Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content
On 5/15/2010 4:34 AM, Joan Goma wrote: > *The roots of the problem* > > Michael, if the Board is analyzing the issue then it should address the > roots of the problem. > We would like to. Roots are sometimes difficult to get at. > The fact that recent discussion has taken place around sexual images has the > advantage that sex raises a lot of interest from everybody. > > But from my point of view the issue is grounded in two deeper problems: 1) > what happens if the board takes a decision against the community consensus? > 2) What happens if the community of a project rejects discussing deeply an > issue up to finding a consensus, if they simply vote and applies the > majority decision? > > It seems to me that this is what happened. The community defined a policy > without analyzing the issue deeply enough, they didn’t reached a consensus. > The board decided that this should addressed and Jimbo actuated. > > Perhaps this is a caricature of what happened. Surely the real story is far > more complex. There was an open debate in the community, the board > resolution was more or less ambiguous, and the actions of Jimbo could have > been more polite. But I believe that the roots of the problem are more or > less there. > As you say, it's an oversimplification and it doesn't match the details exactly, but you've done well nevertheless at focusing on essential concepts. I would think that the board is unlikely to make a decision that goes against full community consensus. Reaching or identifying that consensus can be a challenge, though, as I think anyone who's worked on highly debated topics on the wiki knows. Sometimes there's a lack of analysis (or simply attention) that makes an apparent consensus immature, not the consensus that would be reached if everyone was really involved. In many cases, this isn't that big of a problem. Not inventing policies until there's a need for them is usually wise, as it gives people the freedom to be bold and move the work of the projects forward, without worrying about mastering complex rules. But on occasion, this has meant that inadequate care was given to issues of serious concern, as used to be the case with biographies of living people. I don't know that the community has ever really rejected the idea of serious discussion in such a situation. People sometimes argue based on various "votes" (more like opinion polls, really), but I think most of us understand those are not definitive. The problem is more that it's quite challenging to conduct these discussions, and as a tool, a wiki is better suited to other tasks we do than to this one. > *Proposed changes in the system* > > > From my point of view the system should be changed in two ways: > > First Wikimedia Foundation (and its governing body, the Board) should have a > mechanism to force the community to debate and search for a consensus. Call > it founder’s flag or voice of conscience flag or whatever you want. This is > exactly what Jimbo did. He didn’t impose his will although founder’s flag > gave him the power to do it. > I think this is a good concept and part of what we are trying to figure out is the right tools for it. I suspect the "founder" flag was not the right tool for a number of reasons. Now that it has been removed from the equation, how would people suggest that this be set up? > Secondly it should be stated clearly that once a true consensus is reached, > the community is sovereign in developing the project. The duty of the > Foundation is providing the means to put in practice those decisions. To put > a humoristic example, if the law of some state says that the value for > number pi is mandatorily 3.2 [1] and the community reaches the consensus > that we must explain clearly that the law is wrong, then if necessary the > Foundarion must avoid being under the rules of that state. > To give a more serious example, we have a consensus on Creative Commons licensing, and in fact there was a desire from the community to go in this direction long before we were ultimately able to. I don't imagine that changing unless a better free licensing system arises and the consensus changes. So to answer your suggestion, I'd reiterate my earlier point: I really don't envision the board or the foundation going against anything that amounts to a true consensus in the community. --Michael Snow ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikitech-l] Visual impairment
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 10:09 PM, K. Peachey wrote: > > there is a limit for that system so that a user may only create so > many accounts per hour, but we do (or did) have a override for that > -Peachey > > ___ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > Yes, any admin or account creator flag is not affected by the account creation throttle. -- ~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] [Wikitech-l] Visual impairment
On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Aryeh Gregor wrote: > In theory, yes. Someone needs to provide the code, though. For now, > people who want to sign up and can't solve a captcha can request that > an admin make an account for them, like people whose IP addresses are > blocked. I think enwiki has a toolserver project dedicated to that. The en.wikipedia project for that resides at [[WP:ACC]](1), The toolserver system from memory is a request type system (although that may of changed since I last looked), where as the actual accounts are created on site using the [[Special:CreateAccount]](2) special page, there is a limit for that system so that a user may only create so many accounts per hour, but we do (or did) have a override for that (1). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ACC (2). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:UserLogin/signup -Peachey ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikitech-l] Visual impairment
since i forgot to reply to all and only did the reply on to wikitech-l. -Peachey -- Forwarded message -- From: K. Peachey Date: Sun, May 16, 2010 at 12:14 PM Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Visual impairment To: Wikimedia developers I believe reCaptcha has it implemented as part of their service (we do/did have a extension to implement theres) but then we would have to reply on third party servers. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Visual impairment
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 5:27 PM, emijrp wrote: > Solving captcha during registration is mandatory. Can this be replaced with > a sound captcha for visual impairment people? In theory, yes. Someone needs to provide the code, though. For now, people who want to sign up and can't solve a captcha can request that an admin make an account for them, like people whose IP addresses are blocked. I think enwiki has a toolserver project dedicated to that. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] FYI: Wikipedia, Open Access and Cognitive Virology
On 05/15/2010 02:27 PM, Samuel Klein wrote: > But we do have serious competition, and it is scary and thrilling - it > also happens to be published entirely in Chinese (hudong, baike). But > even if you don't know how to read Chinese, you can see how they > display portals and amin pages; images, cartoons, and timelines; how > they reference and discuss topics. And you can sign up and see some > of the social and community-building features they use to encourage > participation. (I'd love to see a detailed summary and translation of > their policy tree -- especially policies on notability, fads, and > trending topics -- to illuminate the discussions about how well our > policies are doing in the larger Wikipedias.) > That sounds like material for an awesome group blog, a sort of ongoing competitive analysis. It wouldn't have to only be about Chinese on-line encyclopedias, either. Just because the paper encyclopedia has become a bit of a joke [1] doesn't mean we can't learn things from it. There are plenty of other great reference works both current and historical that would be fun to examine. And I'm sure we could gain a lot by stealing ideas from other community and collaborative project websites. However much Hudong and Baike are serious competitors, they're also mainly invisible to Wikipedians who don't go looking for them. There's a big difference between knowing intellectually that you're in a race and looking behind you seeing somebody running hard and gaining ground. I'd love to find a way to make the competition more obvious. William [1] Quite literally. This week Jon Stewart flipped open a paper reference book to make a point. After a slight pause, he lifted the book and dropped it on his desk with an audible thud. He smiled and said, "It's like Wikipedia, in a book!" http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-may-11-2010/release-the-kagan (about 4:48 for the gag, although the book comes out about 3:45) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] FYI: Wikipedia, Open Access and Cognitive Virology
Some background: When I was a librarian open access was one of the principal things I worked on. Stevan has been for over 10 years an acknowledged leaders in this field, and his propaganda for open access has been a key factor for the considerable success it has had--by now all major US and UK granting agencies now require it or are about to do so. All of us who use academic material are very much indebted to him, for I do not think it would have happened to anywhere near this extent without him. But Stevan is very much set on his own preferred way of doing this. His way is good, but he thinks that only his way is good--to the extent that he has often tried to argue against other ways, even they they differ only in detail, and most of his activism in the last few years has been against other open access advocates. (I am, as you gather, one of the people who thinks other ways are at least as good or possibly better, and I have had many public & private discussions about this with him over the years, not all of them friendly. ). There are two basic methods: One is known as "Gold" open access, publishing by open access publishers in journals that are free to the reader, the costs being paid through some form of direct or indirect subsidy from the author, his institution, his granting agency, or other financing arrangement. (Familar examples of this are PLOS or BMC). The other is known as "Green" open access, publishing in journals in the conventional way, but also putting the articles, or at least unedited drafts of the manuscript ,into a repository. There are two types: using a centralized repository , either on a nationwide or subject-wide basis (the familiar examples of which are PubMed Central in biomedicine and arXiv in physics), or alternatively on an institution-wide basis (good examples are Harvard's DASH or Stevan's own repository at Southampton, ECS ) The only form Stevan supports is institutional repositories. (for reasons, I refer you to his many long postings on American Scientist Open Access Forum , which he moderates in accord with his own views.) He opposes the term open access publishing because it suggests "Gold" Open Access publishers. When I joined WP three years ago, I found that Stevan was exercising OWNership over the WP article on open access, which almost totally focussed on institutional-based repositories and referenced a great number of his own writings. When I and other made changes, Stevan always reverted them. Stevan attempted to get his form of the article fixed by personal intervention with an eminent open access supporter very close to his own views who was a member of the WMF Advisory Board, and I believe also with Jimbo. I am also a professional acquaintance of that supporter, an extraordinarily fair-minded person trusted by everyone dealing with the subject at all, and between us in personal discussion with Stevan we were able to convince Stevan to let community processes deal with the article. As phoebe says, the current wording is reasonable. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] FYI: Wikipedia, Open Access and Cognitive Virology
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 1:45 PM, William Pietri wrote: > Of course, if somebody, those folks included, think they can build a > better encyclopedia, I'd encourage them to try. And I don't mean that in > a snotty way; it would be useful to Wikipedia to have some serious > competition. Just this week at work I was reviewing a competitor's new > product, and it was both scary and thrilling, prodding us toward better > work. It would be great for Wikipedia, and especially great for > humanity, if somebody were actually nipping at our heels. It is true that we don't have serious competition that is doing a better job in terms of attracting thousands of top-rate experts in all fields, who can fill a dozen articles in their field with brilliant sources in an afternoon. But we do have serious competition, and it is scary and thrilling - it also happens to be published entirely in Chinese (hudong, baike). But even if you don't know how to read Chinese, you can see how they display portals and amin pages; images, cartoons, and timelines; how they reference and discuss topics. And you can sign up and see some of the social and community-building features they use to encourage participation. (I'd love to see a detailed summary and translation of their policy tree -- especially policies on notability, fads, and trending topics -- to illuminate the discussions about how well our policies are doing in the larger Wikipedias.) Sam ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Visual impairment
Hi all; Solving captcha during registration is mandatory. Can this be replaced with a sound captcha for visual impairment people? It is a suggestion to the usability project too. Thanks. Regards, emijrp ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] FYI: Wikipedia, Open Access and Cognitive Virology
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 6:22 AM, Klaus Graf wrote: > Stevan Harnad in the American Scientist Open Access Forum: > > On Sat, 15 May 2010, Barbara Kirsop [Electronic Publishing Trust for > Development] wrote: > > What is very confusing about [the SAGE survey's] call for feedback is > the title ["Open Access Publishing"]. > http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/soap_survey_a > > I do not understand the phrase 'Open Access Publishing'. Open access is > about 'access'. It is not a publishing process. The title should refer to > 'open access journals'. The use of the phrase 'OA publishing' reinforces the > idea that OA is about publishing and this is one reason why 'OA repositories' > are often left out of the equation. With the title provided it is unlikely > that anyone will think it is about OA repositories. > > Those I respect in the OA world tell me I am being pedantic, but it is > little things like this that cause confusion to newcomers to the debate. I > make a plea that we stop using the phrase 'open access publishing' and use > 'open access journals' or 'the publishing of open access journals' instead! > > Dear Barbara, you are in no way being pedantic! > > You are quite right that the relentless (and mindless) tendency to > refer to (and think of) OA itself as "OA Publishing" instead of just OA > (thereby completely conflating and confusing Green OA self-archiving > with Gold OA publishing) has been an endless source of misunderstanding, > misdirection and, worst of all, delay in the progress of OA. > > A high-profile accomplice in the perpetuation of this constant canard is > the entry for "Open Access" in Wikipedia, Google's ubiquitous "top hit" > (hence always the top hit for "Open Access" queries). I certainly have respect for Steven Harnad's work in this area. But I have also had the open access articles watchlisted for some years now, and they are one of those surprisingly controversial mini-areas in Wikipedia. Since it's also an area that isn't very well defined *in the field itself* (I say, as someone writing up some materials about open access for my library as we speak), I'm not surprised that [[user:harnad]] is frustrated. It looks to me like a straightforward disambiguation on [[open access]], and the argument is over what to put in the parenthesis for the article about the type of open access that is associated with both research and publishing. I am reminded (perhaps inexplicably) of RMS's discursions on the GNU/Linux articles last wikimania -- phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers gmail.com * ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] FYI: Wikipedia, Open Access and Cognitive Virology
On 05/15/2010 06:22 AM, Klaus Graf wrote: > So there we are: OA's biggest canard and nemesis, being daily, > cumulatively, canonized and amplified by Wikipedia, riding the recursive > tide of its own notability and notoriety (as an infectious virus, > cheerfully propagated by the denizens of Wikipedia). > > I expect that this posting will elicit stout defenses by Wiki-Warriors, [...] > Thanks for sharing this, Klaus. It was interesting to read. I certainly enjoyed the spirited prose, and as a fiend for good names, I expect that I'd fully agree with the diagnosis of the root problem that brought forth such a lovely rant. But at the end, I still have a, "Yeah, so?" reaction. I feel like the essence of the complaint is that contrary to what the authors want, other people persist in acting as they see fit. I have some sympathy, as most people signally fail to do what I want, too. But I don't see any obvious solutions. Heck, I'd love it if our articles were based on pure, uncut Objective Truth, with no need to futz around with reliable sources and NPOV. Everybody would. But that stuff's expensive, and the only way I know to get that is by paying a horde of academics to do their thing. And even with all of them beavering away, we only get a trickle of the stuff, not the torrent we need to fill an encyclopedia. Of course, if somebody, those folks included, think they can build a better encyclopedia, I'd encourage them to try. And I don't mean that in a snotty way; it would be useful to Wikipedia to have some serious competition. Just this week at work I was reviewing a competitor's new product, and it was both scary and thrilling, prodding us toward better work. It would be great for Wikipedia, and especially great for humanity, if somebody were actually nipping at our heels. William ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] FYI: Wikipedia, Open Access and Cognitive Virology
Stevan Harnad in the American Scientist Open Access Forum:
On Sat, 15 May 2010, Barbara Kirsop [Electronic Publishing Trust for
Development] wrote:
What is very confusing about [the SAGE survey's] call for feedback is
the title ["Open Access Publishing"].
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/soap_survey_a
I do not understand the phrase 'Open Access Publishing'. Open access is
about 'access'. It is not a publishing process. The title should refer to
'open access journals'. The use of the phrase 'OA publishing' reinforces the
idea that OA is about publishing and this is one reason why 'OA repositories'
are often left out of the equation. With the title provided it is unlikely
that anyone will think it is about OA repositories.
Those I respect in the OA world tell me I am being pedantic, but it is
little things like this that cause confusion to newcomers to the debate. I
make a plea that we stop using the phrase 'open access publishing' and use
'open access journals' or 'the publishing of open access journals' instead!
Dear Barbara, you are in no way being pedantic!
You are quite right that the relentless (and mindless) tendency to
refer to (and think of) OA itself as "OA Publishing" instead of just OA
(thereby completely conflating and confusing Green OA self-archiving
with Gold OA publishing) has been an endless source of misunderstanding,
misdirection and, worst of all, delay in the progress of OA.
A high-profile accomplice in the perpetuation of this constant canard is
the entry for "Open Access" in Wikipedia, Google's ubiquitous "top hit"
(hence always the top hit for "Open Access" queries).
Originally the Wikipedia entry was entitled "Open Access," as it should
be. But then some of the self-appointed vigilantes ("trolls") in the
bowels of Wikipedia -- mostly anonymous individuals with plenty of
time on their hands who accrue the "power" to adjudicate and legislate
Wikipedia items and disputes not through expertise in the subject
matter but "recursively," through cumulative air-time in adjudicating and
legislating! -- decided to rename the entry "Open Access (publishing)." So
there you are.
Why did they do it? It's Wikipedia's usual fetish, which is that
"notability" -- perhaps "notoriety" is a better descriptor -- always
trumps truth (or expertise): The tendency to see OA as synonymous with
OA publishing is in the air. So, by the air-time criterion, instead of
clearing the air, Wikipedia just compounds the error, by canonizing it.
Wikipedia could have disambiguated the various different senses of "Open
Access" helpfully by using something like "Open Access (Research)" but
-- against all attempts (including by myself) not to have the entry for
"Open Access" re-named "Open Access (Publishing)" -- it has been so
re-named for several years now. (The history of the "debate" is still
in the entrails of Wikipedia, for the intrepid to read, but I'm afraid
the error is now too entrenched by troll-power to correct. Like
politicians, trolls tend to dig into their misjudgments and misdeeds,
not dig out of them.)
Wikipedia itself (notably, hence notoriously) is in many ways the
"alternative" to OA in (too) many people's minds. Wikipedia is not
only anonymous and not peer-reviewed, it is (aside from some recent
ambivalence on this score) "ideologically" opposed to peer review
(adjudication by qualified experts). In contrast, OA's primary target
content is peer-reviewed research papers. ("Peer Review" is another
descriptor that has been excised from the Wikipedia definition of OA's
target content, despite repeated corrections: The trolls will not abide
anything like that!)
So there we are: OA's biggest canard and nemesis, being daily,
cumulatively, canonized and amplified by Wikipedia, riding the recursive
tide of its own notability and notoriety (as an infectious virus,
cheerfully propagated by the denizens of Wikipedia).
I expect that this posting will elicit stout defenses by Wiki-Warriors,
but be forewarned that this Forum is devoted to Open Access (Sic),
and discussion on Wikipedia ideology rather than OA pragmatics will be
foreclosed, as such digressions tend to drive off the mainstay of this
Forum who have been faithfully following the evolution of OA since 1998...
Stevan Harnad
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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content
*The roots of the problem* Michael, if the Board is analyzing the issue then it should address the roots of the problem. The fact that recent discussion has taken place around sexual images has the advantage that sex raises a lot of interest from everybody. But from my point of view the issue is grounded in two deeper problems: 1) what happens if the board takes a decision against the community consensus? 2) What happens if the community of a project rejects discussing deeply an issue up to finding a consensus, if they simply vote and applies the majority decision? It seems to me that this is what happened. The community defined a policy without analyzing the issue deeply enough, they didn’t reached a consensus. The board decided that this should addressed and Jimbo actuated. Perhaps this is a caricature of what happened. Surely the real story is far more complex. There was an open debate in the community, the board resolution was more or less ambiguous, and the actions of Jimbo could have been more polite. But I believe that the roots of the problem are more or less there. *Proposed changes in the system* >From my point of view the system should be changed in two ways: First Wikimedia Foundation (and its governing body, the Board) should have a mechanism to force the community to debate and search for a consensus. Call it founder’s flag or voice of conscience flag or whatever you want. This is exactly what Jimbo did. He didn’t impose his will although founder’s flag gave him the power to do it. Secondly it should be stated clearly that once a true consensus is reached, the community is sovereign in developing the project. The duty of the Foundation is providing the means to put in practice those decisions. To put a humoristic example, if the law of some state says that the value for number pi is mandatorily 3.2 [1] and the community reaches the consensus that we must explain clearly that the law is wrong, then if necessary the Foundarion must avoid being under the rules of that state. Perhaps some other hygienic measures should be taken. By example perhaps stewards should hold only rights to change user’s status but not to act as sysop of any project. *The case of Images and other “sensible” material* Going to the images with sexual content I think that this should be addresses in a parallel way as other sensible issues like: 1) Images that could offend people of some religion. 2) Images in fair use. 3) Statements in biographies of living people. 4) Statements that can harm the image of products or companies. 5) Naming the articles when the name can carry a biased point of view. By example naming the articles of small towns in Spain using the name imposed by fascist dictatorship instead of the official Spanish name. 6) Contents possibly infringing copyrights. 7) Etc. I think that in those cases we should not change our policies to make happy the affected people but we should create mechanisms to guarantee we are in the safe side: Not publish or publish only the safe official version until we have enough evidences that the sensible material is right, legal, relevant, and has educational purposes. Perhaps we must strength some policies; perhaps to call somebody “thief” in their biography we can’t accept any kind of reference but a reference providing clear evidences that this is true. We also must give to the world clear evidences that we are extremely serious and careful with this issues if we decide to put an image “sensible” there must be clear evidences that we have done our best to guarantee that this image has educational content, that this image is required for the project, that this image accomplish with the law. We can’t make happy everybody; our goal of providing the sum of all human knowledge is above the interest of reaching a broader public or making happy some kind of readers. But we can make everybody agree with us that in “sensible issues” we have strong reasons to say every thing we say and to provide every image we have. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill > Message: 9 > Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 23:42:44 -0700 > From: Michael Snow > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational >content > To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Message-ID: <4bee4264.9020...@verizon.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed > > On 5/7/2010 5:30 PM, Sue Gardner wrote: > > On 7 May 2010 16:07, Kim Bruning wrote: > > > >> On Fri, May 07, 2010 at 12:30:18PM -0700, Michael Snow wrote: > >> > >>> announce-l still has issues. The Board of Trustees has directed me to > >>> release the following statement: > >>> > >> Just to be sure: > >> Are there no other statements that have been made by the board > >> or are being planned to be made by the board on this subject? > >> > >> sincerly, > >> Kim Bruning > >> > > Kim, the board (and I) have been talking about this for the past > > couple of d
Re: [Foundation-l] The new Wikipedia logo-v2 is ugly
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 10:51 AM, Teofilo wrote: > When I read and edited the English language wikipedia this morning, I > saw that the logo had changed. I had a strange feeling, at first not > being sure if this was only a feeling of surprise or if there was some > real problem with that new logo. After performing my editing tasks, I > had a closer look at the new logo and compared it with the older one, > and I found the following design flaws : Hi Teofilo, You've summarized the issues that many of us (myself included) have found with the new logo quite well. You're a little late to the party, though. Please see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikipedia/2.0#Logo_revisions_need_input for the most recent discussion, and contribute as you see fit. Austin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] The new Wikipedia logo-v2 is ugly
> * the diameter of the sphere has become shorter than the Wikipedia > word below (some harmony is broken). > * It is darker. > * It is fuzzier (while the older one was brisk, with contrast) Strongly agree. The most painful is that it's small :( Akos Szabo / Glanthor Reviol ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] The new Wikipedia logo-v2 is ugly
When I read and edited the English language wikipedia this morning, I saw that the logo had changed. I had a strange feeling, at first not being sure if this was only a feeling of surprise or if there was some real problem with that new logo. After performing my editing tasks, I had a closer look at the new logo and compared it with the older one, and I found the following design flaws : * the diameter of the sphere has become shorter than the Wikipedia word below (some harmony is broken). * It is darker. * It is fuzzier (while the older one was brisk, with contrast). * It bears geometric flaws : when you look at a planet, the meridians which are farther should be closer to each other than the nearer ones. The same kind of problem occured on the old logo, but as it was bigger, the proportions were different, and that problem was less conspicuous. I suspect a management flaw in the way the Wikimedia Foundation is managed. 1) I suspect this logo change has very little to do with usability. So I don't understand why the "usability people" have been authorised to touch this. 2) When the city council of a big city decides to redesign the statue located on the main square of the city, usually an artistic contest is organised, with a jury of professionals whose job is to find the proposal which has the greatest artistic merit. The same sort of organisation should take place when redesigning something as important as the Wikipedia logo. Also I feel sorry for the designer of the old logo. It seems that his/her talent is not recognized as should be. Useful links : New logo at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-logo-v2-en.png Older logo at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-logo-en.png ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Legal requirements for sexual content -- help, please!
Another great post.
You are right: this is a separate issue from the original censorship/content
filtering debate, but it is an important issue that the proposed "Sexual
content" policy on Commons should address.
Recapping some thoughts around this:
*No image showing an actual living person engaged in sexually explicit conduct
should be uploaded (or kept on Commons) without that person's consent. Some
people will definitely ''not'' be fine with a former partner or someone they
only briefly met uploading images of a sexual encounter. If done without
consent, this is analogous to a BLP violation ("Do no harm").
*Some sexually explicit images show faces, others do not. It is tempting to say
that we should only need OTRS consent for images where a person is
identifiable, and that consent does not matter for images where people's
genitals are shown from behind, in close-up, or their face is out of shot.
*However, there are obvious risks in yielding to that temptation. A person
whose image was uploaded without their consent will still be harmed if the
uploader tells everyone, "Look, I uploaded an image of so-and-so's genitals,
and this is the URL".
*Some people may be fine with, or enjoy, having a picture of their genitals
uploaded, or a picture of them engaged in sexually explicit conduct, but they
may at the same time be reluctant to mail OTRS with their real-life name and
e-mail address saying, "The person demonstrating oral sex in that picture is
me, and I am fine with that picture being on Commons".
*So by requiring people to mail their consent to OTRS, we may be reducing the
number of valuable sexually explicit images we get, as well as reducing
potential harm.
*It is impossible to verify that the person sending the OTRS mail is actually
the person shown in the picture. It is apparently not unheard of for people to
have lied because they wanted an image to remain on Commons.
*All of this is much less of a problem with professional porn actors. We have
some professionals who contribute their images to Commons, and I am beginning
to think this is something to be encouraged.
*Obviously, such material needs vetting for educational value (to avoid Commons
being used for self-promotion), but many of the above problems disappear with
professionals -- professionals in this field are by definition fine with images
of themselves engaged in sexually explicit conduct being publicly available,
and are also used to complying with all the relevant record keeping
requirements. I've even wondered if we should do an outreach to the industry.
*This does not just apply to sexually explicit images. It also applies to
nudity.
If you have further ideas or input, the topic is currently being discussed here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Consent_clarification
Andreas
--- On Fri, 14/5/10, David Goodman wrote:
> From: David Goodman
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Legal requirements for sexual content -- help,
> please!
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
> Date: Friday, 14 May, 2010, 18:43
> The right to privacy is based
> explicitly on respecting cultural
> taboos of individuals. Ordinary identifiable people should
> not be
> shown in public doing things they reasonably would not like
> to be seen
> doing, except when the public need for information is
> great enough to
> overcome this. In WP terms, this is the BLP principle of
> "do no harm"
> and it applies as much to images as it does to articles.
>
> There are people to whom this does not apply at all, such
> as public
> figures when the matter is relevant to their notability or
> otherwise
> the proper focus of responsible news coverage, and even
> private
> individuals when the matter is sufficiently important--and
> this is the
> same for images as articles, and for all WP content.
> As with BLP, it
> applies with special force to children and others
> incapable of giving
> consent or incapable of being aware that their conduct was
> being
> recorded.
>
> I am not a BLP-expansionist; I interpret the need for
> information
> fairly liberally, but when that does not apply I have
> always been on
> the strict side of enforcing this with such things as
> internet memes.
>
> In practice in almost all societies, sexual behavior is
> regarded as
> more private than other things, and it is related to the
> almost
> universal taboo about the display of nude genitals in
> public in
> ordinary situations. Therefore the right to privacy does
> apply with
> special force here.
>
> I think we have an obligation to remove or obscure
> the identities for
> nude or sexual images of living people who have not
> explicitly or
> implicitly given their consent, or who are unable to give
> it. I can
> imagine situations where the right to public information
> might
> over-ride this, but they would be exceptional. (The
> hypothetical case
> of a nude congressman in front of the Capitol was mentioned
