV. Muhammad pictures are far
more offensive for muslim people than porno stuff.


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

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Excirial]

*That is why it was addressed to FOSI and cc'ed to some parties that might
have clue about such systems. The copy to foundation-l was a courtesy
message. You are welcome to discuss censorship and your opinion about it,
but I would appreciate it even more if people actually talked about rating
systems.*

Very well, lets see if i can write up some something more on the point then:

*Definition and purpose*: The purpose of such a system would be to allow
certain content to be filtered from public view. The scope of such a project
is discussable, and dependent upon the goals we wish to reach.

*Rating System*: In order to decide a contents category and offensiveness
there has to be a method to sort the images. Multiple options are available:

*Categorization:* Categories could be added to images to establish the
subject of an image. For example, one image might be categorized nudity, the
other might be categorized as sexual intercourse and so on. The
categorization could be similar to the way we categorize our stub templates
- we could create a top-level filter for "Nudity" and create more specific
categories under that. That way it is possible to fine-tune the content one
might not wish to see.
*Rating:* Another method is rating each image. Instead of using a category
tree we might use a system that allows users to set a level of explicitness
or severity for each image. An image which shows non sexual nudity would be
rated lower then an image which shows a high level of nudity. Note that such
a system would require a clear set of rules as a rating might be subject to
ones personal idea's and feelings towards a certain subject.

*Control mechanism*:There are various levels at which we can filter content:

*Organization wide:* An organization wide filter would allow an organization
to block content based upon site-wide settings. Techically this would likely
prove to be the more difficult option to implement as it would require both
local and external changes. There are multiple methods to execute this
though. For example a server may rely a certain value to Wikipedia at the
start of each session detailing the content that should not be forwarded
over this connection. Based on such a value the server could be programmed
in such a way that images of a certain category won't be forwarded, or would
be replaced by placeholders.
The advantage of this method is that it allows organizations such as schools
to control which content should be shown, therefor possibly negating
complete blocks of Wikipedia. The negative is that it takes away control
from the user.
*Par-user:* A second method is allowing par-user settings. Such a system
would be easier to build and integrate as it only requires changes on
wikipedia's side. A seperate section could be made under "My preferences"
which would include a set of check boxes where a user could select which
content he or she prefers not to see. Images falling under a certain
category could be replaced with the images alt text or with an image stating
something akin to "Par your preferences, this image was removed".
*Hybrid*: A hybrid system could integrate both systems. A user might
override or increase organization level settings if he or she has personal
preferences.

*Possible concerns*
*Responsibility and vandalism: *One risk with rating systems is that they
might be abused for personal goals, akin to article vandalism. Therefor
there should be some limit on who can rate an image - anonymous rating could
change images in such a way that they may be visible or invisible to people
who might or might not want this.
*Volunteer interest:* Implementing such a system would likely require a lot
of volunteer activity. Not only has every image to be checked and rated, we
would also have a backlog of over 6 million images to rate. Therefor we
should have sufficient volunteers who are interested in such a system.
*Public interest*: Plain and simple: Will people actually use this system?
Will people be content with their ability to filter, or will they still try
to remove images they deem offensive? Also: How many editors would use this
system?
*Implementation area*: Commons only? Local and commons?

That is all i can think of for now. I hope it is somewhat more constructive
towards the point you were initially trying to relay :)
~Excirial

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:26 PM, Derk-Jan Hartman wrote:

> This message was an attempt to gain information and spur discussion about
> the system in general, it's limits and effectiveness, not wether or not we
> should actually do it. I was trying to gather more information so that we
> can have an informed debate if it ever got to discussing about the
> possibility of using ratings.
>
> That is why it was addressed to FOSI and cc'ed to some parties that might
> have clue about such systems. The copy to foundation-l was a courtesy
> message. You are welcome to discuss censorship and your opinion about it,
> but I would appreciate it even more if people 

Re: [Foundation-l] Commons:Sexual content

[Andre Engels]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:43 PM, Adam Cuerden  wrote:
> Okay, I've complained a lot, time to give something back.
>
> I think I've managed to create a sexual content policy that's
> consistent with the core values of commons and previous decisions,
> such as the artworks of Muhammed,  while dealing with the problems and
> assuring that any sexual content that remains is, at the least,
> defensible as serving our educational purpose.
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Sexual_content
>
> It'll probably need  a bit more work, but a policy based on forwarding
> our goals, rather than censorship... Well! Think we might have summat
> here.

I am of the opinion that "clear educational purpose" is a much too
stringent criterium. Does this mean that any picture (not including
artwork) that might possibly have another reason to be taken must be
deleted? I'm not so fond of your list of examples either. Apparently
you have decided for all of us already that we should not have
photographs of sexual positions? I think with these rules you are
_still_ throwing out the baby with the bathwater. You still have
Commons decide for Wikimedia as a whole what is and what is not to be
put on the project pages. I think this should be the other way around.
Being educational should be just another word for being in scope, and
in scope are, in my opinion, in the first place those files that are
usable for the projects. That is the first thing that we should be
judging things by.


-- 
André Engels, andreeng...@gmail.com

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: wiki-based troubleshooting

[Thomas Dalton]

On 5 May 2010 16:34, Alex  wrote:
> On 5/4/2010 5:16 PM, Yao Ziyuan wrote:
>> Thomas Dalton wrote:

 We definitely do not want to be giving medical advice to people. If
 you get that wrong, people die. Medical advice should be got by going
 to the doctors. Can you give another example of what your idea could
>>
>> Yes, medical troubleshooting is both extremely useful and extremely
>> sensitive, and that's why I said "Like Wikipedia, WikiTroubleshooting
>> should cite credible references." We could put a warning and a
>> disclaimer on every medical troubleshooting page telling the visitor
>> to check cited references and other sources before adopting any
>> advice.
>
> A disclaimer would probably shield us from lawsuits

What is your basis for that? My understanding is the disclaimers
rarely do anything legally.

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Regional Conference of Wikimedia Serbia 2010

[Jyothis Edathoot]

Great! Best wishes for the event.

Regards,
Jyothis.
Sent from my iPhone
Http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis

On May 9, 2010, at 6:08 PM, Filip Maljkovic  wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Wikimedia Serbia is proud to announce the Fourth Regional Conference  
> of
> Wikimedia Serbia.
>
> The conference will be held on 5th and 6th June in Belgrade, in the
> Belgrade Youth Center. We are hoping to have as many Wikimedia  
> guests as
> possible. Conference is not regional in the strict sense, meaning that
> people who are not from the region are welcome as well.
>
> If you are interested in visiting the conference, please reply to this
> email with the exact information on when you can come and how long you
> can stay, as well as whether there is a chance to provide your own
> accommodation in Belgrade. Wikimedia Serbia received a (limited) grant
> from the city of Belgrade to organize this conference, so there is an
> opportunity of covering accommodation and/or travel expenses for a
> certain number of participants.
>
> If you would like to hold a lecture, workshop or similar during the
> conference, also report that to us so that we could include you in the
> program.
>
> Please forward this email to anyone you believe would like to attend  
> the
> conference.
>
> Contact people:
> Goran Obradovic: obradovicgo...@gmail.com
> Filip Maljkovic: dungod...@gmail.com
> Nikola Smolenski: smole...@eunet.rs
>
> Cheers,
> Wikimedia Serbia
>
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the d iscussion is happening

[Przykuta]

> 1) There has been a very active strand about Jimmy's actions over the
> past week and his scope of authority, which I think is now resolving.
> That's mostly happened here and on meta.
> 
Sue - everywhere - mailing lists, IRC channels, village pumps... 

We need to talk as Wikimedia Community. There is no authority without 
communication - face to face(s); keyboard to keyboard. The biggest fire (RfC 
flame) is here: 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Remove_Founder_flag

400 votes - 400 users 

Maybe the best way will be to start special IRC debate - about past, present 
and future. (and again, and again, and again - yeah)

Yes... We have bigger problems, but... maybe not. This is real trouble.

przykuta

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

[Foundation-l] Regional Conference of Wikimedia Serbia 2010

[Filip Maljkovic]

Hello,

Wikimedia Serbia is proud to announce the Fourth Regional Conference of 
Wikimedia Serbia.

The conference will be held on 5th and 6th June in Belgrade, in the 
Belgrade Youth Center. We are hoping to have as many Wikimedia guests as 
possible. Conference is not regional in the strict sense, meaning that 
people who are not from the region are welcome as well.

If you are interested in visiting the conference, please reply to this 
email with the exact information on when you can come and how long you 
can stay, as well as whether there is a chance to provide your own 
accommodation in Belgrade. Wikimedia Serbia received a (limited) grant 
from the city of Belgrade to organize this conference, so there is an 
opportunity of covering accommodation and/or travel expenses for a 
certain number of participants.

If you would like to hold a lecture, workshop or similar during the 
conference, also report that to us so that we could include you in the 
program.

Please forward this email to anyone you believe would like to attend the 
conference.

Contact people:
Goran Obradovic: obradovicgo...@gmail.com
Filip Maljkovic: dungod...@gmail.com
Nikola Smolenski: smole...@eunet.rs

Cheers,
Wikimedia Serbia

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Removing questions about me and my role from this discussion

[Samuel Klein]

Mike.lifeguard writes:
> I think you'll find that whenever you want to have something done that
> should actually be done there will be no problem convincing
> community members to do it... I think this will make folks
> much more comfortable in accepting your guidance.

Just so.  Thank you, Jimbo.


Kim writes:

> PERFECT!
>
> == Me three? ==
>
> In fact, the reason that I haven't been able to convince fellow
> admins to retire, is because they really didn't want to lose
> their viewing abilities.
>
> ... it would be really nice to have a similar set of permissions
> for "retired" admins and stewards.  Please? 

This is a great idea.  We should do it.

SJ


Dan writes:
>>This email is twice as good when you read it in Judge Judy's voice.

(Even better, in Kim's grinning impersonation of Judge Judy's voice.)

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Where things stand now

[Alex]

On 5/8/2010 9:08 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> 
> 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.
> 
> I'm taking the day off from deleting, both today and tomorrow, but I do 
> encourage people to continue deleting the most extreme stuff.
> 
> But as the immediate crisis has passed (successfully!) there is not 
> nearly the time pressure that there was.  I'm shifting into a slower mode.
> 
> We were about to be smeared in all media as hosting hardcore pornography 
> and doing nothing about it.  Now, the correct storyline is that we are 
> cleaning up.  I'm proud to have made sure that storyline broke the way 
> it did, and I'm sorry I had to step on some toes to make it happen.
> 
> Now, the key is: let's continue to move forward with a responsible 
> policy discussion.
> 
> 

The correct story line now is that Wikimedia is purging historical works
by notable artists and bending due to pressure from American
conservative "media." Outside of Fox news, I've yet to see any pickup of
this by any significant media outlet.[1]

The way I see it, with the rushed and ham-fisted way this was done,
we'll be lucky if it doesn't completely backfire on us and the
non-conservative media doesn't make it look like we're burning books or
that they misconstrue it and assume we've adopted some sort of outright
no-nudity policy.

[1] http://bit.ly/d8y5vy

-- 
Alex (wikipedia:en:User:Mr.Z-man)

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

[Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

[stevertigo]

Jimmy Wales  wrote:

> My purpose here is for us to stop chattering about this aspect of things
> - which I don't care about.  People seem to want to fight me on it,
> perhaps expecting me to dig in my heels.  Everyone loves a good fight,
> even me, but this is not a fight that we need to have.

While I support your actions in principle, the issues with your
"status" come from the fact that you've been a shoot first kind of guy
for a while now, and that mode of action belies your founder
mentality, which was (IIRC) to roll up your sleeves and try at least
to sorting things out personally and via open discussion.

It's clear that there is a undercurrent of support for keeping Commons
a bit naked. How nakedness jives with other cultures depends on a few
things, and how censoring ourselves might have a
counterintuitive/positive impact of opening us up to more
conservative/prudish/puritannical cultures of course needs discussing.

-Stevertigo

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[stevertigo]

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen  wrote:

> This *HAS* been suggested before, and soundly defeated.
> Nothing has changed in this respect. I would heartfeltly ask
> that folks just quit trying to stuff this down the throat of a
> community that simply does not content labeling.

I don't see why the negative emphasis here.

Without taking a side about any particular types of imagery, labelling
should be regarded as metadata.  Ideally, all media should be
described by text, which should be regarded as simply another
dimension by which people can find media they want. The end user can
deal with images as they like, through semantic searching or through
content filtering.

-Stevertigo

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: wiki-based troubleshooting

[Alex]

On 5/4/2010 5:16 PM, Yao Ziyuan wrote:
> Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>>
>>> We definitely do not want to be giving medical advice to people. If
>>> you get that wrong, people die. Medical advice should be got by going
>>> to the doctors. Can you give another example of what your idea could
> 
> Yes, medical troubleshooting is both extremely useful and extremely
> sensitive, and that's why I said "Like Wikipedia, WikiTroubleshooting
> should cite credible references." We could put a warning and a
> disclaimer on every medical troubleshooting page telling the visitor
> to check cited references and other sources before adopting any
> advice.

A disclaimer would probably shield us from lawsuits, but there would
still be a lot of ethical issues in "the free medical advice anyone can
edit" (since we know most people won't check sources, especially print
sources). Setting aside the issues of vandalism, even a good intentioned
edit by someone who doesn't have adequate medical training could cause
problems if they misread a source or use a source that isn't as reliable
as they think. A lot higher standard for "reliable" would be needed for
something like that.

> How can a wiki implement a troubleshooting wizard? A wizard is a set
> of pages. Each page assumes you have specified certain symptoms (e.g.
> symptom1, symptom3, symptom5) of your problem and asks you a question
> to specify a new symptom (e.g. symptom10); then it redirects you to a
> next page that assumes you have specified symptoms 1, 3, 5 and 10 and
> asks you yet another question or shows you possible causes and
> solutions for the symptoms you have specified so far (1, 3, 5, 10).
> 
> Therefore they're just static HTML pages where each page can link to
> one or more "next pages". This is exactly what a wiki can do.

The main issue I can see (other than that for medical advice and the
like), is that troubleshooters don't lend themselves as well to
incremental building. A Wikipedia article with only a few sentences or a
Wikibook with only a couple chapters are still slightly useful. A
troubleshooter with only a couple steps is much less so.

Say you have a troubleshooter for a printer not working:
1. Is the printer plugged in and on?
Yes
2. Is there paper loaded?
Yes
3. Sorry, that's all this troubleshooter can help you with for now.

-- 
Alex (wikipedia:en:User:Mr.Z-man)

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] English Wikipedia: Upcoming Changes to the User Interface

[Howie Fung]

Everyone,

As many of you already know, the Wikimedia Foundation's User Experience 
team has been running a beta program focused on improving the user 
interface for over six months now. More details may be found here 
 
[a], but our main goal has been to reduce the barriers to participation 
in Wikipedia by making it easier for new contributors to edit.


Since the start of the program, over 635,000 users across all Wikimedia 
projects have participated in this beta program - testing and providing 
feedback on the new interface. Roughly 80% of the test users who tried 
the beta are still using it (view details 
 [b]). On the 
English Wikipedia, almost 270,000 users have tried the test interface 
and about 84% of those users continue to use it. On April 5, the beta 
features became the default experience for users of Wikimedia Commons, a 
wiki similar to Wikipedia that hosts the millions of free image and 
media files within our projects. The summary of feedback from Commons 
users may be found here 
 
[c]. The WMF blog 
 
[d] and the tech blog 
 
[e] also provide more information on this project.


This new user interface will become the default for users of the English 
Wikipedia during the second week of May. We are currently scheduled to 
make the switch at 5:00am UTC on May 13. Once we make the switch, all 
users will begin to see the new features [1]. These features include an 
enhanced toolbar, a new skin (which we named 'Vector'), and a number of 
other features we're very excited about (FAQs may be found here 
 [f]). 
If you prefer not to make the change, there will be 'Take me back' link 
to restore the original features. Those who would like to experience the 
new interface sooner may do so via the 'Try Beta' link at the top of the 
page.


We understand that the English Wikipedia relies heavily on custom user 
scripts and site-specific JavaScript. Information on how to test gadgets 
is included in the FAQs 
 page. 
If you encounter issues using the new skin, please share your feedback 
<[http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:What%27s_new,_questions_and_answers> 
[g].


We're looking forward to rolling out the new features next week. In the 
meantime, if you have any questions/comments, please share them here 
 [h] -- 
we're trying to consolidate feedback as much as we can.


Howie

Wikimedia Usability Experience Team

[1] Users that have opted out of the beta will still get the new 
features.  We apologize in advance for this inconvenience, but these 
users may restore their features via the "Take Me Back" link.

[a] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Usability_Initiative
[b] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Beta_Feedback_Survey
[c] 
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/04/16/a-quick-update-on-vector-acceptance-by-commons-users/
[d] 
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/25/wikimedia-gets-ready-for-some-big-changes/

[e] http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/the-change-in-interface-is-coming/
[f] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/What%27s_new,_questions_and_answers
[g] 
[http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:What%27s_new,_questions_and_answers

[h] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_experience_feedback
___
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed 
to Foundation-L, the public mailing list about the Wikimedia Foundation and its 
projects. For more information about Foundation-L:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
___
WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list
wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Sue Gardner]

Hi Derk-Jan,

Thank you for starting this thread.

There is obviously a range of options -- let's say, on a 10-point
scale, ranging from 0 (do nothing but enforce existing policy) to 10
(completely purge everything that's potentially objectionable to
anyone, anywhere).  Somewhere on that continuum are possibilities like
i) we tag pages so that external entities can filter, ii) we point
parents towards content filtering systems they can use, but make no
changes ourselves, iii) we implement our own filtering system so that
people can choose to hide objectionable content if they want, or iv)
we implement our own filtering system, with a default to a "safe" or
"moderate" view and the option for people to change their own
settings.  Those are just a few: there are lots of options.  (e.g.,
Google Images and Flickr I believe do different versions of option iv.
 I'm not saying that means we should do the same; it does not
necessarily mean that.)

I would love to see a table of various options, with pros and cons
including feedback from folks like EFF.  If anyone feels like starting
such a thing, I would be really grateful :-)

Thanks,
Sue



On 9 May 2010 14:26, Derk-Jan Hartman  wrote:
> This message was an attempt to gain information and spur discussion about the 
> system in general, it's limits and effectiveness, not wether or not we should 
> actually do it. I was trying to gather more information so that we can have 
> an informed debate if it ever got to discussing about the possibility of 
> using ratings.
>
> That is why it was addressed to FOSI and cc'ed to some parties that might 
> have clue about such systems. The copy to foundation-l was a courtesy 
> message. You are welcome to discuss censorship and your opinion about it, but 
> I would appreciate it even more if people actually talked about rating 
> systems.
>
> DJ
>
> On 9 mei 2010, at 15:24, Derk-Jan Hartman wrote:
>
>> This message is CC'ed to other people who might wish to comment on this 
>> potential approach
>> ---
>>
>> Dear reader at FOSI,
>>
>> As a member of the Wikipedia community and the community that develops the 
>> software on which Wikipedia runs, I come to you with a few questions.
>> Over the past years Wikipedia has become more and more popular and 
>> omnipresent. This has led to enormous problems, because for the first time, 
>> a largely uncensored system has to work in the boundaries of a world tha t 
>> is largely censored. For libraries and schools this means that they want to 
>> provide Wikipedia and its related projects to their readers, but are 
>> presented with the problem of what some people might consider, information 
>> that is not "child-safe". They have several options in that case, either 
>> blocking completely or using context aware filtering software that may make 
>> mistakes, that can cost some of these institutions their funding.
>>
>> Similar problems are starting to present themselves in countries around the 
>> world, differing views about sexuality between northern and southern europe 
>> for instance. Add to that the censoring of images of Muhammad, Tiananman 
>> square, the Nazi Swastika, and a host of other problems. Recently there has 
>> been concern that all this all-out-censoring of content by parties around 
>> the world is damaging the education mission of the Wikipedia related 
>> projects because so many people are not able to access large portions of our 
>> content due to a small (think 0.01% ) part of our other content.
>>
>> This has led some people to infer that perhaps it is time to rate the 
>> content of Wikipedia ourselves, in order to facilitate external censoring of 
>> material, hopefully making the rest of our content more accessible. 
>> According to statements around the web ICRA ratings are probably the most 
>> widely supported rating by filtering systems. Thus we were thinking of 
>> adding autogenerated ICRA RDF tags to each individual page describing the 
>> rating of the page and the images contained within them. I have a few 
>> questions however, both general and technical.
>>
>> 1: If I am correctly informed, Wikipedia would be the first website of this 
>> size to label their content with ratings, is this correct?
>> 2: How many content filters understand the RDF tags
>> 3: How many of those understand multiple labels and path specific labeling. 
>> This means: if we rate the path of images included on the page different 
>> from the page itself, do filters block the entire content, or just the 
>> images ? (Consider the Virgin Killer album cover on the Virgin Killer 
>> article, if you are aware of that controversial image 
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer)
>> 4: Do filters understand per page labeling ? Or do they cache the first RDF 
>> file they encounter on a website and use that for all other pages of the 
>> website ?
>> 5: Is there any chance the vocabulary of ICRA can be expanded with new 
>> ratings for non-Western world sensitive issues ?

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[Milos Rancic]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Sue Gardner  wrote:
> [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia.  AFAIK it's not
> taking place on-wiki anywhere.
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/195663

After Greg's, David Gerard's and Mike's arguments, I think that it is
clear that ICRA is not so good idea. We should make our own not
aggressive approach based on existing categorization system.

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] On problems in commons

[Excirial]

*Please, read good. Common Sense. Do you think it´s of common sense delete
this?...*

Common sense is not
Common.
In the Islamic world depictions of Muhammad are considered to be highly
offensive, akin to western views on child pornography. I am not offended in
the least by images of muhammed, but other people are. By your rationale we
would have to remove every image or content that might be considered
offensive due to it being a matter of respect. It would mean that every
pornographic diagram, drawing or image would have to be removed. We would
have to remove the Muhammad category. We would have to clean our medical
pages which contain photo's of certain diseases that can be considered
gross. We would have to remove logo's from pages on secret societies as
these societies often consider those logo's "Secret". In fact, there is
little to no content that is not considered offensive by at least part of
the population.

Therefor we include relevant images as long as they are not against the law.
Images with a high level of "Offensiveness" to a large group of people
should be handled with care, but not evaded. One persons "common sense
removal" is another persons censorship. I strongly believe in the right to
choose - we should not enforce people to look at content they do not wish to
see. But equally we should not remove content merely on the basis that
someone doesn't like it.

~Excirial

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 10:54 PM, marcos  wrote:

> Please, read good. Common Sense. Do you think it´s of common sense delete
> this?...
>
>
> --- El dom, 9/5/10, Peter Coombe  escribió:
>
> De: Peter Coombe 
> Asunto: Re: [Foundation-l] On problems in commons
> Para: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Fecha: domingo, 9 de mayo, 2010 22:51
>
> On 9 May 2010 21:29, marcos  wrote:
> > I want to write here a couple of reflections:
> >
> > First: Not everything what can be known is worth being known
> >
> > Second:  there have to be a few limits in the free knowledge. These
> limits are the Law and the common sense. Though the common sense is the
> least common of the senses
> >
> > Third:Even we promote the free knowledge, there is not lde common sense
> (and I doubt that it is legal) that Commons offers images, for example, the
> best way of torturing to a person or the schemes to construct a bomb...
> >
> > There are many countries in the world in which the pederasty is a crime,
> or his  religious systems see them as something abominable.
> >
> > We must respect these laws and these beliefs, we like them or not.
> >
> > And it, gentlemen and ladies, is not a censorship. It is called a
> respect.
> >
>
> Fine. I assume we will be deleting everything at
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Muhammad then.
>
> Pete / the wub
>
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
What I am missing is that Iran has blocked the whole Wikimedia domain as
Commons is included in that domain. I understand that the reason is there
being too much sexual explicit content.  As a consequence this important
free resource is no longer available to the students of Iran as a resource
for illustrations for their project work.

What I would like to know is if we have been talking to Iranian politicians
and / or if we have an understanding of what it takes to ensure that Commons
becomes available again.
Thanks,
  GerardM

On 9 May 2010 23:28, Sue Gardner  wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> I'm aiming to stay on top of this whole conversation -- which is not
> easy: there is an awful lot of text being generated :-)
>
> So for myself and others --including new board members who may not be
> super-fluent in terms of following where and how we discuss things--,
> I'm going to recap here where I think the main strands of conversation
> are happening.  Please let me know if I'm missing anything important.
>
> 1) There has been a very active strand about Jimmy's actions over the
> past week and his scope of authority, which I think is now resolving.
> That's mostly happened here and on meta.
>
> 2) There is a strand about a proposed new Commons policy covering
> sexual content: what is in scope, how to categorize and describe, etc.
>  This policy has been discussed over time, and is being actively
> discussed right now.  It is not yet agreed to, nor enforced.  I gather
> it (the policy) reaffirms that sexual imagery needs to have some
> educational/informational value to warrant inclusion in Commons,
> attempts to articulate more clearly than in the past what is out of
> scope for the project and why, and overall, represents a tightening-up
> of existing standards rather than a radical change to them. It's here:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Sexual_content
>
> 3) There is a strand about content filtering (and, I suppose, other
> initiatives we might undertake, in addition to new/tighter policy at
> Commons).  This discussion is happening mostly here on foundation-l,
> where it was started by Derk-Jan Hartman with the thread title
> [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia.  AFAIK it's not
> taking place on-wiki anywhere.
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/195663
>
> I also think that if people skipped over Greg Maxwell's thread
> [Foundation-l] Appropriate surprise (Commons stuff) -- it might be
> worth them going back and taking a look at it.  I'm not expressing an
> opinion on Greg's views as laid out in that note, and I think the
> focus of the conversation has moved on a little in the 12 hours or so
> since he wrote it.  But it's still IMO a very useful recap/summary of
> where we're at, and as such I think definitely worth reading.  Few of
> us seem to gravitate towards recapping/summarizing/synthesizing, which
> is probably too bad: it's a very useful skill in conversations like
> this one, and a service to everyone involved :-)
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/195598.
>
> Let me know if I'm missing anything important.
>
> Thanks,
> Sue
>
>
>
> --
> Sue Gardner
> Executive Director
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> 415 839 6885 office
>
> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
> the sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

[Foundation-l] Commons:Sexual content

[Adam Cuerden]

Okay, I've complained a lot, time to give something back.

I think I've managed to create a sexual content policy that's
consistent with the core values of commons and previous decisions,
such as the artworks of Muhammed,  while dealing with the problems and
assuring that any sexual content that remains is, at the least,
defensible as serving our educational purpose.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Sexual_content

It'll probably need  a bit more work, but a policy based on forwarding
our goals, rather than censorship... Well! Think we might have summat
here.

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

[Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[Sue Gardner]

Hi folks,

I'm aiming to stay on top of this whole conversation -- which is not
easy: there is an awful lot of text being generated :-)

So for myself and others --including new board members who may not be
super-fluent in terms of following where and how we discuss things--,
I'm going to recap here where I think the main strands of conversation
are happening.  Please let me know if I'm missing anything important.

1) There has been a very active strand about Jimmy's actions over the
past week and his scope of authority, which I think is now resolving.
That's mostly happened here and on meta.

2) There is a strand about a proposed new Commons policy covering
sexual content: what is in scope, how to categorize and describe, etc.
 This policy has been discussed over time, and is being actively
discussed right now.  It is not yet agreed to, nor enforced.  I gather
it (the policy) reaffirms that sexual imagery needs to have some
educational/informational value to warrant inclusion in Commons,
attempts to articulate more clearly than in the past what is out of
scope for the project and why, and overall, represents a tightening-up
of existing standards rather than a radical change to them. It's here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Sexual_content

3) There is a strand about content filtering (and, I suppose, other
initiatives we might undertake, in addition to new/tighter policy at
Commons).  This discussion is happening mostly here on foundation-l,
where it was started by Derk-Jan Hartman with the thread title
[Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia.  AFAIK it's not
taking place on-wiki anywhere.
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/195663

I also think that if people skipped over Greg Maxwell's thread
[Foundation-l] Appropriate surprise (Commons stuff) -- it might be
worth them going back and taking a look at it.  I'm not expressing an
opinion on Greg's views as laid out in that note, and I think the
focus of the conversation has moved on a little in the 12 hours or so
since he wrote it.  But it's still IMO a very useful recap/summary of
where we're at, and as such I think definitely worth reading.  Few of
us seem to gravitate towards recapping/summarizing/synthesizing, which
is probably too bad: it's a very useful skill in conversations like
this one, and a service to everyone involved :-)
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/195598.

Let me know if I'm missing anything important.

Thanks,
Sue



-- 
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Derk-Jan Hartman]

This message was an attempt to gain information and spur discussion about the 
system in general, it's limits and effectiveness, not wether or not we should 
actually do it. I was trying to gather more information so that we can have an 
informed debate if it ever got to discussing about the possibility of using 
ratings.

That is why it was addressed to FOSI and cc'ed to some parties that might have 
clue about such systems. The copy to foundation-l was a courtesy message. You 
are welcome to discuss censorship and your opinion about it, but I would 
appreciate it even more if people actually talked about rating systems.

DJ

On 9 mei 2010, at 15:24, Derk-Jan Hartman wrote:

> This message is CC'ed to other people who might wish to comment on this 
> potential approach
> ---
> 
> Dear reader at FOSI,
> 
> As a member of the Wikipedia community and the community that develops the 
> software on which Wikipedia runs, I come to you with a few questions.
> Over the past years Wikipedia has become more and more popular and 
> omnipresent. This has led to enormous problems, because for the first time, a 
> largely uncensored system has to work in the boundaries of a world that is 
> largely censored. For libraries and schools this means that they want to 
> provide Wikipedia and its related projects to their readers, but are 
> presented with the problem of what some people might consider, information 
> that is not "child-safe". They have several options in that case, either 
> blocking completely or using context aware filtering software that may make 
> mistakes, that can cost some of these institutions their funding.
> 
> Similar problems are starting to present themselves in countries around the 
> world, differing views about sexuality between northern and southern europe 
> for instance. Add to that the censoring of images of Muhammad, Tiananman 
> square, the Nazi Swastika, and a host of other problems. Recently there has 
> been concern that all this all-out-censoring of content by parties around the 
> world is damaging the education mission of the Wikipedia related projects 
> because so many people are not able to access large portions of our content 
> due to a small (think 0.01% ) part of our other content.
> 
> This has led some people to infer that perhaps it is time to rate the content 
> of Wikipedia ourselves, in order to facilitate external censoring of 
> material, hopefully making the rest of our content more accessible. According 
> to statements around the web ICRA ratings are probably the most widely 
> supported rating by filtering systems. Thus we were thinking of adding 
> autogenerated ICRA RDF tags to each individual page describing the rating of 
> the page and the images contained within them. I have a few questions 
> however, both general and technical.
> 
> 1: If I am correctly informed, Wikipedia would be the first website of this 
> size to label their content with ratings, is this correct?
> 2: How many content filters understand the RDF tags
> 3: How many of those understand multiple labels and path specific labeling. 
> This means: if we rate the path of images included on the page different from 
> the page itself, do filters block the entire content, or just the images ? 
> (Consider the Virgin Killer album cover on the Virgin Killer article, if you 
> are aware of that controversial image 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer)
> 4: Do filters understand per page labeling ? Or do they cache the first RDF 
> file they encounter on a website and use that for all other pages of the 
> website ?
> 5: Is there any chance the vocabulary of ICRA can be expanded with new 
> ratings for non-Western world sensitive issues ?
> 6: Is there a possibility of creating a separate "namespace" that we could 
> potentially use for our own labels ?
> 
> I hope that you can help me answer these questions, so that we may continue 
> our community debate with more informed viewpoints about the possibilities of 
> content rating. If you have additional suggestions for systems or problems 
> that this web-property should account for, I would more than welcome those 
> suggestions as well.
> 
> Derk-Jan Hartman


___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Removing questions about me and my role from this discussion

[Milos Rancic]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 10:37 PM, Joan Goma  wrote:
> The founder’s flag give to a single man a huge power. I can’t trust on
> almost anybody to hold that power.

Every steward holds that power. If I remember well, I think that
stewards had a couple of more permissions than founder.

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Appropriate surprise (Commons stuff)

[Stuart West]

Thanks, Greg.  This is very useful perspective and great background for
those of us without Commons experience.

-stu

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 1:17 AM, Gregory Maxwell  wrote:

> I thought it might be useful to here if I shared some of my
> experiences with commons.
>
>
> Like many people I've had the experience of bumping into a human
> sexuality related commons category or gallery and thinking "Holy crap!
> Thats a lot of [gallery name].  Freeking teenage pornofreaks!".
>
> But unlike many other people, I am in a position to do something about
> it:  I'm a commons administrator and checkuser reasonably well
> respected in the commons community (when I'm not inactive, at least),
> well connected to the commons star-chamber, and I've played a role in
> many of the internal 'governance by fiat' events.  I think it's likely
> that a majority of my deletions have been technically "out of
> process", but by keeping a good working relationship with the rest of
> the commons community this hasn't been a problem at all.
>
> To take action you have to understand a few things:  "The problem",
> "The lay of the land", and "The goal".
>
> Why might a super-abundance of explicit images be a problem?
> (1) They potentially bring the Wikimedia sites into ill repute  (it's
> just a big porn site!)
> (2) They encourage the blocking of Wikimedia sites from schools and
> libraries
> (3) Explicit photographs are a hot-bed of privacy issues and can even
> risk bumping into the law (underage models)
>
> I'm sure others can be listed but these are sufficient for now.
>
>
> "The lay of the land"
>
>
> Commons has a hard rule that for images to be in scope they must
> potentially serve an educational purpose. The rule is followed pretty
> strictly, but the definition of educational purpose is taken very
> broadly.   In particular the commons community expects the public to
> also use commons as a form of "visual education", so having a great
> big bucket of distinct pictures of the same subject generally furthers
> the educational mission.
>
> There are two major factors complicating every policy decision on commons:
>
> Commons is also a service project. When commons policy changes over
> 700 wikis feel the results. Often, language barriers inhibit effective
> communication with these customers.  Some Wikimedia projects rely on
> commons exclusively for their images, so a prohibition on commons
> means (for example) a prohibition on Es wiki, even though most
> Eswikipedians are not active in the commons community.  This
> relationship works because of trust which the commons community has
> built over the years. Part of that trust is that commons avoids making
> major changes with great haste and works with projects to fix issues
> when hasty acts do cause issues.
>
> Commons itself is highly multi-cultural. While commons does have a
> strong organizing principle (which is part of why it has been a
> fantastic success on its own terms where all other non-wikipedia WMF
> projects are at best weakly successful), that principle is strongly
> inclusive and mostly directs us to collect and curate while only
> excluding on legal grounds and a few common areas of basic human
> decency— it's harder to create any kind of cross cultural agreement on
> matters of taste.  Avoiding issues of taste also makes us more
> reliable as an image source for customer projects.
>
>
> I think that a near majority of commons users think that we could do
> with some reductions in the quantity of redundant / low quality human
> sexuality content, due to having the same experience I started this
> message with. Of that group I think there is roughly an even split
> between people who believe the existing "educational purposes" policy
> is sufficient and people who think we could probably strengthen the
> policy somehow.
>
> There are also people who are honestly offended that some people are
> offended by human sexuality content— and some of them view efforts to
> curtail this content to be a threat to their own cultural values.  If
> this isn't your culture, please take a moment to ponder it. If your
> personal culture believes in the open expression of sexuality an
> effort to remove "redundant / low quality" sexuality images while we
> not removing low quality pictures of clay pots, for example, is
> effectively an attack on your beliefs. These people would tell you: If
> you don't like it, don't look. _Understanding_ differences in opinion
> is part of the commons way, so even if you do not embrace this view
> you should at least stop to understand that it is not without merit.
> In any case, while sometimes vocal, people from this end of the
> spectrum don't appear to be all that much of the community.
>
> Of course, there are a few trolls here and there from time to time,
> but I don't think anyone really pays them much attention. There are
> lots of horny twenty somethings, but while it might bias the
> discussions towards permissiveness I don't thin

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Excirial]

 *That's true. But at the moment we have nothing to defend or excuse
ourselves with. If we had decent tagging we could at least say: "You
don't want your pupils to see nude people? Add rule XYZ to your school's
proxy servers and Wikipedia will be clean. You can even choose which
content should be allowed and which not."

Much better than saying: "You don't want your pupils to see nude people?
No way! No Wikipedia without dicks and titties! Except you block all of
Wikipedia..."*

If we create a content rating system, it should be based upon individual
account settings which are decided by the editors themselves instead of
being enforced globally. I am very much against any system that takes
control away from the editor and hands it to some external party; We are not
aiming to become another Golden Shield
Projectwhere a
handful of people can dictate what content is appropriate for its
audience. Even a system that sets top level permissions which are
overridable trough account settings is to much in my eyes, as such systems
can easily be abused.

Equally i don't believe it is up to a school or ISP to decide whether or not
they want to show certain content to its subscribers. If i don't want to see
sexual images, nudity, the face of Muhammad, evolution or religious related
content i should not be searching for it on the first place. A setting that
allows people to filter content is little more then a courtesy to them as we
would allow them to filter based upon their personal convictions. However,
there is no way my ISP can decide what convictions i should follow. If a
school decides to block Wikipedia altogether then i would say it is their
loss, not ours.

~Excirial

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 10:42 PM, Marcus Buck  wrote:

> David Gerard hett schreven:
> > On 9 May 2010 21:17, Marcus Buck  wrote:
> >
> >
> >> The tags applied should be clear and fact-based. So instead of tagging a
> >> page as "containing pornography", which is entirely subjective, we
> >> should rather tag the page as "contains a depiction of an erect penis"
> >> or "contains a depiction of oral intercourse".
> >>
> >
> >
> > We can do this with the existing category system.
> >
> That is possible but it will either be hacky or we'll need to be much
> more strict with our categorization (atomic categorization). I'm not
> opposed though.
> > The objection of the objectors will remain that the material is
> > present at all. No system of categorisation will alleviate this
> > concern - only actual censorship of Commons will.
> >
>
> That's true. But at the moment we have nothing to defend or excuse
> ourselves with. If we had decent tagging we could at least say: "You
> don't want your pupils to see nude people? Add rule XYZ to your school's
> proxy servers and Wikipedia will be clean. You can even choose which
> content should be allowed and which not."
>
> Much better than saying: "You don't want your pupils to see nude people?
> No way! No Wikipedia without dicks and titties! Except you block all of
> Wikipedia..."
>
> Our current strategy is censoring, but hiding the censorship under most
> possibly vague and undefined terms like "scope".
>
> Marcus Buck
> User:Slomox
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] On problems in commons

[Mikemoral]

But Muhammad's image is not illegal in the US, so why remove them? That has
no point. Why do we have to remove content perfectly legal under US law?
Please educate me why.

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Peter Coombe wrote:

> We already remove images of children which are considered to be
> illegal under US law, and I see no one arguing that we do otherwise.
> The recent kerfuffle has been over the broader category of sexual
> images. But if we are take account of all religious and moral
> sensitivities, where will it end?
>
> There are many countries in the world in which the depiction of the
> prophet Muhammad is a crime, or religious systems see it as something
> abominable.
>
> We must respect these laws and these beliefs, whether we like them or not?
>
> Pete / the wub
>
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>



-- 
Regards,

Mike
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Mikemoral
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mikemoral
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] On problems in commons

[Peter Coombe]

We already remove images of children which are considered to be
illegal under US law, and I see no one arguing that we do otherwise.
The recent kerfuffle has been over the broader category of sexual
images. But if we are take account of all religious and moral
sensitivities, where will it end?

There are many countries in the world in which the depiction of the
prophet Muhammad is a crime, or religious systems see it as something
abominable.

We must respect these laws and these beliefs, whether we like them or not?

Pete / the wub

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] On problems in commons

[marcos]

Please, read good. Common Sense. Do you think it´s of common sense delete 
this?...


--- El dom, 9/5/10, Peter Coombe  escribió:

De: Peter Coombe 
Asunto: Re: [Foundation-l] On problems in commons
Para: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" 
Fecha: domingo, 9 de mayo, 2010 22:51

On 9 May 2010 21:29, marcos  wrote:
> I want to write here a couple of reflections:
>
> First: Not everything what can be known is worth being known
>
> Second:  there have to be a few limits in the free knowledge. These limits 
> are the Law and the common sense. Though the common sense is the least common 
> of the senses
>
> Third:Even we promote the free knowledge, there is not lde common sense (and 
> I doubt that it is legal) that Commons offers images, for example, the best 
> way of torturing to a person or the schemes to construct a bomb...
>
> There are many countries in the world in which the pederasty is a crime, or 
> his  religious systems see them as something abominable.
>
> We must respect these laws and these beliefs, we like them or not.
>
> And it, gentlemen and ladies, is not a censorship. It is called a respect.
>

Fine. I assume we will be deleting everything at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Muhammad then.

Pete / the wub

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l



  
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] On problems in commons

[Peter Coombe]

On 9 May 2010 21:29, marcos  wrote:
> I want to write here a couple of reflections:
>
> First: Not everything what can be known is worth being known
>
> Second:  there have to be a few limits in the free knowledge. These limits 
> are the Law and the common sense. Though the common sense is the least common 
> of the senses
>
> Third:Even we promote the free knowledge, there is not lde common sense (and 
> I doubt that it is legal) that Commons offers images, for example, the best 
> way of torturing to a person or the schemes to construct a bomb...
>
> There are many countries in the world in which the pederasty is a crime, or 
> his  religious systems see them as something abominable.
>
> We must respect these laws and these beliefs, we like them or not.
>
> And it, gentlemen and ladies, is not a censorship. It is called a respect.
>

Fine. I assume we will be deleting everything at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Muhammad then.

Pete / the wub

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] pediapress in English... and in hardcover?

[Delphine Ménard]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 3:44 PM, Mike.lifeguard  wrote:
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On 37-01--10 03:59 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:
>> Lost in the recent email flood: pediapress is fully working for
>> English.
>>
>> http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/06/wikipedia-and-pediapress-now-allow-you-to-create-books-from-content-in-english/
>>
>>  Does anyone have photos of prototype hardcover books?

>
> Are the hardcover books new? IIRC, they were only paperback when this

Not quite there yet.

> was first introduced. But I'd be surprised if they didn't have some
> images for promotional purposes. I don't suppose we could ask them
> oh-so-nicely to release them under a free license? :D

Well, given that all the other ones have always been released under a
free license, I don't see why not ;)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:PediaPress

I've asked for a pic of a hard cover. I'll upload it to commons.

Cheers,

Delphine

-- 
~notafish

NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will
get lost.
Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Removing questions about me and my role from this discussion

[Mike.lifeguard]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 37-01--10 03:59 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> My purpose here is for us to stop chattering about this aspect of 
> things - which I don't care about.  People seem to want to fight me 
> on it, perhaps expecting me to dig in my heels.  Everyone loves a 
> good fight, even me, but this is not a fight that we need to have.

You *did* dig in your heels, once upon a time[0][1], so it isn't
outlandish :)

- -Mike

[0]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel/Archives/2009-02#Jimbo_Wales_.28talk_.E2.80.A2_email_.E2.80.A2_contributions_.E2.80.A2_deleted_contributions_.E2.80.A2_all_logs_.E2.80.A2_blocks_.E2.80.A2_deletions_.E2.80.A2_protections_.E2.80.A2_count.29
[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/rights?page=User:Jimbo+Wales&offset=20090124&limit=4
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAkvnHlYACgkQst0AR/DaKHvGJACgruNjqCqlYaEoDXFZ4fAlTGyY
tRwAoIb1osKXs1kWJ+Y9f6dNz+Gy9dr/
=ZyJk
-END PGP SIGNATURE-

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Marcus Buck]

David Gerard hett schreven:
> On 9 May 2010 21:17, Marcus Buck  wrote:
>
>   
>> The tags applied should be clear and fact-based. So instead of tagging a
>> page as "containing pornography", which is entirely subjective, we
>> should rather tag the page as "contains a depiction of an erect penis"
>> or "contains a depiction of oral intercourse".
>> 
>
>
> We can do this with the existing category system.
>   
That is possible but it will either be hacky or we'll need to be much 
more strict with our categorization (atomic categorization). I'm not 
opposed though.
> The objection of the objectors will remain that the material is
> present at all. No system of categorisation will alleviate this
> concern - only actual censorship of Commons will.
>   

That's true. But at the moment we have nothing to defend or excuse 
ourselves with. If we had decent tagging we could at least say: "You 
don't want your pupils to see nude people? Add rule XYZ to your school's 
proxy servers and Wikipedia will be clean. You can even choose which 
content should be allowed and which not."

Much better than saying: "You don't want your pupils to see nude people? 
No way! No Wikipedia without dicks and titties! Except you block all of 
Wikipedia..."

Our current strategy is censoring, but hiding the censorship under most 
possibly vague and undefined terms like "scope".

Marcus Buck
User:Slomox
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Mikemoral]

Perhaps a warning system before viewing a potentially offensive image may
help? I believe IMSLP.org has a disclaimer message before someone opens a
PDF score for copyright.

It's entirely possible for Wikimedia to do so. It's not entirely censorship,
just a notice, such as "This image/file may contain offensive material."

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 1:32 PM, David Gerard  wrote:

> On 9 May 2010 21:28, Mikemoral  wrote:
>
> > By why censor Commons? Should educational material be freely viewed and,
> > of course, be made free to read, use, etc.
>
>
> Well, yes. The apparent reason is that Fox News is making trouble.
>
> Categorisation, labeling, etc. won't fix that - only removing the
> material would. This does not make it a good idea.
>
>
> - d.
>


-- 
Regards,

Mike
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Mikemoral
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mikemoral
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Removing questions about me and my role from this discussion

[Joan Goma]

The founder’s flag give to a single man a huge power. I can’t trust on
almost anybody to hold that power. But In less than two days Jimbo has
resigned of this power. By doing this he has proven that he is one of the
sparse people we can trust.

Wikimedia movement is a complex system. Capacity to take decisions is
distributed among a lot of stakeholders. Up to now it has worked pretty
well.

Along all this discussions I think several weaknesses of Wikimedia movement
arisen: This power on single man hands, the foundation need for money, the
power concentration in the hands of the board, the feeling that the members
of the project can’t do anything, the possibility of forking and creating a
project ruled by the chapters… And I could add more, by example: the flags
system is organized in a pyramidal way.

I think that removing a single piece of this system instead of solving any
problem can unbalance the whole. More if this piece has proved extraordinary
good results in the past and extraordinary positive attitude in the present.


Please give Jimbo those flags back. And start altogether a process of
rethinking the whole Wikimedia governance. Improve the system as a whole;
find the mechanisms allowing that it is not needed that anybody holds this
power.
I have opened this page on meta:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Give_funders_flag_back





> On 5/9/10 4:18 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> > I notice you have kept "protect" and "undelete". Is that intentional?
> > If so, can you explain your thinking behind that decision?
>
> I just removed undelete, manage global groups, and edit membership to
> global groups.  I did that before I saw your note, so I missed
> "protect".  It's not important one way or the other.
>
> My purpose here is for us to stop chattering about this aspect of things
> - which I don't care about.  People seem to want to fight me on it,
> perhaps expecting me to dig in my heels.  Everyone loves a good fight,
> even me, but this is not a fight that we need to have.
>
> --Jimbo
>
>
>
>
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[David Gerard]

On 9 May 2010 21:28, Mikemoral  wrote:

> By why censor Commons? Should educational material be freely viewed and,
> of course, be made free to read, use, etc.


Well, yes. The apparent reason is that Fox News is making trouble.

Categorisation, labeling, etc. won't fix that - only removing the
material would. This does not make it a good idea.


- d.

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

[Foundation-l] On problems in commons

[marcos]

I want to write here a couple of reflections:

First: Not everything what can be known is worth being known

Second:  there have to be a few limits in the free knowledge. These limits are 
the Law and the common sense. Though the common sense is the least common of 
the senses

Third:Even we promote the free knowledge, there is not lde common sense (and I 
doubt that it is legal) that Commons offers images, for example, the best way 
of torturing to a person or the schemes to construct a bomb...

There are many countries in the world in which the pederasty is a crime, or 
his  religious systems see them as something abominable.

We must respect these laws and these beliefs, we like them or not.

And it, gentlemen and ladies, is not a censorship. It is called a respect.

And now, if you want, take the Gólgota to me and then crucify me. As Groucho 
Marx said once: " These are my principles. If you don't like them ... I have 
others "


___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Mikemoral]

By why censor Commons? Should educational material be freely viewed and,
of course, be made free to read, use, etc.

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 1:23 PM, David Gerard  wrote:

> On 9 May 2010 21:17, Marcus Buck  wrote:
>
> > The tags applied should be clear and fact-based. So instead of tagging a
> > page as "containing pornography", which is entirely subjective, we
> > should rather tag the page as "contains a depiction of an erect penis"
> > or "contains a depiction of oral intercourse".
>
>
> We can do this with the existing category system.
>
> The objection of the objectors will remain that the material is
> present at all. No system of categorisation will alleviate this
> concern - only actual censorship of Commons will.
>
>
> - d.



-- 
Regards,

Mike
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Mikemoral
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mikemoral
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[David Gerard]

On 9 May 2010 21:17, Marcus Buck  wrote:

> The tags applied should be clear and fact-based. So instead of tagging a
> page as "containing pornography", which is entirely subjective, we
> should rather tag the page as "contains a depiction of an erect penis"
> or "contains a depiction of oral intercourse".


We can do this with the existing category system.

The objection of the objectors will remain that the material is
present at all. No system of categorisation will alleviate this
concern - only actual censorship of Commons will.


- d.

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Marcus Buck]

David Goodman hett schreven:
> This is the first step towards censorship, and we should not take it.
>   
It's not. We already are censored right now. Jimbo, board and foundation 
have expressed that they do not accept the status quo (the status quo 
being that Commons is largely uncensored) and the "cleanup project" 
censored away our "surplus" of explicit material.

The tagging of images is a way to keep the status quo of being 
uncensored while also giving people the chance to filter content they 
deem inapropiate.

We have to balance between censorship applied by us and censorship 
applied by others. There is an interest in censorship and we can do 
nothing about it. It's a fact we have to accept. If schools don't want 
to see penises on their school computers we won't have success to 
convince them to allow penises. They will just block penises. If there's 
no way for them to tell apart "penis-containing pages" and 
"non-penis-containing pages" they may decide to block all Wikipedia 
pages. That's a bad outcome. If we provide good tags they may be able to 
tell them apart and they will only block the penises, not the other 
pages. Better than being blocked altogether.

The tags applied should be clear and fact-based. So instead of tagging a 
page as "containing pornography", which is entirely subjective, we 
should rather tag the page as "contains a depiction of an erect penis" 
or "contains a depiction of oral intercourse".

Marcus Buck
User:Slomox

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Mike Godwin]

Greg Maxwell writes:

At the same time, and I think we'll hear a similar message from the
> EFF and the ALA,  I am opposed to these organized "content labelling
> systems".  These systems are primary censorship systems and are
> overwhelmingly used to subject third parties, often adults, to
> restrictions against their will. I'm sure these groups will gladly
> confirm this for us, regardless of the sales patter used to sell these
> systems to content providers and politicians.
>

I just want to chime in, in support of Greg's assessment here. I worked for
EFF for nine years, and I have done extensive work with ALA as well, and I
am absolutely certain that these organizations (and others, including
civil-liberties groups) will be extremely critical if any project adopts
ICRA labeling schemes. Moreover, Greg's characterization of the existing
systems as "primary censorship systems ... overwhelmingly used to subject
third parties, often adults, to restrictions against their will" is entirely
accurate.


--Mike
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Threading

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Adam Cuerden, 08/05/2010 23:30:
> 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. 

Check archives and click the e-mail address of the person you're 
replying to: e.g., 
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/058055.html 
gives something like 
.
 
This should work.

Nemo

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[David Gerard]

On 9 May 2010 20:46, David Goodman  wrote:

> This is the first step towards censorship, and we should not take it.


Indeed. The initial impetus for this headless chicken moment was the
*existence* of the material on Wikimedia Commons, not that it wasn't
adequately classified.

It's already classified. The objection is that people could find it at all.

ICRA/PICS is a distraction. The issue is that we have this stuff at
all; people who object to it can't cope with that.

May I also suggest that doing *ANYTHING* because Fox News says to is
going to play very badly with people outside the US. If you want a
fork, this is the way to get it.


- d.

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[David Goodman]

This is the first step towards censorship, and we should not take it.

We have no experience or expertise to determine what content is
suitable for particular users, or how content can be classified  as
such.Further, doing so is contrary to the basic principle that we do
not perform original research  or draw conclusions on disputed
matters, but present the facts and outside opinions and leave the
implication for the readers to decide. This principle has served us
well in dealing with many disputes which in other settings are
intractable.

What we do have expertise and experience in is classifying our content
by subject. We have a complex system of categories, actively
maintained, and  a system for determining correct titles and other
metadata  that reflect the content of the article.  No user wants to
see all of Wikipedia--they all choose what the see on the basis of
these descriptors, and on the basis of external links to our site,
links that are not under our control. They can choose on various
grounds. They can choose by title, by links from another article, by
inclusion in a category. Anyone who wishes to use this information to
provide a selected version of WP can freely do so.

To a certain extent , we also have visible metadata about the format
of our material: the main ones which are easily present to visitors
are the language, the size, and the type of computer file. There is
other material that we could display,such as whether an article
contains other files of particular types (in this context, images), or
references, on external links. We  could display a separate list of
the images in an article, including their descriptions.

We could include this in our search criteria. They would be useful for
many purposes; someone might for example wish to see all articles on
southeast Asia that contain maps, or wish to see articles about people
only if they contain photographs of the subjects. This is broadly
useful information, that can be used in many ways. it could easily be
used to design an external filter than would, for example, display
articles on people that contain photographs  with  the descriptors in
place of the photographs, while displaying photographs in all other
articles. The question is whether we should design such filters as
part of the project.

I think we should not take that step. We should leave it to outside
services, which might for example work by viewing WP through a site
that contains the desired filters, or by using a browser that
incorporates them.


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



On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 3:17 PM, Sydney Poore  wrote:
> On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 2:34 PM, Gregory Maxwell  wrote:
>
>> On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 9:24 AM, Derk-Jan Hartman 
>> wrote:
>> > This message is CC'ed to other people who might wish to comment on this
>> potential approach
>> > ---
>> >
>> > Dear reader at FOSI,
>> >
>> > As a member of the Wikipedia community and the community that develops
>> the software on which Wikipedia runs, I come to you with a few questions.
>> > Over the past years Wikipedia has become more and more popular and
>> omnipresent. This has led to enormous
>>
>>
>> I am strongly in favour of allowing our users to choose what they see.
>>  "If you don't like it, don't look at it" is only useful advice when
>> it's easy to avoid looking at things— and it isn't always on our
>> sites. By marking up our content better and providing the right
>> software tools we could _increase_ choice for our users and that can
>> only be a good thing.
>>
>
> I agree and I'm in favor of WMF allocating resources in order to develop a
> system that allows users to filter content based on the particular needs of
> their setting.
>
>>
>> At the same time, and I think we'll hear a similar message from the
>> EFF and the ALA,  I am opposed to these organized "content labelling
>> systems".  These systems are primary censorship systems and are
>> overwhelmingly used to subject third parties, often adults, to
>> restrictions against their will. I'm sure these groups will gladly
>> confirm this for us, regardless of the sales patter used to sell these
>> systems to content providers and politicians.
>>
>> (For more information on the current state of compulsory filtering in
>> the US I recommend the filing in Bradburn v. North Central Regional
>> Library District  an ongoing legal battle over a library system
>> refusing to allow adult patrons to bypass the censorware in order to
>> access constitutionally protected speech, in apparent violation of the
>> suggestion by the US Supreme Court that the ability to bypass these
>> filters is what made the filters lawful in the first place
>>
>> http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/washington/waedce/2:2006cv00327/41160/40/0.pdf
>> )
>>
>> It's arguable if we should fight against the censorship of factual
>> information to adults or merely play no role in it—  but it isn't
>> really acceptable to assis

Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's sysadmin flag

[Lars Åge Kamfjord]

Den 09. mai 2010 19:59, skrev Jimmy Wales:
> I don't think I have the ability to change that, but I'll email the
> stewards and ask them to sort out any remaining details.
>

Sysadmins have the ability to change all rights on all wikis (not just 
from meta), but I have removed that group from you now =)


/Laaknor

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Sydney Poore]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 2:34 PM, Gregory Maxwell  wrote:

> On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 9:24 AM, Derk-Jan Hartman 
> wrote:
> > This message is CC'ed to other people who might wish to comment on this
> potential approach
> > ---
> >
> > Dear reader at FOSI,
> >
> > As a member of the Wikipedia community and the community that develops
> the software on which Wikipedia runs, I come to you with a few questions.
> > Over the past years Wikipedia has become more and more popular and
> omnipresent. This has led to enormous
>
>
> I am strongly in favour of allowing our users to choose what they see.
>  "If you don't like it, don't look at it" is only useful advice when
> it's easy to avoid looking at things— and it isn't always on our
> sites. By marking up our content better and providing the right
> software tools we could _increase_ choice for our users and that can
> only be a good thing.
>

I agree and I'm in favor of WMF allocating resources in order to develop a
system that allows users to filter content based on the particular needs of
their setting.

>
> At the same time, and I think we'll hear a similar message from the
> EFF and the ALA,  I am opposed to these organized "content labelling
> systems".  These systems are primary censorship systems and are
> overwhelmingly used to subject third parties, often adults, to
> restrictions against their will. I'm sure these groups will gladly
> confirm this for us, regardless of the sales patter used to sell these
> systems to content providers and politicians.
>
> (For more information on the current state of compulsory filtering in
> the US I recommend the filing in Bradburn v. North Central Regional
> Library District  an ongoing legal battle over a library system
> refusing to allow adult patrons to bypass the censorware in order to
> access constitutionally protected speech, in apparent violation of the
> suggestion by the US Supreme Court that the ability to bypass these
> filters is what made the filters lawful in the first place
>
> http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/washington/waedce/2:2006cv00327/41160/40/0.pdf
> )
>
> It's arguable if we should fight against the censorship of factual
> information to adults or merely play no role in it—  but it isn't
> really acceptable to assist it.
>
> And even when not used as a method of third party control, these
> systems require the users to have special software installed— so they
> aren't all that useful as a method for our users to self-determine
> what they will see on the site.  So it sounds like a lose, lose
> proposition to me.
>
> Labelling systems are also centred around broad classifications, e.g.
> "Drugs", "Pornography" with definitions which defy NPOV. This will
> obviously lead to endless arguments on applicability within the site.
>
> Many places exempt Wikipedia from their filtering, after all it's all
> educational, so it would be a step backwards for these people for us
> to start applying labels that they would have gladly gone without.
> The filter the "drugs" category because they want to filter pro-drug
> advocacy, but if we follow the criteria we may end up with our factual
> articles bunched into the same bin.  A labelling system designed for
> the full spectrum of internet content simply will not have enough
> words for our content... or are there really separate labels for "Drug
> _education_", "Hate speech _education_", "Pornography _education_",
> etc. ?
>

> Urban legend says the Eskimos have 100 words for snow, it's not
> true... but I think that it is true that for the Wiki(p|m)edia
> projects we really do need 10 million words for education.
>
> Using a third party labelling system we can also expect issues that
> would arise where we fail to "correctly" apply the labels, either due
> to vandalism, limitations of the community process, or simply because
> of a genuine and well founded difference of opinion.
>
> Instead I prefer that we run our own labelling system. By controlling
> it ourselves we determine its meaning— avoiding terminology disputes
> without outsiders; we can operate the system in a manner which
> inhibits its usefulness to the involuntary censorship of adults (e.g.
> not actually putting the label data in the pages users view in an
> accessible way, creating site TOS which makes the involuntary
> application of our filters on adults unlawful), and maximizes its
> usefulness for user self determination by making the controls
> available right on the site.
>
> The wikimedia sites have enough traffic that its worth peoples time to
> customize their own preferences.
>
> There are many technical ways in which such a system could be
> constructed, some requiring more development work than others, and
> while I'd love to blather on a possible methods the important point at
> this time is to establish the principles before we worry about the
> tools.
>

I agree and prefer a system designed for the special needs of WMF wikis and
our global community. We m

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 9:24 AM, Derk-Jan Hartman  wrote:
> This message is CC'ed to other people who might wish to comment on this 
> potential approach
> ---
>
> Dear reader at FOSI,
>
> As a member of the Wikipedia community and the community that develops the 
> software on which Wikipedia runs, I come to you with a few questions.
> Over the past years Wikipedia has become more and more popular and 
> omnipresent. This has led to enormous


I am strongly in favour of allowing our users to choose what they see.
  "If you don't like it, don't look at it" is only useful advice when
it's easy to avoid looking at things— and it isn't always on our
sites. By marking up our content better and providing the right
software tools we could _increase_ choice for our users and that can
only be a good thing.

At the same time, and I think we'll hear a similar message from the
EFF and the ALA,  I am opposed to these organized "content labelling
systems".  These systems are primary censorship systems and are
overwhelmingly used to subject third parties, often adults, to
restrictions against their will. I'm sure these groups will gladly
confirm this for us, regardless of the sales patter used to sell these
systems to content providers and politicians.

(For more information on the current state of compulsory filtering in
the US I recommend the filing in Bradburn v. North Central Regional
Library District  an ongoing legal battle over a library system
refusing to allow adult patrons to bypass the censorware in order to
access constitutionally protected speech, in apparent violation of the
suggestion by the US Supreme Court that the ability to bypass these
filters is what made the filters lawful in the first place
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/washington/waedce/2:2006cv00327/41160/40/0.pdf
)

It's arguable if we should fight against the censorship of factual
information to adults or merely play no role in it—  but it isn't
really acceptable to assist it.

And even when not used as a method of third party control, these
systems require the users to have special software installed— so they
aren't all that useful as a method for our users to self-determine
what they will see on the site.  So it sounds like a lose, lose
proposition to me.

Labelling systems are also centred around broad classifications, e.g.
"Drugs", "Pornography" with definitions which defy NPOV. This will
obviously lead to endless arguments on applicability within the site.

Many places exempt Wikipedia from their filtering, after all it's all
educational, so it would be a step backwards for these people for us
to start applying labels that they would have gladly gone without.
The filter the "drugs" category because they want to filter pro-drug
advocacy, but if we follow the criteria we may end up with our factual
articles bunched into the same bin.  A labelling system designed for
the full spectrum of internet content simply will not have enough
words for our content... or are there really separate labels for "Drug
_education_", "Hate speech _education_", "Pornography _education_",
etc. ?

Urban legend says the Eskimos have 100 words for snow, it's not
true... but I think that it is true that for the Wiki(p|m)edia
projects we really do need 10 million words for education.

Using a third party labelling system we can also expect issues that
would arise where we fail to "correctly" apply the labels, either due
to vandalism, limitations of the community process, or simply because
of a genuine and well founded difference of opinion.

Instead I prefer that we run our own labelling system. By controlling
it ourselves we determine its meaning— avoiding terminology disputes
without outsiders; we can operate the system in a manner which
inhibits its usefulness to the involuntary censorship of adults (e.g.
not actually putting the label data in the pages users view in an
accessible way, creating site TOS which makes the involuntary
application of our filters on adults unlawful), and maximizes its
usefulness for user self determination by making the controls
available right on the site.

The wikimedia sites have enough traffic that its worth peoples time to
customize their own preferences.

There are many technical ways in which such a system could be
constructed, some requiring more development work than others, and
while I'd love to blather on a possible methods the important point at
this time is to establish the principles before we worry about the
tools.


Cheers,

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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

[Anthony]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Jimmy Wales  wrote:

> We are engaged in a process that will lead to some
> much-needed changes at Commons, including the continued deletion of some
> of the things that we used to host.
>

Where?  Behind the scenes?  On one of the internal mailing lists?
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo hasn't actually given up anything

[Jimmy Wales]

Alec,

Please don't continue with assumptions of bad faith.

--Jimbo

On 5/9/10 1:19 PM, Alec Conroy wrote:
> On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 7:28 AM, Kim Bruning  wrote:
>> I was just about to post about the need to assure the commons community
>> that there would be no repeat performance.
> That need is still there, Kim.
>
> Just in case anyone hasn't noticed, Jimbo kept his power to give
> himself whatever powers he wants.
>
> So, instead of giving up "virtually all" of his founder powers, he
> actually still has total access to all of them.
>
> This looks, to my eyes, to be one of those "subtle miscommunications"
> where Jimbo implies one thing is true, we all buy it, and then it
> turns out we all just misunderstood him.
>
> 
> For example, that new policy the board was about to announce any
> second-- only to see that the "new policy" is that the board is not
> starting any new policies.
>
> Or, the time Jimbo somehow got us all to think that this was a legal
> issue, before the foundation lawyers  set us straight.
>
> Or the time Jimbo claimed to have lost "virtually all of his powers"
> except 'view delete', and it turned out he actually still had access
> to all of his powers.   Oh wait-- already mentioned that one.
>
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


-- 
Jimmy Wales

Please follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/jimmy_wales

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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

[Jimmy Wales]

On 5/9/10 3:41 PM, Anthony wrote:
> Sure, he tricked the press into thinking the images were permanently
> removed, then when the story blew over, you added them back.  Everything
> went perfectly according to plan.
>
> Right Jimmy?

Of course not.  We are engaged in a process that will lead to some 
much-needed changes at Commons, including the continued deletion of some 
of the things that we used to host.


-- 
Jimmy Wales

Please follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/jimmy_wales

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Removing questions about me and my role from this discussion

[Thomas Dalton]

On 9 May 2010 18:56, Jimmy Wales  wrote:
> On 5/9/10 4:18 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> I notice you have kept "protect" and "undelete". Is that intentional?
>> If so, can you explain your thinking behind that decision?
>
> I just removed undelete, manage global groups, and edit membership to
> global groups.  I did that before I saw your note, so I missed
> "protect".  It's not important one way or the other.

Good man! I think we can ignore you still having the technical ability
to protect pages - I assume you don't actually intend to use it?
Hopefully we can move on now and discuss what our policy ought to be
on pornographic/non-educational images. Thanks, Jimmy!

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Jimbo's sysadmin flag

[Jimmy Wales]

On 5/9/10 4:10 PM, Woojin Kim wrote:
> I noticed Jimbo has also sysadmin flag recently. The change was about 2
> months ago on enwikiversity.[1] The reason was "need to view deleted
> revisions", but sysadmin group does hold no rights about deleted revisions.
> Instead they have globalgroup[permissions/membership].
>
> Originally, Jimbo doesn't need to have sysadmin flag and doesn't have root
> or shell access. So sysadmin bit should be removed.

I don't think I have the ability to change that, but I'll email the 
stewards and ask them to sort out any remaining details.

(I'll keep my admin bit on en.wikipedia.org - since that's my "home 
project".)



-- 
Jimmy Wales

Please follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/jimmy_wales

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales founder flag.

[Jimmy Wales]

On 5/9/10 4:27 PM, Carl Lindstrom wrote:
> Jimbo has allegedly removed some of his rights on Commons but he
> still has his founder flags and can restore all his rights if and
> when he pleases.

No, actually, I can't.

 > Again, I may sound melodramatic but I
> gues just like Wikipedia too much to see it potentially destroyed by
> an emperor gone mad.

Yeah, that's pretty melodramatic my friend. :-)

--Jimbo


-- 
Jimmy Wales

Please follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/jimmy_wales

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Removing questions about me and my role from this discussion

[Jimmy Wales]

On 5/9/10 4:18 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> I notice you have kept "protect" and "undelete". Is that intentional?
> If so, can you explain your thinking behind that decision?

I just removed undelete, manage global groups, and edit membership to 
global groups.  I did that before I saw your note, so I missed 
"protect".  It's not important one way or the other.

My purpose here is for us to stop chattering about this aspect of things 
- which I don't care about.  People seem to want to fight me on it, 
perhaps expecting me to dig in my heels.  Everyone loves a good fight, 
even me, but this is not a fight that we need to have.

--Jimbo

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] [OT] Am I the only one...

[Mohamed Magdy]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Chad  wrote:

> ...who hopes posting limits will be enforced this month?
>
> -Chad
>
> Yes. I received a ridiculous amount of messages about the same silly
topic.  move along people..

user:alnokta
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

[Foundation-l] Jimmy, Commons, and the discussion on Foundation-l

[Austin Hair]

Hi guys,

As everyone can see, the list is a-flurry with discussion about
Jimmy's recent actions on Commons.  (And whatever other topics people
want to spin the situation into.)

I'm not commenting on the topic itself, but I would like to urge
everyone to direct their comments to the appropriate discussions on
(meta|commons|enwiki).  There are a lot of posts in a lot of threads,
and if this debate is going to be useful, it should take place on a
medium better organized than a mailing list.

I thank everyone for being remarkably civil to date, and for keeping
the signal:noise ratio fairly high despite the large volume of
messages.  With this in mind, I'm hopeful that you can direct your
energies in the most productive way possible.

Thanks,

Austin Hair
List administration

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Robert Rohde wrote:
> Personally, I tend to see ICRA labeling as just another kind of
> categorization, albeit one with definitions that were defined
> elsewhere.
>   
This is precisely and completely absolutely wrong.
Labeling is enabling censorship. Labeling images
is the worst kind of enablement of censorship, in
that it can effect the way a pages informational
content is presented to the viewer.

> If there are people in the community willing to sort content into the
> ICRA categories and maintain those associations, then I see no problem
> with Wikimedia supporting that.  Having images tagged with
> [[Category:ICRA Nudity-A (exposed breasts)]] is useful information for
> people that care about such things.  As with most other projects on
> Wikimedia, I think it mostly comes down to whether there is a
> community of volunteers who want to work on such issues.
>   
Not so. As an argumentum absurdum, let me offer the
following proposition:

"If there are people in the community willing to sort content
into categories depending on whether the content is suitable
reading material for Catholics (insert your own ideology,
religion, political affiliation, or other orientation here) and
maintain those associations, then I see no problem with
Wikimedia supporting that."

See the problem with your argument there? I am sure
there would be people who would care about such things.
But we just don't do that. And the same applies to ICRA.

It does not come down to whether there are enough hands
to do the work. It comes down to the fact that our *mission*
is to distribute the *whole* of human knowledge to every
human in their own language. Period, no ifs or buts.

> There are, by my rough count, ~75 tags in the current ICRA vocabulary.
>
> These cover nudity, sexuality, violence, bad language, drug use,
> weapons, gambling, and other "disturbing material".  In addition there
> are a number of meta tags to identify things like user-generated
> content, sites with advertising, and sites intended to be educational
> / news-oriented / religious, etc.
>   
We don't do censorship. Period.

> It appears we could choose to use tags in some categories, e.g.
> nudity/sexuality, even if we didn't use tags in other categories, e.g.
> violence.
>
> On balance I suspect that participating in such schemes is probably
> more helpful than harmful since it allows schools and other
> organizations that would do filtering anyway to block only selected
> content rather than blocking wide swathes of content or the entire
> site just to get at 0.01% of content that they fine intolerable.  It
> also provides the public relations benefits of showing we are
> concerned about such issues, without having to remove or block the
> content ourselves.
>   
The public relations effects would be devastating. There
is a reason Wikipedia was blocked in China. It was because
we would not help in stuff like this, just to appease the
Chinese government. We haven't buckled on this yet.
And we won't.

The worst possible argument imaginable is that they
would do that anyway. That is their option, but we
won't help them a red cunt hairs distance on their
way. (pardon my french)

> To be clear, I don't think we should be removing or blocking any
> content ourselves.  Wikimedia is designed for adults and that
> shouldn't change.  However, if there is a content filtering standard
> that some segment of the community wants to support, then I'm
> perfectly happy to see that happen.
>
>   
You know what. You may be happy to see it happen.
But this question has been put to the community
time and again. There have been scores of attempts
to vote labeling in. ICRA has been put to the vote
at least three times. Each time, no matter how people
have tried to dress their proposal as innocous, we
have rejected it resoundingly. No, not only resoundinly,
but angrily, furiously. We don't do censorship. Period.


Sorry about the length of the posting, but this
continues to be important, vital, to our community.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen




___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Removing questions about me and my role from this discussion

[Michael Peel]

On 9 May 2010, at 17:57, Anthony wrote:

> On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 5:46 AM, Jimmy Wales  wrote:
> 
>> I've just now removed virtually all permissions to actually do
>> things from the "Founder" flag.  I even removed my ability to edit
>> semi-protected pages!  (I've kept permissions related to 'viewing' things.)
>> 
> 
> The community recognizes that you have given up certain permissions under
> controversial circumstances and reminds you that you that those permissions
> may not be reinstated without a proper request for permissions on meta.

Daft question: the community here being ... you? Or is there a wiki !vote page 
saying this?

Mike Peel
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] [OT] Am I the only one...

[Mike moral]

I certainly hope limits are enforced. 120-ish messages in the time I was
asleep.

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 10:16 AM, Steven Walling wrote:

> You are definitely not alone in that regard.
>
> Steven
>
> On Sunday, May 9, 2010, Chad  wrote:
> > ...who hopes posting limits will be enforced this month?
> >
> > -Chad
>

-- 
Regards,

Mike
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Mikemoral
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mikemoral
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] [OT] Am I the only one...

[Steven Walling]

You are definitely not alone in that regard.

Steven

On Sunday, May 9, 2010, Chad  wrote:
> ...who hopes posting limits will be enforced this month?
>
> -Chad
>
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Jiří Hofman]

I am afraid we will never be able to label our content properly. There will be 
no chance to keep NPOV regardless how implemented labels will be. Our content 
is free. If somebody needs labeled content he can label it himself in his own 
copy of Wikimedia projects.

It is a bad idea. Let's not do it. We have better things to do.

Jiri

> Personally, I tend to see ICRA labeling as just another kind of
> categorization, albeit one with definitions that were defined
> elsewhere.


signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Final thoughts on Jimbo

[Todd Allen]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Pedro Sanchez  wrote:

> On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 10:39 AM, Alec Conroy 
> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:23 AM, Adam Cuerden  wrote:
> > > I think it's time to back away from this issue.  Jimbo may,
> > > technically, be able to restore his powers, however, if he decided to
> > > use them in order to  make another controversial action, they wouldn't
> > > last five minutes.
> >
> > You may well be right, but you may well be wrong.  But it's not fair
> > to ask us to contribute our time, energy, and money to a project that
> > 'may'  have an abusive superuser, ya know?   If the Wikimedia
> > Foundation  is going to continue to a functional relationship with its
> > projects, this needs to be resolved with absolute crystal clarify.
> >
>
> This is silly. There are many users that /may/ have superuser powers.
> Live with it. Even if jimbo is removed from all flags, there are people
> with
> shell access that can do (right now) much more than jimbo can with the
> founder flag.
>
> You may want to close your eyes,but truth is, you must trust. There will
> always someone able to do more than you or anybody else. Or what, are you
> proposing removing all devs access just because they in theory could abuse
> it?
>
> Again: face it. There will always someone with the capability to become
> superuser. It's always been the case and it will continue being so, jimbo
> or
> not
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

"Might" is far different than "has". If one of the devs did use their
superuser access to intervene in content in a controversial manner
(especially even after significant objection began), I think you would find
calls to remove them as well.

We don't remove sysop flags because they might be abused, either. But we do
allow for their removal if they in fact are used in a manner inconsistent
with consensus and the admin in question refuses to stop even after being
made aware of that. Talking about permissions being removed because they
might be abused is a straw man, and is not at all the same thing as talking
about removing them because they were in fact abused.

-- 
Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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

[Marcus Buck]

Florence Devouard hett schreven:
> 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.

Thanks for that comment. It gives me hope that there are sane people out 
there ;-) We need people like you back in the board. I too am disturbed 
by the attitude that board and foundation "rule" over the projects. As I 
have expressed previously:
> In my opinion it's not the task of board or foundation to push the 
> community in any direction. It's the other way round, the community 
> forms board and foundation. The task of board and foundation is to 
> operate the servers, to develop the software needed to operate our 
> projects, and to stop members of the community or of the outside world 
> from doing things harmful to the community, e.g. by violating the law. 
> But they should not decide on the actual content, that's the task of 
> the community. 
It's a common misunderstanding/misrepresentation that "governments" rule 
over the "citizens". That was the case in absolutist and feudal systems 
where the power of the rulers came from "I make the rules, cause I can". 
In a democracy the government is just an executive branch of the overall 
society that takes measures to improve the society's welfare.

The Foundation is just the executive branch of the Wikimedia community. 
It's sole purpose is to serve the community by doing tasks that cannot 
possibly evolve from community self-organization.

Marcus Buck
User:Slomox

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Removing questions about me and my role from this discussion

[Anthony]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 5:46 AM, Jimmy Wales  wrote:

> I've just now removed virtually all permissions to actually do
> things from the "Founder" flag.  I even removed my ability to edit
> semi-protected pages!  (I've kept permissions related to 'viewing' things.)
>

The community recognizes that you have given up certain permissions under
controversial circumstances and reminds you that you that those permissions
may not be reinstated without a proper request for permissions on meta.
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Robert Rohde]

Personally, I tend to see ICRA labeling as just another kind of
categorization, albeit one with definitions that were defined
elsewhere.

If there are people in the community willing to sort content into the
ICRA categories and maintain those associations, then I see no problem
with Wikimedia supporting that.  Having images tagged with
[[Category:ICRA Nudity-A (exposed breasts)]] is useful information for
people that care about such things.  As with most other projects on
Wikimedia, I think it mostly comes down to whether there is a
community of volunteers who want to work on such issues.

There are, by my rough count, ~75 tags in the current ICRA vocabulary.

These cover nudity, sexuality, violence, bad language, drug use,
weapons, gambling, and other "disturbing material".  In addition there
are a number of meta tags to identify things like user-generated
content, sites with advertising, and sites intended to be educational
/ news-oriented / religious, etc.

It appears we could choose to use tags in some categories, e.g.
nudity/sexuality, even if we didn't use tags in other categories, e.g.
violence.

On balance I suspect that participating in such schemes is probably
more helpful than harmful since it allows schools and other
organizations that would do filtering anyway to block only selected
content rather than blocking wide swathes of content or the entire
site just to get at 0.01% of content that they fine intolerable.  It
also provides the public relations benefits of showing we are
concerned about such issues, without having to remove or block the
content ourselves.

To be clear, I don't think we should be removing or blocking any
content ourselves.  Wikimedia is designed for adults and that
shouldn't change.  However, if there is a content filtering standard
that some segment of the community wants to support, then I'm
perfectly happy to see that happen.

-Robert Rohde


On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 6:24 AM, Derk-Jan Hartman  wrote:
> This message is CC'ed to other people who might wish to comment on this 
> potential approach
> ---
>
> Dear reader at FOSI,
>
> As a member of the Wikipedia community and the community that develops the 
> software on which Wikipedia runs, I come to you with a few questions.
> Over the past years Wikipedia has become more and more popular and 
> omnipresent. This has led to enormous problems, because for the first time, a 
> largely uncensored system has to work in the boundaries of a world that is 
> largely censored. For libraries and schools this means that they want to 
> provide Wikipedia and its related projects to their readers, but are 
> presented with the problem of what some people might consider, information 
> that is not "child-safe". They have several options in that case, either 
> blocking completely or using context aware filtering software that may make 
> mistakes, that can cost some of these institutions their funding.
>
> Similar problems are starting to present themselves in countries around the 
> world, differing views about sexuality between northern and southern europe 
> for instance. Add to that the censoring of images of Muhammad, Tiananman 
> square, the Nazi Swastika, and a host of other problems. Recently there has 
> been concern that all this all-out-censoring of content by parties around the 
> world is damaging the education mission of the Wikipedia related projects 
> because so many people are not able to access large portions of our content 
> due to a small (think 0.01% ) part of our other content.
>
> This has led some people to infer that perhaps it is time to rate the content 
> of Wikipedia ourselves, in order to facilitate external censoring of 
> material, hopefully making the rest of our content more accessible. According 
> to statements around the web ICRA ratings are probably the most widely 
> supported rating by filtering systems. Thus we were thinking of adding 
> autogenerated ICRA RDF tags to each individual page describing the rating of 
> the page and the images contained within them. I have a few questions 
> however, both general and technical.
>
> 1: If I am correctly informed, Wikipedia would be the first website of this 
> size to label their content with ratings, is this correct?
> 2: How many content filters understand the RDF tags
> 3: How many of those understand multiple labels and path specific labeling. 
> This means: if we rate the path of images included on the page different from 
> the page itself, do filters block the entire content, or just the images ? 
> (Consider the Virgin Killer album cover on the Virgin Killer article, if you 
> are aware of that controversial image 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer)
> 4: Do filters understand per page labeling ? Or do they cache the first RDF 
> file they encounter on a website and use that for all other pages of the 
> website ?
> 5: Is there any chance the vocabulary of ICRA can be expanded with new 
> ratings for non-Western world sensitive i

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

[William Pietri]

On 05/09/2010 05:36 AM, Nikola Smolenski wrote:
>> At least by local community standards, the event depicted was indeed not
>> pornographic. San Francisco's long history as a home to both artists and
>> people with different takes on sex and gender means that a lot of local
>> art works with sex and gender as key themes. As they mention in their
>>  
> Just because someone says that their pornography is art doesn't make it so.
>

I never said otherwise. However, what I am saying in this case as 
somebody who lives in the neighborhood and walks past their gallery on 
the way to the store, their claims are entirely credible. By community 
standards, what they do is not obscene, and it is not pornographic.

As Wikipedia has it, porn is "portrayal of explicit sexual subject 
matter for the purposes of sexual excitement and erotic satisfaction."  
That means it is by definition impossible to judge whether an image is 
pornography without understanding the context in which it is made and 
consumed, because what distinguishes pornography is intent, not content.

As comparison, consider that it may be impossible to tell a frame from a 
horror movie from a crime scene photo or an illustration from a 
coroner's textbook or a medical reference. It is reasonable to argue 
that Wikipedia shouldn't host any horrific images, whatever the context. 
That's an argument about content. It's also reasonable to argue that we 
should only host horrific images where there's a clear educational 
purpose. That's an argument about intent.  But they are very different 
arguments.

People who are condemning particular images based on content alone with 
no information as to context of production or use are arguing for a 
standard based on obscenity, not pornography.

William


___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Final thoughts on Jimbo

[Alec Conroy]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:45 AM, Pedro Sanchez  wrote:
> Even if jimbo is removed from all flags, there are people with
> shell access that can do (right now) much more than jimbo can with the
> founder flag.

Agreed-- there are lots of people who 'might' do something bad, but
they still have the project's trust.

Mr. Wales does not.  He abused his position, so he will lose it.

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Where things stand now

[Anthony]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 5:11 AM, Jimmy Wales  wrote:

> And I deleted some things that I assumed would be undeleted after a
> discussion.  I wanted us to take an approach that involved first
> deleting a lot of borderline things, and then bringing them back after
> careful case by case discussions.
>
> That proved to be quite unpopular, and I'm sorry about it.
>

Needs to be added to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Do_not_disrupt_Wikipedia_to_illustrate_a_point

---
*'''If''' you feel that Wikipedia is hosting pornographic images with no
educational usefulness.
**'''do''' start a deletion discussion for those images which you feel cross
the line
**'''don't''' delete a lot of borderline things, and then expect others to
bring them back after careful case by case discussions.
---

Yeah, it didn't happen on Wikipedia, but that doesn't mean it can't be used
as an example on Wikipedia.
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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

[David Levy]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

> I understand that and apologize for it.  There was a crisis situation
> and I took action which ended up averting the crisis.  In the process I
> stepped on some toes, and for that I am sorry.

The apology is a positive step.  The claim that you averted a crisis
is not.  I have no doubt that this was your sincere intention, but it
should be abundantly clear to you that your intervention caused far
more harm than good.

Your repeated reference to "stepping on some toes" only reinforces the
damage that you've done to the community by affirming an apparent
belief that its longstanding members are relatively insignificant.
Now is the time to reach out to the contributors alienated by your
approach, not to add insult to injury by downplaying their discontent
and departure from Wikimedia projects.

I write this not to attack your character, but in the hope that you'll
come to your senses and do the right thing.  If I believed that you
truly were a "tyrant," I wouldn't bother.

David Levy

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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

[David Levy]

John Vandenberg wrote:

> Err, that happened days ago on Jimbo's talk page and, less directly, here:
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:TheDJ&oldid=38893008

I was [humorously] referring to this mailing list's current threads.
There are forums in which such a comparison is commonplace, no doubt.

David Levy

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Removing questions about me and my role from this discussion

[Dan Rosenthal]

On May 9, 2010, at 7:28 AM, Kim Bruning wrote:

> On Sun, May 09, 2010 at 10:46:50AM +0100, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>> 
>> In the interest of encouraging this discussion to be about real 
>> philosophical/content issues, rather than be about me and how quickly I 
>> acted, I've just now removed virtually all permissions to actually do 
>> things from the "Founder" flag.  I even removed my ability to edit 
>> semi-protected pages!  (I've kept permissions related to 'viewing' things.)
> 
> In the immortal words of Judge Judy; "Perfect, PERFECT!". 
> 
> == Perfect ==
> 
> I was just about to post about the need to assure the commons community
> that there would be no repeat performance. This is a risk-management
> issue: why would a commons user take an initiative that might be
> marginalized or rendered futile in the near future? 
> 
> That kind of situation has a paralysing effect on a community. 
> 
> The paralysing effect has now been largely negated. 
> Perfect.
> 
> == PERFECT! ==
> 
> Do you know how long I've been trying to encourage experienced/high profile
> admins to hand in their flags? 
> 
> Why? It's a Poka-yoke / idiot-proofing measure
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke 
> 
> As a precaution, one should not take (high profile) actions, without 
> confirming it with at least one other person in the relevant community.[1]
> 
> By not having the requisite permissions oneself, one is forced to talk
> with someone who does, no matter how impatient, panicked, or tired one
> is.  Obviously this doesn't catch all edge-cases, but it certainly
> reduces the number of ways in which things can go wrong.
> 
> In this case, Jimbo Wale's founder flag gave him _Uber_-Admin powers.
> That's Got to Lead To Uber-Pain. And It Did. 
> 
> 
> So now that's fixed. I wouldn't be surprised if Jimmy's influence
> in the community didn't actually *increase* due to this. [2]
> 
> PERFECT!
> 
> == Me three? ==
> 
> Jimmy Wales correctly identifies the fact that experienced
> users who do hand in their flag should still be able to view 
> things, such as deleted pages, etc. 
> 
> In fact, the reason that I haven't been able to convince fellow
> admins to retire, is because they really didn't want to lose
> their viewing abilities.
> 
> 
> Before, I was but a single voice, calling in the dark. But Now! Now that
> the world's most high profile Wikipedian has *de-facto* finally 
> vindicated my position, after all these years...
> 
> 
> ... it would be really nice to have a similar set of permissions
> for "retired" admins and stewards.  Please? 
> 
> sincerely,
>   Kim Bruning
> 
> [1]It is always wise to work in pairs anyway. Ask Ward Cunningham, or 
> any other Agile-type person you know!
> 
> [2] This wouldn't be immediate. First some wounds will need to heal,
> of course. And people still need to vent their catharthic
> venting for now.
> 



This email is twice as good when you read it in Judge Judy's voice.

-Dan
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Final thoughts on Jimbo

[Pedro Sanchez]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 10:39 AM, Alec Conroy  wrote:

> On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:23 AM, Adam Cuerden  wrote:
> > I think it's time to back away from this issue.  Jimbo may,
> > technically, be able to restore his powers, however, if he decided to
> > use them in order to  make another controversial action, they wouldn't
> > last five minutes.
>
> You may well be right, but you may well be wrong.  But it's not fair
> to ask us to contribute our time, energy, and money to a project that
> 'may'  have an abusive superuser, ya know?   If the Wikimedia
> Foundation  is going to continue to a functional relationship with its
> projects, this needs to be resolved with absolute crystal clarify.
>

This is silly. There are many users that /may/ have superuser powers.
Live with it. Even if jimbo is removed from all flags, there are people with
shell access that can do (right now) much more than jimbo can with the
founder flag.

You may want to close your eyes,but truth is, you must trust. There will
always someone able to do more than you or anybody else. Or what, are you
proposing removing all devs access just because they in theory could abuse
it?

Again: face it. There will always someone with the capability to become
superuser. It's always been the case and it will continue being so, jimbo or
not
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Final thoughts on Jimbo

[Alec Conroy]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:23 AM, Adam Cuerden  wrote:
> I think it's time to back away from this issue.  Jimbo may,
> technically, be able to restore his powers, however, if he decided to
> use them in order to  make another controversial action, they wouldn't
> last five minutes.

You may well be right, but you may well be wrong.  But it's not fair
to ask us to contribute our time, energy, and money to a project that
'may'  have an abusive superuser, ya know?   If the Wikimedia
Foundation  is going to continue to a functional relationship with its
projects, this needs to be resolved with absolute crystal clarify.

> Let the man save a little face, by doing this voluntarily instead of
> having it taken away by force. If nothing else, it avoids a bit of bad
> publicity for the project.

Here here.  Jimbo voluntarily resigning his flag would certainly be best.
But one way or the other,  Jimbo's founder flag IS going.  Nothing can
stop that anymore

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[David Goodman]

In our sphere, we librarians also decided this issue some time ago:
Labeling is censorship. Those who wish to censor have their own
purposes, and have the ability to devise their own methods. We have
metadata on our objects, both titles and categories. We have the
responsibility to provide information about our images as well as the
images, for educational value--and usefulness generally-- depends on
context .

Some people in the world think, rightly or not, that there is a need
to censor certain kinds of material for at least certain audiences.
What we already have should provide sufficient information for any
ordinary need for censorship, formal or informal.  More sophisticated
systems can use image analysis.

I myself think there is in fact no genuine need for censorship of any
sort. But we would be wrong to adopt technical measures either to
prevent the censoring of our material, or to promote it. WP has, as it
ought to have,  a free license that deliberately permits people to
fork or modify or select from it. Our purpose is to provide free
material in every sense of the word, and this freedom includes the
ability to make good or bad use of it and we do not judge that. We
differ in this respect from many other good sites, many of which are
free except that they  prohibit commercial use; we have always
maintained our lack of distinction between subsequent uses as a basic
principle, and should continue to maintain it.

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



On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:04 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
 wrote:
> Derk-Jan Hartman wrote:
>> This message is CC'ed to other people who might wish to comment on this 
>> potential approach
>> ---
>>
>>
>
>
> You asked for comments... Here is one we prepared earlier...
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_censorship#ICRA
>
> In other words, we have been here, we have done this, and we
> have the T-shirt.
>
> This *HAS* been suggested before, and soundly defeated.
> Nothing has changed in this respect. I would heartfeltly ask
> that folks just quit trying to stuff this down the throat of a
> community that simply does not content labeling.
>
>
> Yours,
>
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
>
>
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Foundation-l] Potential ICRA labels for Wikipedia

[Noein]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 09/05/2010 10:24, Derk-Jan Hartman wrote:
> This message is CC'ed to other people who might wish to comment on this 
> potential approach
> ---
> 
> Dear reader at FOSI,
> 
> As a member of the Wikipedia community and the community that develops the 
> software on which Wikipedia runs, I come to you with a few questions.
> Over the past years Wikipedia has become more and more popular and 
> omnipresent. This has led to enormous problems, because for the first time, a 
> largely uncensored system has to work in the boundaries of a world that is 
> largely censored. For libraries and schools this means that they want to 
> provide Wikipedia and its related projects to their readers, but are 
> presented with the problem of what some people might consider, information 
> that is not "child-safe". They have several options in that case, either 
> blocking completely or using context aware filtering software that may make 
> mistakes, that can cost some of these institutions their funding.
> 
> Similar problems are starting to present themselves in countries around the 
> world, differing views about sexuality between northern and southern europe 
> for instance. Add to that the censoring of images of Muhammad, Tiananman 
> square, the Nazi Swastika, and a host of other problems. Recently there has 
> been concern that all this all-out-censoring of content by parties around the 
> world is damaging the education mission of the Wikipedia related projects 
> because so many people are not able to access large portions of our content 
> due to a small (think 0.01% ) part of our other content.
> 
> This has led some people to infer that perhaps it is time to rate the content 
> of Wikipedia ourselves, in order to facilitate external censoring of 
> material, hopefully making the rest of our content more accessible. According 
> to statements around the web ICRA ratings are probably the most widely 
> supported rating by filtering systems. Thus we were thinking of adding 
> autogenerated ICRA RDF tags to each individual page describing the rating of 
> the page and the images contained within them. I have a few questions 
> however, both general and technical.
> 
> 1: If I am correctly informed, Wikipedia would be the first website of this 
> size to label their content with ratings, is this correct?
> 2: How many content filters understand the RDF tags
> 3: How many of those understand multiple labels and path specific labeling. 
> This means: if we rate the path of images included on the page different from 
> the page itself, do filters block the entire content, or just the images ? 
> (Consider the Virgin Killer album cover on the Virgin Killer article, if you 
> are aware of that controversial image 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer)
> 4: Do filters understand per page labeling ? Or do they cache the first RDF 
> file they encounter on a website and use that for all other pages of the 
> website ?
> 5: Is there any chance the vocabulary of ICRA can be expanded with new 
> ratings for non-Western world sensitive issues ?
> 6: Is there a possibility of creating a separate "namespace" that we could 
> potentially use for our own labels ?
> 
> I hope that you can help me answer these questions, so that we may continue 
> our community debate with more informed viewpoints about the possibilities of 
> content rating. If you have additional suggestions for systems or problems 
> that this web-property should account for, I would more than welcome those 
> suggestions as well.
> 
> Derk-Jan Hartman

You may want to use http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Censorship to discuss
this. It seems that you're community has reached some ideas questions.
Foundation-1 also is discussing several approaches to censorship.

I think we would all benefit from sharing on a common page. I propose to
the foundation mailing list to scavenge the last 300 mails of discussion
to put on this page:

1- a summary of the events of the last days, with the board declarations
and citations, in order to explain why, how and by who the deletions
happened, if they will happen again and how much support there is.
Some mails that I find relevant for starters:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057789.html
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-May/08.html
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057802.html
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057818.html
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/27/wikipedia-child-porn-larry-sanger-fbi/
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Petition_to_Jimbo
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/QA_Wikimedia_Commons_images_review,_May_2010
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/058026.html

2 - a summary of the positions about censorship
for exa