Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 30 September 2011 01:56, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 2:46 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: http://achimraschka.blogspot.com/2011/09/story-about-vulva-picture-open-letter.html He's the primary author of [[:de:Vulva]], and Sue called him all manner of names (who are acting like provocateurs and agitators that need to be stopped), but never ... actually ... contacted him to say any of this *to* him. Oh, and he's a member of the board of WMDE. For heaven's sake. This is the worst kind of cutting and pasting to make a point I have seen in ages (Kim's experiments notwithstanding)... The worst? The very worst? You're quite sure about that, and not being hyperbolic? I can't speak for Sue, of course, but when I read the blog post I see nothing in there that says she is referring to the author of this particular article (she refers only to the decision to put the article on the mainpage, presumably not something that can be traced to a single person). Sue was going on and on about [[:de:vulva]] and the poll surrounding it and saying those things about her opponents (while claiming her opponents were of low tone). He seemed to take it that way, and I see a pile of commenters from de:wp taking it that way. She would have to have been much less aware of her own words than she is to assume it would *not* be. Saying *after* the fact oh, I don't mean *you*, I mean all those *other* (unnamed) people - a variation of the tone argument - doesn't take away from the thrust of her article: that those opposed to her have awful tone and should therefore be ignored. I've been bending over backwards to try to contribute with substance, but the staff and board attitude, and finally this post from Sue, really make me wonder why I fucking bother. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Meta main page
M. Williamson, 29/09/2011 22:45: ...and Nikerabbit removed it giving only the explanation: not here, per Nikerabbit (would have already fixed the real issues if only somebody had told me) It seems like he's saying that someone should've let him know about the autoselection issue, but he doesn't seem to agree that _even with_ auto language selection, the user should still be able to choose a different language manually on the mainpage. Please stop it, there isn't any use in this (off topic) discussion and guessing/[mis]representing other people's intentions. Use the talk page or bugzilla. Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] NPG still violating copyright
On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 4:53 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote: Scott, the director of rights and reproductions a the NPG kindly wrote directly back to me very quickly and said (quoting with permission): We did, indeed, investigate immediately. I am expecting changes to be made, shortly. So, I assume that not only will changes be made to their website soon but we'll be informed what as soon as it does. Sincerely, -Liam Sent from my phone. Wittylama.com/blog On 13/06/2011, at 15:19, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Scott, It was raised with the NPG, as promised, at the time. They assured me they would investigate immediately on the pages indicated as well as make a random sampling of other pages on their site to see if it had happened elsewhere. I'll re-raise this with them today and get back to you when I know any news. Sincerely, -Liam wittylama.com/blog Peace, love metadata On 12 June 2011 22:53, Scott MacDonald doc.wikipe...@ntlworld.com wrote: Back in March this year, I pointed out in Wikien-1 that the UKs National Portrait Gallery, was reusing Wikipedia content (and in particular my work) without any attribution (and indeed was claiming copyright). http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2011-March/108731.html This got some attention at the time, and coverage in the en.wp Signpost. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-03-21/News_an d_notes The matter ended when it was indicated that WMF people in the GLAM project would raise it with the NPG as a matter of urgency. However, I note that the NPG continues to use copyrighted material without attribution and with a false copyright claim. http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.php?search=saLinkID=mp07767 Three thumbs up!!! -- -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]] ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 09/29/2011 04:37 PM, Dirk Franke wrote: For anybody interested: I wrote a blog-post full of disagreement :-) http://asinliberty.blogspot.com/2011/09/sorry-sue-gardner-but-image-filter.html So basically, we find that there are two different, somewhat incompatible definitions of Wikipedia: * A project of pure enlightenment, which ignores the biased/prejudiced reader and accepts the resulting limited distribution. * A project of praxis, which seeks a balance between the goals of enlightenment and the reader's interests, aiming at a high distribution. -- Tobias signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 11:45 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: The complete absence of mentioning the de:wp poll that was 85% against any imposed filter is just *weird*. The intro and footer of Sue's post say: The purpose of this post is not to talk specifically about the referendum results or the image hiding feature She also wrote in the comments: What I talk about in this post is completely independent of the filter, and it’s worth discussing (IMO) on its own merits So it's perhaps not surprising that she doesn't mention the de.wp poll regarding the filter in a post that she says is not about the filter. ;-) Now, it's completely fair to say that the filter issue remains the elephant in the room until it's resolved what will actually be implemented and how. And it's understandable that lots of people are responding accordingly. But I think it's pretty clear that Sue was trying to start a broader conversation in good faith. I know that she's done lots of thinking about the conversations so far including the de.wp poll, and she's also summarized some of this in her report to the Board: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Sue%27s_report_to_the_board/en#What_has_happened_since_the_referendum The broader conversation she's seeking to kick off in her blog post _can_, IMO, usefully inform the filter conversation. What Sue is saying is that we sometimes fail to take the needs and expectations of our readers fully into account. Whether you agree with her specific examples or not, this is certainly generally true in a community where decisions are generally made by whoever happens to show up, and sometimes the people who show up are biased, stupid or wrong. And even when the people who show up are thoughtful, intelligent and wise, the existing systems, processes and expectations may lead them to only be able to make imperfect decisions. Let me be specific. Let's take the good old autofellatio article, which was one of the first examples of an article with a highly disputed explicit image on the English Wikipedia (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Autofellatio/Archive_1 ). If you visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Autofellatio , you'll notice that there are two big banners: Wikipedia is not censored and If you find some images offensive you can configure your browser to mask them, with further instructions. Often, these kinds of banners come into being because people (readers and active editors) find their way to the talk page and complain about an image being offensive. They are intended to do two things: Explain our philosophy, but also give people support in making more informed choices. This is, in other words, the result of reasonable discussion by thoughtful, intelligent and wise people about how to deal with offensive images (and in some cases, text). And yet, it's a deeply imperfect solution. The autofellatio page has been viewed 85,000 times in September. The associated discussion page has been viewed 400 times. The options not to see an image page, which is linked from many many of these pages, has been viewed 750 times. We can reasonably hypothesize without digging much further into the data that there's a significant number of people who are offended by images they see in Wikipedia but who don't know how to respond, and we can reasonably hypothesize that the responses that Wikipedians have conceived so far to help them have been overall insufficient in doing so. It would be great to have much more data -- but again, I think these are reasonable hypotheses. The image filter in an incarnation similar to the one that's been discussed to-date is one possible response, but it's not the only one. Indeed, nothing in the Board resolution prescribes a complex system based on categories that exists adjacent to normal mechanisms of editorial control. An alternative would be, for example, to give Wikipedians a piece of wiki syntax that they can use to selectively make images hideable on specific articles. Imagine visiting the article Autofellatio and seeing small print at the top that says: This article contains explicit images that some readers may find objectionable. [[Hide all images on this page]]. As requested by the Board resolution, it could then be trivial to selectively unhide specific images. If desired, it could be made easy to browse articles with that setting on-by-default, which would be similar to the way the Arabic Wikipedia handles some types of controversial content ( cf. http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D8%B6%D8%B9_%D8%AC%D9%86%D8%B3%D9%8A ). This could possibly be entirely implemented in JS and templates without any complex additional software support, but it would probably be nice to create a standardized tag for it and design the feature itself for maximum usability. Solutions of this type would have the advantage of giving Wiki[mp]edians full editorial judgment and responsibility to use them as they see fit, as opposed to being
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
I'll go by pieces in your mail Erik. *The intro and footer of Sue's post say: The purpose of this post is not to talk specifically about the referendum results or the image hiding feature (...) So it's perhaps not surprising that she doesn't mention the de.wp poll regarding the filter in a post that she says is not about the filter. ;-) * It is quite surprise yes, since she gave half of the post to de.wiki main page issue[1]. And also, if we decide to ABFhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ABFof the other side (like that post pretty much does) I would say that she doesn't mention because would not help her case. *Now, it's completely fair to say that the filter issue remains the elephant in the room until it's resolved what will actually be implemented and how. * You forgot the *IF*: IF the elephant will be or not implemented. *What Sue is saying is that we sometimes fail to take the needs and expectations of our readers fully into account * Well, if we consider the referendum a good place to go see results[2] we can say that our readers are in doubt about that issue, pretty much 50%-50% in doubt - with the difference that our germans readers are not: They DON'T WANT it. *Let me be specific. Let's take the good old autofellatio article (...) If you visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Autofellatio , you'll notice that there are two big banners: Wikipedia is not censored and If you find some images offensive you can configure your browser to mask them, with further instructions. (...) And yet, it's a deeply imperfect solution. The autofellatio page has been viewed 85,000 times in September. The associated discussion page has been viewed 400 times. The options not to see an image page, which is linked from many many of these pages, has been viewed 750 times. We can reasonably hypothesize without digging much further into the data that there's a significant number of people who are offended by images they see in Wikipedia but who don't know how to respond. * No we can not. With 85,000 views, would be childish to imagine that only 400 people could see the Discussion tab over the article. If they got to the article (and the article is not on MP) we need to assume that: 1. They looked for *autofellatio* in Google - thefore they knew what they would might find. 2. They placed that into the search box - thefore they know at least a bit how wikipedia works and know what is a discussion page and how to get there. 3. They got to the article by the links in another article. And by the links of What Links herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Autofellationamespace=0limit=250 feature there are no article no related with sex and sexuality that links to this one, so that reader would know what they would find - like the 1. - and knows how wikipedia works - like 2. In any of the cases, I can only imagine that 1 has any reason to be offended and don't know how to find the talk page. Even in that case - if we divide by 3 the number of viewers (assuming here that 1, 2 and 3 has exactly the same contribution to the number, that is 28,333 people. Which means that - from the other 56,667 people - only 400 decided to check what is the talk page. Which is 0,7% of the readers. From those, I can only see 3 people complaining, which is 0,75% of everyone who goes in the talk page. Can you see the idea? Only ~0,7% of all people who say that article is offended by it. So, no, we can't assume that people get offended. *An alternative would be, for example, to give Wikipedians a piece of wiki syntax that they can use to selectively make images hideable on specific articles. Imagine visiting the article Autofellatio and seeing small print at the top that says: This article contains explicit images that some readers may find objectionable. [[Hide all images on this page]].* That would indeed be a better idea - to be implemented as a gadget to log in users. - and to be implemented in a way that prevents any kind of censorship categories *Our core community is 91% male, and that does lead to obvious perception biases (and yes, occasional sexism and other -isms). Polls and discussions in our community are typically not only dominated by that core group, they're sometimes in fact explicitly closed to people who aren't meeting sufficient edit count criteria, etc.* Yes it is. That does not mean girls get more offend by that. The 9% of the girls are not screaming to tire apart all images, are they? In the opposite, we can see the same 50%-50% pro-oppose in the female community as well. (As example: the only 2 girls who commented here - phoebe and me - are in opposite sides. Have a vagina don't make us more or less offend for see one in the main page. [1]: Note there a page who was elected featured article be in the main page is not a issue, whatever the subject is. [2]: I don't, for the very simple reason that was badly written, as several people already
[Foundation-l] We need more information (was: Blog from Sue about ...)
(not responding to anyone in particular) I'm one of the people who tried to participate in the discussion without taking a strong standpoint (intentionally - because I'm quite nuanced on the issue, and open for good arguments of either side) and I have to fully agree with Ryan. I have yet been unable to participate in this discussion without either being ignored fully (nothing new to that, I agree) or being put in the opposite camp. I basically gave up. So I do have to say that I agree with the sentiment that the discussion is not very inviting, and is actually discouraging people who want to find a solution in the middle to participate. In that respect I do agree with Sue's analysis. However, considering the background and the 'German issue' I don't have the feeling it was particularly helpful in resolving that either. Anyhow, about the filter issue. I think at this stage it is very hard to determine any opinion about the filter because everybody seems to have their own idea what it will look like, what the consequences will be and how it will affect their and other people's lives. I myself find it hard to take a stance based on the little information available and I applaud the visionaries that can. Information I am even more missing however (and I think it would have been good to have that information *before* we took any poll within our own community) is what our average 'reader on the street' thinks about this. Do they feel they need it? What parts of society are they from (i.e. is that a group we are representative of? Or one we barely have any interaction with?) What kind of filter do they want (including the option: none at all). Obviously this should not be held in the US, but rather world wide - as widely as possible. With that information we can make a serious consideration how far we want to go to give our readers what they want - or not at all. I don't think we should be making that choice without trying to figure out (unless I missed a research into that) what they actually do want. We are making way too many assumptions here which don't strike me as entirely accurate (how do people get to an article page for example (by Béria), or how many people are offended by the image on the autofellatio article (by Erik)) - and we don't have to do that if we would just ask those people we're talking about - rather than talking about them on our ivory mountain. One final remark: I couldn't help but laugh a little when I read somewhere that we are the experts, and we are making decisions for our readers - and that these readers should have to take that whole complete story, because what else is the use of having these experts sit together. (probably I interpreted this with my own thoughts) And I was always thinking that Wikipedia was about masses participating in their own way - why do we trust people to 'ruin' an article for others, but not just for themselves? Hoping for a constructive discussion and more data on what our 'readers' actually want and/or need... Lodewijk No dia 30 de Setembro de 2011 11:40, Béria Lima berial...@gmail.comescreveu: I'll go by pieces in your mail Erik. *The intro and footer of Sue's post say: The purpose of this post is not to talk specifically about the referendum results or the image hiding feature (...) So it's perhaps not surprising that she doesn't mention the de.wp poll regarding the filter in a post that she says is not about the filter. ;-) * It is quite surprise yes, since she gave half of the post to de.wiki main page issue[1]. And also, if we decide to ABFhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ABFof the other side (like that post pretty much does) I would say that she doesn't mention because would not help her case. *Now, it's completely fair to say that the filter issue remains the elephant in the room until it's resolved what will actually be implemented and how. * You forgot the *IF*: IF the elephant will be or not implemented. *What Sue is saying is that we sometimes fail to take the needs and expectations of our readers fully into account * Well, if we consider the referendum a good place to go see results[2] we can say that our readers are in doubt about that issue, pretty much 50%-50% in doubt - with the difference that our germans readers are not: They DON'T WANT it. *Let me be specific. Let's take the good old autofellatio article (...) If you visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Autofellatio , you'll notice that there are two big banners: Wikipedia is not censored and If you find some images offensive you can configure your browser to mask them, with further instructions. (...) And yet, it's a deeply imperfect solution. The autofellatio page has been viewed 85,000 times in September. The associated discussion page has been viewed 400 times. The options not to see an image page, which is linked from many many of these pages, has been viewed 750 times. We can reasonably
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
Re David's point that The trouble with responding on the blog is that responses seem to be being arbitrarily filtered. I can relate to that, it isn't just an annoying delay, there are posts which have gone up with timestamps long after my post. I don't know whether that was me not knowing how to do blog replies or something else. But the solution is in our hands, I've now posted my blog response in http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner#Your_blog_post where really it should have gone in the first place. Regards WereSpielChequers -- Message: 3 Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2011 17:56:02 -0700 From: phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: caai3vqfkvi6_-8gc-9yrpkecfxaghztctt-trb4anxkbahd...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 2:46 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 29 September 2011 06:41, Keegan Peterzell keegan.w...@gmail.com wrote: http://suegardner.org/2011/09/28/on-editorial-judgment-and-empathy/ Pretty sound blog, no matter which position you take. ?Naturally, please discuss the blog on the blog and not thread this too much back to conversation about the image filter. The trouble with responding on the blog is that responses seem to be being arbitrarily filtered, e.g. mine. So here's one that's particularly apposite: http://achimraschka.blogspot.com/2011/09/story-about-vulva-picture-open-letter.html He's the primary author of [[:de:Vulva]], and Sue called him all manner of names (who are acting like provocateurs and agitators that need to be stopped), but never ... actually ... contacted him to say any of this *to* him. Oh, and he's a member of the board of WMDE. - d. For heaven's sake. This is the worst kind of cutting and pasting to make a point I have seen in ages (Kim's experiments notwithstanding)... I can't speak for Sue, of course, but when I read the blog post I see nothing in there that says she is referring to the author of this particular article (she refers only to the decision to put the article on the mainpage, presumably not something that can be traced to a single person). The quotation you have made stands as a separate point, and is unrelated to the discussion of the de main page above. She simply says: Those community members who are acting like provocateurs and agitators need to stop. -- not identifying particular people, or even particular topics. When I read this, what comes to *my* mind is some of the recent dialog on Foundation-l -- some of which was certainly intentionally provocative, and some of which did get very personal and personally hurtful, to myself and others. Sue's post is *not about the image filter*. It's about the dialog around the image filter, some of which has been great and some of which has sucked. It is, indeed, hard to talk to people when they attack you for it. But I don't think there was any attacking in Sue's post. -- phoebe ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 4:44 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: Overall, I think Sue's post was an effort to move the conversation away from thinking of this issue purely in the terms of the debate as it's taken place so far. I think that's a very worthwhile thing to do. I would also point out that lots of good and thoughtful ideas have been collected at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Next_steps/en IMO the appropriate level of WMF attention to this issue is to 1) look for simple technical help that we can give the community, 2) use the resources that WMF and chapters have (in terms of dedicated, focused attention) to help host conversations in the communities, and bring new voices into the debate, to help us all be the best possible versions of ourselves. And as Sue said, we shouldn't demonize each other in the process. Everyone's trying to think about these topics in a serious fashion, balancing many complex interests, and bringing their own useful perspective. Erik Erik, if you really want to change the focus of the debate, suggest to Sue and the board that they make a commitment: that an image filter won't be imposed on the projects against strong majority opposition in the contributing community. Then you can move on to the hard work of convincing us of its merits, and we can set arguments over authority and roles aside. Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
Erik Moeller wrote: On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 11:45 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: The complete absence of mentioning the de:wp poll that was 85% against any imposed filter is just *weird*. The intro and footer of Sue's post say: The purpose of this post is not to talk specifically about the referendum results or the image hiding feature When you cherry-pick, I don't think it's very unreasonable (or at least not very unexpected) to be called a cherry-picker. Selectively choosing examples that bolster your argument isn't really problematic, but in context, it came off as ill-informed or ignorant at best, and as dishonest and disingenuous at worst. Whether there are disclaimers or not, Sue speaks as the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. And this issue is quite obviously contentious. Bear-poking is bear-poking, whether intentional or not. So it's perhaps not surprising that she doesn't mention the de.wp poll regarding the filter in a post that she says is not about the filter. ;-) I think what's sorely lacking right now is a broader overview of the issue. I think a timeline would help, and I don't think one exists already. Controversial content issue timeline on Meta-Wiki or something. It would lay out when certain events happened, what their result was, and in what order. Larry Sanger's comments about child pornography, the controversial content resolution, the polls at the German Wikipedia, the cartoon controversy from 2005, the vulva on the German Wikipedia Main Page more recently, the image filter referendum, etc. all make less sense when thrown into a jumble. Maybe I'll have some time this weekend to work on such a timeline. We can reasonably hypothesize without digging much further into the data that there's a significant number of people who are offended by images they see in Wikipedia but who don't know how to respond, and we can reasonably hypothesize that the responses that Wikipedians have conceived so far to help them have been overall insufficient in doing so. It would be great to have much more data -- but again, I think these are reasonable hypotheses. I think we can reasonably hypothesize that the majority of readers know how to close a browser window. Or hit the back button. Or click a link to a different page. The ones who are so deeply concerned about seeing autofellatio on a page about autofellatio can implement their own solutions to the problem (necessity is the mother of invention, right?). Can you explain why you feel Wikimedia needs to be involved? The image filter in an incarnation similar to the one that's been discussed to-date is one possible response, but it's not the only one. Indeed, nothing in the Board resolution prescribes a complex system based on categories that exists adjacent to normal mechanisms of editorial control. When you make comments like this, it makes it sound as though it was an organization other than Wikimedia that spearheaded a referendum that made this image filter (and this particular implementation) a fait accompli. When you make comments like this, it makes it sound as though it was an organization other than Wikimedia that proposed specific design plans, created by one of its employees. People have been discussing a particular implementation because Wikimedia put one forward. Why does your post make it sound as though this is surprising or unexpected? MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 3:11 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 4:44 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: Overall, I think Sue's post was an effort to move the conversation away from thinking of this issue purely in the terms of the debate as it's taken place so far. I think that's a very worthwhile thing to do. I would also point out that lots of good and thoughtful ideas have been collected at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Next_steps/en IMO the appropriate level of WMF attention to this issue is to 1) look for simple technical help that we can give the community, 2) use the resources that WMF and chapters have (in terms of dedicated, focused attention) to help host conversations in the communities, and bring new voices into the debate, to help us all be the best possible versions of ourselves. And as Sue said, we shouldn't demonize each other in the process. Everyone's trying to think about these topics in a serious fashion, balancing many complex interests, and bringing their own useful perspective. Erik Erik, if you really want to change the focus of the debate, suggest to Sue and the board that they make a commitment: that an image filter won't be imposed on the projects against strong majority opposition in the contributing community. Then you can move on to the hard work of convincing us of its merits, and we can set arguments over authority and roles aside. Nathan Hear, hear! -- -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]] ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
Nathan wrote: Erik, if you really want to change the focus of the debate, suggest to Sue and the board that they make a commitment: that an image filter won't be imposed on the projects against strong majority opposition in the contributing community. Then you can move on to the hard work of convincing us of its merits, and we can set arguments over authority and roles aside. While this seems like a nice idea on the surface, I think it sets a rather dangerous precedent. Would a majority of a contributing community be able to set aside the NPOV policy? What about fair use requirements? The requirement that people be over 18 to obtain private info? Provisions of the privacy policy? Board resolutions, to have any legitimacy, need to be enforceable. The solution to a bad Board resolution isn't to make a statement saying that it can be ignored if enough people want to. If that's the case, why have a Board at all? It seems to me that the solution is for the Board to clean up its own mess (and resolve to not make future ones). As I posted earlier, the Board went into this knowing that it was putting forward a divisive, empty gesture. This resolution was an act in bad faith. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
Sorry if this is *too* condensed, but here is one summary of this issue... First attempt at labeling content was made by Uwe Kils, and his class of students collectively logging as Vikings or something of the sort tagged content not suitable for teenst. Jimbo banned them, but an accomodation was made wherein they promised to not continue tagging articles. Then we had Toby . Again, by acclamation, that was squashed. It was too ridiculous for words. After that, numerous variations and formulations of filtering or tagging content have been floated, and have pretty much earned their status of the most perennial suggestion to always burn and crash. And now we have a board/executive that wants to do an end run around all that nasty history and create a fact on the ground. No, I don't think that will fly., ' ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 8:36 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Nathan wrote: Erik, if you really want to change the focus of the debate, suggest to Sue and the board that they make a commitment: that an image filter won't be imposed on the projects against strong majority opposition in the contributing community. Then you can move on to the hard work of convincing us of its merits, and we can set arguments over authority and roles aside. While this seems like a nice idea on the surface, I think it sets a rather dangerous precedent. Would a majority of a contributing community be able to set aside the NPOV policy? What about fair use requirements? The requirement that people be over 18 to obtain private info? Provisions of the privacy policy? Board resolutions, to have any legitimacy, need to be enforceable. The solution to a bad Board resolution isn't to make a statement saying that it can be ignored if enough people want to. If that's the case, why have a Board at all? It seems to me that the solution is for the Board to clean up its own mess (and resolve to not make future ones). As I posted earlier, the Board went into this knowing that it was putting forward a divisive, empty gesture. This resolution was an act in bad faith. MZMcBride Your examples are not similar to an image filter. No current core principles are at stake, no major legal threats to the projects, etc. More importantly, your board resolutions need to be enforceable principle is not at odds with my suggestion: the board can state a desire for, and an intention to work towards, an image filter while at the same time directly disclaiming the intention to unilaterally impose one. Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
(As example: the only 2 girls who commented here - phoebe and me - are in opposite sides. ...) -*B?ria Lima* Technically, you, Sarah Stierch, Phoebe, and Sue have all commented -- at least 4 women, not just 2. -- Sumana Harihareswara Volunteer Development Coordinator Wikimedia Foundation ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 15:54, Sumana Harihareswara suma...@wikimedia.org wrote: (As example: the only 2 girls who commented here - phoebe and me - are in opposite sides. ...) -*B?ria Lima* Technically, you, Sarah Stierch, Phoebe, and Sue have all commented -- at least 4 women, not just 2. One more, but forgot her name and too lazy to search. German females in discussion on German Wikipedia should be also checked. Up to now, all females from US (four of them) are in favor of filter (though, Sarah just tactically) and the only one not from US (Brazil/Portugal) is against. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 7:42 PM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: Up to now, all females from US (four of them) are in favor of filter (though, Sarah just tactically) and the only one not from US (Brazil/Portugal) is against. Hope we're not going to call this a poll. :) Cheers Bishakha ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:12 AM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: One more, but forgot her name and too lazy to search. German females in discussion on German Wikipedia should be also checked. Up to now, all females from US (four of them) are in favor of filter (though, Sarah just tactically) and the only one not from US (Brazil/Portugal) is against. Oh yes, I'm so tactical! (LOL) Regardless, you'll be delighted to know that after mulling about the image filter and getting all bent out of shape about it, I've come to this conclusion: I don't give a shit about the image filter. And it's an extremely freeing feeling. -Sarah -- GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for Wikimedia http://www.glamwiki.org Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Arthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch and Sarah Stierch Consulting *Historical, cultural artistic research advising.* -- http://www.sarahstierch.com/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 30 September 2011 10:12, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: snip Up to now, all females from US (four of them) are in favor of filter (though, Sarah just tactically) and the only one not from US (Brazil/Portugal) is against. Milos, I believe this is exactly the kind of post that Sue was talking about in her blog. It is aggressive, it is alienating, and it is intimidating to others who may have useful and progressive ideas but are repeatedly seeing the opinions of others dismissed because they're women/not women or from the US/not from the US. The implication of your post is if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid. Your post here did not further the discussion in any way, and I politely ask you to refrain from making such posts in the future. Risker ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:24 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: On 30 September 2011 10:12, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: snip Up to now, all females from US (four of them) are in favor of filter (though, Sarah just tactically) and the only one not from US (Brazil/Portugal) is against. Milos, I believe this is exactly the kind of post that Sue was talking about in her blog. It is aggressive, it is alienating, and it is intimidating to others who may have useful and progressive ideas but are repeatedly seeing the opinions of others dismissed because they're women/not women or from the US/not from the US. The implication of your post is if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid. Your post here did not further the discussion in any way, and I politely ask you to refrain from making such posts in the future. Risker ___ I think you're reading too much into this - he was replying to two other posts on the subject purely by adding information. The question of what do women think about the image filter? What about women in different regions? is of some relevance - it's useful to try to understand both the ways in which men and women see this issue differently, and the impact of cultural origins on views. Not sure why he said tactically re Sarah, but he probably has a reason, and I think Millosh is entitled to the benefit of doubt. Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
Am 30.09.2011 16:24, schrieb Risker: The implication of your post is if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid. Your post here did not further the discussion in any way, and I politely ask you to refrain from making such posts in the future. Weird. I've only seen a post where Milos has been crunching some numbers. Don't you think you're assuming a bit too much to make such implications? Regards, Oliver ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 30 September 2011 10:44, Oliver Koslowski o@t-online.de wrote: Am 30.09.2011 16:24, schrieb Risker: The implication of your post is if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid. Your post here did not further the discussion in any way, and I politely ask you to refrain from making such posts in the future. Weird. I've only seen a post where Milos has been crunching some numbers. Don't you think you're assuming a bit too much to make such implications? My question to you is why anyone would want to participate in a discussion where their opinions are going to be classified by their sex or their geographic location rather than their input. Risker ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
Am 30.09.2011 16:46, schrieb Risker: My question to you is why anyone would want to participate in a discussion where their opinions are going to be classified by their sex or their geographic location rather than their input. There's absolutely no harm in coming to a finding that, say, 80% of the US-American female contributors prefer the filter while only 30% of the non-US-American female contributors do. Just like there is no harm in stating that 86% of the core contributors to de-WP do not want to see the filter in their project. It really depends on what you do with these numbers. If you use them and try to understand why the two groups feel in such a drastically different way and how you wan to deal with that, then there can't be anything wrong with that, can there? You claim that Milos implied that if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid, and I have not seen anything like that. It strikes me as funny that you would complain about his post being aggressive and alienating when your post could be construed as exactly that. Regards, Oliver ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] We need more information (was: Blog from Sue about ...)
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.orgwrote: (not responding to anyone in particular) I'm one of the people who tried to participate in the discussion without taking a strong standpoint (intentionally - because I'm quite nuanced on the issue, and open for good arguments of either side) and I have to fully agree with Ryan. I have yet been unable to participate in this discussion without either being ignored fully (nothing new to that, I agree) or being put in the opposite camp. I basically gave up. My personal reaction to the discussion: I followed it, found some implementation ideas useful, and also found the barrier to entry too high. Both the noise and the black and white-ness of the discussion. So I agree that one of the unfortunate consequences of the 'either you are for or against' the filter discussion is that other points of view and voices are being, not 'censored', but silenced, perhaps unintentionally. And that is where I think Sue's blog post is useful: in bringing in another dimension - the issue of editorial judgment, which is a more 'grey' or somewhat 'subjective' area. Whether one agrees with it or not, this is a dimension worth considering. While neutrality is no doubt a key project principle, editorial judgment or selectivity is exercised in the projects on a daily basis. (Even selecting an image to accompany a wikipedia is a selection or an editorial judgement of some sort, right?) Given that this is the case, is it any different to exercise editorial judgment on this issue than it is to exercise editorial judgment on anything else? It may be productive to discuss this issue in the overall context of editorial discussions and selections on the project, rather than in a ghetto by itself. I totally understand and get the anger emanating from the community. And, numbers apart, this does say something. But because of the anger, is this issue being 'exceptionalized' too much and being placed on a different pedestal, where no discussion beyond the black and white, on greys such as editorial judgement is possible? In that broader sense, I agree with Sue that there is a need to go back to and discuss the underlying issue: how to responsibly handle objectionable imagery. At the same time, as someone who works with images, I don't like the term 'objectionable imagery'. It's not necessarily an image, per se, that is objectionable, but a gaze that renders it such. (Two people can look at the same image, one finds it objectionable, the other does not). **I am also dismayed at the use of the word 'censorship' in the context of a software feature that does not ban or block any images. But somehow there doesn't seem to be any other paradigm or language to turn to, and this is what is used as default, even though it is not accurate. It's been mentioned 1127 times in the comments, as per Sue's report to the board, and each time it is mentioned, it further perpetuates the belief that this is censorship. Anyhow, about the filter issue. I think at this stage it is very hard to determine any opinion about the filter because everybody seems to have their own idea what it will look like, what the consequences will be and how it will affect their and other people's lives. I myself find it hard to take a stance based on the little information available and I applaud the visionaries that can. Information I am even more missing however (and I think it would have been good to have that information *before* we took any poll within our own community) is what our average 'reader on the street' thinks about this. Do they feel they need it? What parts of society are they from (i.e. is that a group we are representative of? Or one we barely have any interaction with?) What kind of filter do they want (including the option: none at all). Obviously this should not be held in the US, but rather world wide - as widely as possible. I agree. I don't think we really have sufficient data on what readers want (or atleast I have not seen it) and this is another missing dimension. We are assuming we know, but we don't. We are also not hearing back on how much of a problem this is from many of the projects. Best Bishakha ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 30 September 2011 10:36, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:24 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: On 30 September 2011 10:12, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: snip Up to now, all females from US (four of them) are in favor of filter (though, Sarah just tactically) and the only one not from US (Brazil/Portugal) is against. Milos, I believe this is exactly the kind of post that Sue was talking about in her blog. It is aggressive, it is alienating, and it is intimidating to others who may have useful and progressive ideas but are repeatedly seeing the opinions of others dismissed because they're women/not women or from the US/not from the US. The implication of your post is if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid. Your post here did not further the discussion in any way, and I politely ask you to refrain from making such posts in the future. Risker ___ I think you're reading too much into this - he was replying to two other posts on the subject purely by adding information. The question of what do women think about the image filter? What about women in different regions? is of some relevance - it's useful to try to understand both the ways in which men and women see this issue differently, and the impact of cultural origins on views. Not sure why he said tactically re Sarah, but he probably has a reason, and I think Millosh is entitled to the benefit of doubt. I have to respectfully disagree with you on this point, Nathan. The blog post was about two basic issues: *How Wiki[mp]edians are interacting with each other , and *The role of editorial judgment in selecting which content is most educational, informative, appropriate and (in the case of images) aesthetic in the content that the various projects present to the world at large in our shared, collaborative quest to provide useful and educational information and media to the entire world. There has been a fair amount of nastiness aimed at specific individuals and belittling of the opinions of others throughout this discussion. Just as importantly, there has been a fair amount of unjustified categorization of, and assumptions about, people's opinions (both pro and con) on the issue of an image filter. We all are aware that this sort of behaviour detracts from effective resolution of disputes. Xenophobia, sexism, and elitism do not help us to meet our collective goals, nor does an insistence on the discussion encompassing only very narrow parameters. As to editorial judgment, we all know that just about every edit made to any of our projects requires some degree of judgment. Even editors who focus exclusively on vandal control have to exercise such judgment to ensure that they do not reinsert inappropriate information when reverting an apparent vandal. Projects have countless policies and guidelines that direct editors in their selection of material to be included, and under what circumstances. Article improvement processes on each Wikipedia are geared toward assisting editors to select the best and most subject-appropriate content, to present it in a well-written and visually attractive way, and to ensure that key information on the topic is included, while trivia is limited or eliminated. Wikipedia is not censored is not a reason to include or exclude information within a specific article: it is the philosophy that makes it clear that Wikipedia provides educational and informative articles on subjects whether or not that subject may be censored by external forces. That is why we have articles about the Tiananmen Square protests, and the Dalai Lama, and Aung San Suu Kyi and frottage and vulva and Mohammed. Our job is to present the information, regardless of whether these articles could be censored somewhere in the world. How we present that information, however, is a matter of editorial judgment. Risker ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] We need more information (was: Blog from Sue about ...)
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.orgwrote: Hoping for a constructive discussion and more data on what our 'readers' actually want and/or need... Also, while we don't have reader data, we do have more than 20,000 answers to the referendum or survey or whatever it should accurately be called. As per Sue's report to the Board, which Erik referred to [1]: The referendum did not directly ask whether respondents supported the idea of the filter. It did ask this question: *On a scale of 0 to 10, if 0 is strongly opposed, 5 is neutral and 10 is strongly in favor, please give your view of the following: It is important for the Wikimedia projects to offer this feature to readers.* 24,023 people responded to that question, with 23,754 selecting a number on the scale. The result was mildly in favour of the filter, with an average response of 5.7 and a median of 6. How do we understand this? And how should this be factored into making a decision? Best Bishakha [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Sue%27s_report_to_the_board/en#What_has_happened_since_the_referendum ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 11:15 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: I have to respectfully disagree with you on this point, Nathan. The blog post was about two basic issues: *How Wiki[mp]edians are interacting with each other , and *The role of editorial judgment in selecting which content is most educational, informative, appropriate and (in the case of images) aesthetic in the content that the various projects present to the world at large in our shared, collaborative quest to provide useful and educational information and media to the entire world. There has been a fair amount of nastiness aimed at specific individuals and belittling of the opinions of others throughout this discussion. Just as importantly, there has been a fair amount of unjustified categorization of, and assumptions about, people's opinions (both pro and con) on the issue of an image filter. We all are aware that this sort of behaviour detracts from effective resolution of disputes. Xenophobia, sexism, and elitism do not help us to meet our collective goals, nor does an insistence on the discussion encompassing only very narrow parameters. As to editorial judgment, we all know that just about every edit made to any of our projects requires some degree of judgment. Even editors who focus exclusively on vandal control have to exercise such judgment to ensure that they do not reinsert inappropriate information when reverting an apparent vandal. Projects have countless policies and guidelines that direct editors in their selection of material to be included, and under what circumstances. Article improvement processes on each Wikipedia are geared toward assisting editors to select the best and most subject-appropriate content, to present it in a well-written and visually attractive way, and to ensure that key information on the topic is included, while trivia is limited or eliminated. Wikipedia is not censored is not a reason to include or exclude information within a specific article: it is the philosophy that makes it clear that Wikipedia provides educational and informative articles on subjects whether or not that subject may be censored by external forces. That is why we have articles about the Tiananmen Square protests, and the Dalai Lama, and Aung San Suu Kyi and frottage and vulva and Mohammed. Our job is to present the information, regardless of whether these articles could be censored somewhere in the world. How we present that information, however, is a matter of editorial judgment. Risker We may be misunderstanding each other, because I don't disagree with anything you've written. Where we might part ways is in classifying certain things as, in this case, sexism; I don't believe Millosh was being sexist at all. Understanding gender differences, and using data (even basically anecdotal data, in this case) is not the same as being sexist, and I think its likely that this is an example of unjustified categorization of, and assumptions about, people's opinions. We should keep in mind that there are language and culture barriers even on this list, and that these influence not just word choice and grammar but also the context in which ideas are articulated and understood. Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] We need more information (was: Blog from Sue about ...)
On 30 September 2011 17:17, Bishakha Datta bishakhada...@gmail.com wrote: As per Sue's report to the Board, which Erik referred to [1]: The referendum did not directly ask whether respondents supported the idea of the filter. It did ask this question: *On a scale of 0 to 10, if 0 is strongly opposed, 5 is neutral and 10 is strongly in favor, please give your view of the following: It is important for the Wikimedia projects to offer this feature to readers.* 24,023 people responded to that question, with 23,754 selecting a number on the scale. The result was mildly in favour of the filter, with an average response of 5.7 and a median of 6. This keeps coming up. Even if the median/average were useful (which they arguably aren't, with the high number of 0s), the question was not do you support the idea of this filter. The question was do you think it is important Wikimedia projects should offer this feature. Michel ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] We need more information (was: Blog from Sue about ...)
Am 30.09.2011 17:06, schrieb Bishakha Datta: ... **I am also dismayed at the use of the word 'censorship' in the context of a software feature that does not ban or block any images. But somehow there doesn't seem to be any other paradigm or language to turn to, and this is what is used as default, even though it is not accurate. It's been mentioned 1127 times in the comments, as per Sue's report to the board, and each time it is mentioned, it further perpetuates the belief that this is censorship. There are two issues why this word is used. 1. The word is used for actual censorship (restriction of access) and it is used in context with hiding/filtering features. What is really meant, is often hard to distinguish. 2. Categorizing content (images, videos, text, events, ...) as inappropriate for some (minors, believers, conservatives, liberals, extremists, ...) is instead seen as a censors tool. That is one of the issues with a filter based on categories. It can be exploited by actual censors in many different ways. One hard way is to (mis)use the categories to restrict access. One soft way would be to influence the categorization itself, leaving the impression to the reader that a majority would share this view. To understand this issue, you have think about readers which see Wikipedia as a valid source for knowledge. If Wikipedia (they don't see or care for the single decisions, they trust us) labels such content as inappropriate (for some) it will inevitably lead to the believe that a vast majority sees it the same way, which doesn't need to be the case. Since this risk is real (the Google image filter gets already exploited this way), it is also described as censorship. Not a single word could be found inside the introduction of the referendum, that mentioned possible issues. Thats why many editors think, that it was intentionally put that way, or that the board/WMF isn't capable to handle this situation. It just left many open questions. For example: What would the WMF do, if they recognize that the filter, and the good idea behind it, is exploited? -- Niabot ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 30 September 2011 13:40, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com wrote: First attempt at labeling content was made by Uwe Kils, and his class of students collectively logging as Vikings or something of the sort tagged content not suitable for teenst. Jimbo banned them, but an accomodation was made wherein they promised to not continue tagging articles. Then we had Toby . Again, by acclamation, that was squashed. It was too ridiculous for words. Dates for all of these will be useful for the timeline. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
--- On Fri, 30/9/11, Ryan Kaldari rkald...@wikimedia.org wrote: From: Ryan Kaldari rkald...@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Friday, 30 September, 2011, 0:28 On 9/28/11 11:30 PM, David Gerard wrote: This post appears mostly to be the tone argument: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument - rather than address those opposed to the WMF (the body perceived to be abusing its power), Sue frames their arguments as badly-formed and that they should therefore be ignored. Well, when every thoughtful comment you have on a topic is met with nothing more than chants of WP:NOTCENSORED!, the tone argument seems quite valid. Ryan Kaldari Quite. I have had editors tell me that if there were a freely licensed video of a rape (perhaps a historical one, say), then we would be duty-bound to include it in the article on [[rape]], because Wikipedia is not censored. That if we have a freely licensed video showing a person defecating, it should be included in the article on [[defecation]], because Wikipedia is not censored. That if any of the Iraqi beheading videos are CC-licensed, NOTCENSORED requires us to embed them in the biographies of those who were recently beheaded. That if we have five images of naked women in a bondage article, and none of men having the same bondage technique applied to them, still all the images of naked women have to be kept, because Wikipedia is not censored. And so on. Andreas ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
I must confess I completely fail to understand how the discussions in this thread, especially the last several dozens or so posts, advance our mission. Cheers Yaroslav ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 16:23, Sarah Stierch sarah.stie...@gmail.com wrote: One more, but forgot her name and too lazy to search. German females in discussion on German Wikipedia should be also checked. Up to now, all females from US (four of them) are in favor of filter (though, Sarah just tactically) and the only one not from US (Brazil/Portugal) is against. Oh yes, I'm so tactical! (LOL) Regardless, you'll be delighted to know that after mulling about the image filter and getting all bent out of shape about it, I've come to this conclusion: I don't give a shit about the image filter. And it's an extremely freeing feeling. As a member of one feminist organization, I understand dominant position among feminists toward pornography. It's generally personal (thus, not an ideological position), but as the main stream pornography is male-centric and historically connected with women abuse, they generally oppose it, but without hard stance on it. Softening stance has happened especially after widening ideology to the LGBT movement and identity theory. Now, if we translate it into the frame of US culture, where every nudity is seen as pornography, general position of American feminists is more clear. And you showed that ambiguous position, including inside of your last post: In principle yes because it looks like one of the showings of the society dominated by men, but not sure what exactly; would be more happy not to think about it. In other words, my point is that your (and Bishakha's) motivation is not the same to the motivation of others who are in favor of the image filter. As mentioned in some of the previous posts, I think that it is much more feminist to defend right of girls to be sexually educated, even if it would mean secretly browsing Wikipedia articles on sexuality, than to insist on comfort of adult females in offices and questionable background of one pseudo-ideological position. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
I was on Commons and stumbled across a photograph of a man cumming onto a cracker and then eating it. Turns out this is called a soggy biscuit. You learn something new everyday. In the heat of annoyance about WP:NOTCENSORED cries, I decided to add the image of the guy eating his cum drenched biscuit on the [[Soggy biscuit]] article. Well it was quickly taken down! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Soggy_biscuit#Removing_the_article_image But at least we have plenty of other images of people in sexually deviant situations with their faces shown. :P -Sarah You can't always get what you want, Stierch On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 11:49 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote: --- On Fri, 30/9/11, Ryan Kaldari rkald...@wikimedia.org wrote: From: Ryan Kaldari rkald...@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Friday, 30 September, 2011, 0:28 On 9/28/11 11:30 PM, David Gerard wrote: This post appears mostly to be the tone argument: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument - rather than address those opposed to the WMF (the body perceived to be abusing its power), Sue frames their arguments as badly-formed and that they should therefore be ignored. Well, when every thoughtful comment you have on a topic is met with nothing more than chants of WP:NOTCENSORED!, the tone argument seems quite valid. Ryan Kaldari Quite. I have had editors tell me that if there were a freely licensed video of a rape (perhaps a historical one, say), then we would be duty-bound to include it in the article on [[rape]], because Wikipedia is not censored. That if we have a freely licensed video showing a person defecating, it should be included in the article on [[defecation]], because Wikipedia is not censored. That if any of the Iraqi beheading videos are CC-licensed, NOTCENSORED requires us to embed them in the biographies of those who were recently beheaded. That if we have five images of naked women in a bondage article, and none of men having the same bondage technique applied to them, still all the images of naked women have to be kept, because Wikipedia is not censored. And so on. Andreas ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for Wikimedia http://www.glamwiki.org Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Arthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch and Sarah Stierch Consulting *Historical, cultural artistic research advising.* -- http://www.sarahstierch.com/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
Am 30.09.2011 17:49, schrieb Andreas Kolbe: --- On Fri, 30/9/11, Ryan Kaldarirkald...@wikimedia.org wrote: From: Ryan Kaldarirkald...@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Friday, 30 September, 2011, 0:28 On 9/28/11 11:30 PM, David Gerard wrote: This post appears mostly to be the tone argument: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument - rather than address those opposed to the WMF (the body perceived to be abusing its power), Sue frames their arguments as badly-formed and that they should therefore be ignored. Well, when every thoughtful comment you have on a topic is met with nothing more than chants of WP:NOTCENSORED!, the tone argument seems quite valid. Ryan Kaldari Quite. I have had editors tell me that if there were a freely licensed video of a rape (perhaps a historical one, say), then we would be duty-bound to include it in the article on [[rape]], because Wikipedia is not censored. That if we have a freely licensed video showing a person defecating, it should be included in the article on [[defecation]], because Wikipedia is not censored. That if any of the Iraqi beheading videos are CC-licensed, NOTCENSORED requires us to embed them in the biographies of those who were recently beheaded. That if we have five images of naked women in a bondage article, and none of men having the same bondage technique applied to them, still all the images of naked women have to be kept, because Wikipedia is not censored. And so on. Andreas I guess you misunderstood those people. Most likely they meant, that there should be no rule against such content, if it is an appropriate Illustration for the subject. Would you say the same, if this[1] or some other documentary film would be put under the CC license? Wouldn't it be illustrative as well as educational? [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtvuLAZxgOM ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 11:53 AM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: As a member of one feminist organization, I understand dominant position among feminists toward pornography. It's generally personal (thus, not an ideological position), but as the main stream pornography is male-centric and historically connected with women abuse, they generally oppose it, but without hard stance on it. Softening stance has happened especially after widening ideology to the LGBT movement and identity theory. Now, if we translate it into the frame of US culture, where every nudity is seen as pornography, general position of American feminists is more clear. And you showed that ambiguous position, including inside of your last post: In principle yes because it looks like one of the showings of the society dominated by men, but not sure what exactly; would be more happy not to think about it. Uh, ok. I'm pansexual and I like pornography. I'm also a feminist (I believe in equality). I'm also tired of being accused of being a prudish American because I think it's stupid that we have to have a mediocre photograph of a naked woman as the man shot for pregnancy. I also figure that if people want to censor what the hell goes on in their own home, they should have the power to do that. Smart kids learn to get around it anyway, if they really need to see a decapitation or a pair of breasts on Wikipedia. Being called names and being lumped into a oh all Americans are pro filter, blahblahblah, think nudity is bad is really tiresome. That quote also isn't mine. In other words, my point is that your (and Bishakha's) motivation is not the same to the motivation of others who are in favor of the image filter. As mentioned in some of the previous posts, I think that it is much more feminist to defend right of girls to be sexually educated, even if it would mean secretly browsing Wikipedia articles on sexuality, than to insist on comfort of adult females in offices and questionable background of one pseudo-ideological position. I have never said, *ever*, led on I don't think girls should not be educated about sexuality. I also grew up in a time when I had to find sexual content by way of a pile of Playboys in my cousins bathroom, watching MTV, and stealing my sisters copy of Madonna's SEX. Knowing how I was as a child (and I had a computer when I was 11, in my bedroom), I wouldn't be looking on Wikipedia to learn about sex. I'd be looking for some juicy image and videos and frankly you can't find that on Wikipedia (because we all know that Commons porn is really bad quality). And I'm sure there are plenty of other people, regardless of gender, nationality, sexuality or other demographics that probably would feel the same way. It's funny that you just turned this into a think about the children feminism thing. I guess in your eyes I'm a failed feminist. ;) -Sarah Who learned more about sexuality from Madonna then she ever did from school books or the internet. -- GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for Wikimedia http://www.glamwiki.org Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Arthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch and Sarah Stierch Consulting *Historical, cultural artistic research advising.* -- http://www.sarahstierch.com/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 16:24, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Milos, I believe this is exactly the kind of post that Sue was talking about in her blog. It is aggressive, it is alienating, and it is intimidating to others who may have useful and progressive ideas but are repeatedly seeing the opinions of others dismissed because they're women/not women or from the US/not from the US. The implication of your post is if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid. Your post here did not further the discussion in any way, and I politely ask you to refrain from making such posts in the future. As mentioned by Nathan and Oliver, I want to hear what do women think about the filter, how does it correlate with positions of men and how does it correlate with cultures. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 30 September 2011 12:15, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 16:24, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Milos, I believe this is exactly the kind of post that Sue was talking about in her blog. It is aggressive, it is alienating, and it is intimidating to others who may have useful and progressive ideas but are repeatedly seeing the opinions of others dismissed because they're women/not women or from the US/not from the US. The implication of your post is if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid. Your post here did not further the discussion in any way, and I politely ask you to refrain from making such posts in the future. As mentioned by Nathan and Oliver, I want to hear what do women think about the filter, how does it correlate with positions of men and how does it correlate with cultures. I'm sorry to tell you, though, that you will not get this answer from this mailing list. Only a tiny number of Wiki[mp]edians subscribe to this list, even fewer women subscribe to it, fewer still post to it, and your message incorrectly characterized the views of at least two American women based on their own posts to this list. Thus, it becomes a disincentive to share opinions when those opinions are first mischaracterized and secondly broken down by reported sex and geographic origin. Simply put, whatever happens on this list is statistically insignificant and cannot, even in the tiniest way, be considered representative of the views of either Wiki[mp]edians or our readership, let alone extrapolated to determine the opinions of a non-homogeneous country with 300 million residents. I think there is much that can be discussed on the range of topic areas covered in this thread. But we must keep in mind that the views expressed here are those of the individuals, and there is absolutely insufficient information for any of us to assume that those individual views are representative of any particular demographic. The sample size is far too small. Risker ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 18:29, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: I think there is much that can be discussed on the range of topic areas covered in this thread. But we must keep in mind that the views expressed here are those of the individuals, and there is absolutely insufficient information for any of us to assume that those individual views are representative of any particular demographic. The sample size is far too small. Thus, I asked for positions of female editors of German Wikipedia. And, generally, to try to find the answer available data. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 30 September 2011 03:47, WereSpielChequers werespielchequ...@gmail.com wrote: Re David's point that The trouble with responding on the blog is that responses seem to be being arbitrarily filtered. I can relate to that, it isn't just an annoying delay, there are posts which have gone up with timestamps long after my post. I don't know whether that was me not knowing how to do blog replies or something else. But the solution is in our hands, I've now posted my blog response in http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner#Your_blog_post where really it should have gone in the first place. http://suegardner.org/comment-policy/ All the comments people posted thus far have been approved. It just takes some time, since I sometimes sleep, or have meetings and so forth. I'll check to see if there's a way to note that for commenters pre-posting: I'm sure most people don't notice the comments policy. But thanks, WereSpielChequers --- I saw your note on my talkpage :-) Thanks, Sue -- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation 415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell 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] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
Hi Sarah On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 9:37 PM, Sarah Stierch sarah.stie...@gmail.comwrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 11:53 AM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: As a member of one feminist organization, I understand dominant position among feminists toward pornography. It's generally personal (thus, not an ideological position), but as the main stream pornography is male-centric and historically connected with women abuse, they generally oppose it, but without hard stance on it. Softening stance has happened especially after widening ideology to the LGBT movement and identity theory. Now, if we translate it into the frame of US culture, where every nudity is seen as pornography, general position of American feminists is more clear. And you showed that ambiguous position, including inside of your last post: In principle yes because it looks like one of the showings of the society dominated by men, but not sure what exactly; would be more happy not to think about it. Uh, ok. I'm pansexual and I like pornography. I'm also a feminist (I believe in equality). I'm also tired of being accused of being a prudish American because I think it's stupid that we have to have a mediocre photograph of a naked woman as the man shot for pregnancy. I also figure that if people want to censor what the hell goes on in their own home, they should have the power to do that. Smart kids learn to get around it anyway, if they really need to see a decapitation or a pair of breasts on Wikipedia. I have no idea about your personal stance, but correct me if I am wrong. Weren't you the one surprised to find an in your face photo of a vagina on an article about Vagina? You know where you said it was up-front and at the top unlike the article about penis where a big giant penis in one's face upon opening it ? just in case here it is [1]. Also, there is no difference between the pictures on the articles on these anatomical parts, the article you needed to compare it to was [[Human penis]] where is does have an in you face photo at the exact same place as the one about Vagina. I have a hard time understanding how you can claim to have either of those positions and resolve it with your earlier statements, but to each his own. I would even go as far as to say, that your original comments didn't appear very feminist at first glance. You are correct that if people want to censor what the hell goes on in their own home, they should have the power to do that, The question here is, who should develop such a way? people here are mostly arguing, if there is a need, someone would do it. Being called names and being lumped into a oh all Americans are pro filter, blahblahblah, think nudity is bad is really tiresome. That quote also isn't mine. In other words, my point is that your (and Bishakha's) motivation is not the same to the motivation of others who are in favor of the image filter. As mentioned in some of the previous posts, I think that it is much more feminist to defend right of girls to be sexually educated, even if it would mean secretly browsing Wikipedia articles on sexuality, than to insist on comfort of adult females in offices and questionable background of one pseudo-ideological position. I have never said, *ever*, led on I don't think girls should not be educated about sexuality. I also grew up in a time when I had to find sexual content by way of a pile of Playboys in my cousins bathroom, watching MTV, and stealing my sisters copy of Madonna's SEX. Knowing how I was as a child (and I had a computer when I was 11, in my bedroom), I wouldn't be looking on Wikipedia to learn about sex. I'd be looking for some juicy image and videos and frankly you can't find that on Wikipedia (because we all know that Commons porn is really bad quality). Now, please inform me, if you would want the kids today or a younger version of yourself to learn about sexual content from Playboys or Madonna's SEX (both are pretty antiquated today) or an Encyclopedia? you know where you and half the people here edit. It might have a couple of graphic images of body parts we all have but it has a other things to like important information, text, statistics, some even consider that educational. Now I don't know how playboy or Madonna's SEX are looked at by feminists, but I would always prefer an encyclopedia over it (even with an in your face picture of a human anatomical part). Regards Theo [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/067980.html ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
I do think that one needs to have spent some time in Germany to understand that things *are* different there. Nudity is no big deal. To give some examples, municipal swimming pools may have times set aside for nude bathing. They may have mixed saunas, or changing rooms used by females, males, and children at the same time. Male and female full frontal nudity occurs on the covers of mainstream publications. No one bats an eyelid. At the same time, Germany has some of the most stringent online youth protection laws when it comes to pornography, rather than nudity. Pornographic content on the internet is legal only if technical measures prohibit minors from getting access to the object (AVS = Age Verification System or Adult-Check-System). That's typically a credit card-based system. A similar system is used e.g. to prevent minors' access to cigarette vending machines. (The reason this doesn't apply to us is that our servers are in the US, outside German jurisdiction.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-09-26/Opinion_essay#German_paradox:_some_of_the_most_stringent_youth_protection_laws_in_the_world.2C_combined_with_cultural_openness_to_nudity So I never saw the vulva appearance on the de:WP main page as a significant problem, when seen in the German cultural context. German kids look at images like that in school. Andreas --- On Fri, 30/9/11, Oliver Koslowski o@t-online.de wrote: From: Oliver Koslowski o@t-online.de Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Friday, 30 September, 2011, 16:02 Am 30.09.2011 16:46, schrieb Risker: My question to you is why anyone would want to participate in a discussion where their opinions are going to be classified by their sex or their geographic location rather than their input. There's absolutely no harm in coming to a finding that, say, 80% of the US-American female contributors prefer the filter while only 30% of the non-US-American female contributors do. Just like there is no harm in stating that 86% of the core contributors to de-WP do not want to see the filter in their project. It really depends on what you do with these numbers. If you use them and try to understand why the two groups feel in such a drastically different way and how you wan to deal with that, then there can't be anything wrong with that, can there? You claim that Milos implied that if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid, and I have not seen anything like that. It strikes me as funny that you would complain about his post being aggressive and alienating when your post could be construed as exactly that. Regards, Oliver ___ 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] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 30 September 2011 12:32, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 18:29, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: I think there is much that can be discussed on the range of topic areas covered in this thread. But we must keep in mind that the views expressed here are those of the individuals, and there is absolutely insufficient information for any of us to assume that those individual views are representative of any particular demographic. The sample size is far too small. Thus, I asked for positions of female editors of German Wikipedia. And, generally, to try to find the answer available data. Do you have any reason to believe that a statistically significant number and percentage of female editors of the German Wikipedia are active participants in this mailing list? Risker ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 9:45 PM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 16:24, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Milos, I believe this is exactly the kind of post that Sue was talking about in her blog. It is aggressive, it is alienating, and it is intimidating to others who may have useful and progressive ideas but are repeatedly seeing the opinions of others dismissed because they're women/not women or from the US/not from the US. The implication of your post is if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid. Your post here did not further the discussion in any way, and I politely ask you to refrain from making such posts in the future. As mentioned by Nathan and Oliver, I want to hear what do women think about the filter, how does it correlate with positions of men and how does it correlate with cultures. I am not convinced that all women feel the same way about the filter, nor all men - similarly, cultures are not homogenous. It is hard to generalize on any of these bases (plural of 'basis'), because there is no simple correlation. Different individuals can have different responses, regardless of gender or culture. It doesn't tie in so neatly. Speaking for myself, no, I can't see myself using the filter. So what? That doesn't mean I use myself as a proxy for the rest of the world to decide that no one else should, or that anyone who does is somehow a lesser human. And yes, I'm against censorship, but as I've said before, I don't see the filter as proposed as censorship. The world is made up of different folks, whether we like it or not. And just as we provide for the person who doesn't flinch when seeing a vulva, why is it so wrong to even think about the person who does flinch when he or she sees a vulva? That's what I don't get. Cheers Bishakha ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 30 September 2011 12:06, Tobias Oelgarte tobias.oelga...@googlemail.comwrote: Am 30.09.2011 17:49, schrieb Andreas Kolbe: --- On Fri, 30/9/11, Ryan Kaldarirkald...@wikimedia.org wrote: From: Ryan Kaldarirkald...@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Friday, 30 September, 2011, 0:28 On 9/28/11 11:30 PM, David Gerard wrote: This post appears mostly to be the tone argument: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument - rather than address those opposed to the WMF (the body perceived to be abusing its power), Sue frames their arguments as badly-formed and that they should therefore be ignored. Well, when every thoughtful comment you have on a topic is met with nothing more than chants of WP:NOTCENSORED!, the tone argument seems quite valid. Ryan Kaldari Quite. I have had editors tell me that if there were a freely licensed video of a rape (perhaps a historical one, say), then we would be duty-bound to include it in the article on [[rape]], because Wikipedia is not censored. That if we have a freely licensed video showing a person defecating, it should be included in the article on [[defecation]], because Wikipedia is not censored. That if any of the Iraqi beheading videos are CC-licensed, NOTCENSORED requires us to embed them in the biographies of those who were recently beheaded. That if we have five images of naked women in a bondage article, and none of men having the same bondage technique applied to them, still all the images of naked women have to be kept, because Wikipedia is not censored. And so on. Andreas I guess you misunderstood those people. Most likely they meant, that there should be no rule against such content, if it is an appropriate Illustration for the subject. snip No, I think he understood it just fine. I have seen similar arguments in several places on various projects: not just that it could be acceptable, but that there is a duty to include such information in articles that overrides editorial judgment, regardless of quality, source or other factors. Risker ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 18:46, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Do you have any reason to believe that a statistically significant number and percentage of female editors of the German Wikipedia are active participants in this mailing list? No, but there are German Wikipedians who could research that issue. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote: I have no idea about your personal stance, but correct me if I am wrong. Weren't you the one surprised to find an in your face photo of a vagina on an article about Vagina? You know where you said it was up-front and at the top unlike the article about penis where a big giant penis in one's face upon opening it ? just in case here it is [1]. Also, there is no difference between the pictures on the articles on these anatomical parts, the article you needed to compare it to was [[Human penis]] where is does have an in you face photo at the exact same place as the one about Vagina. I have a hard time understanding how you can claim to have either of those positions and resolve it with your earlier statements, but to each his own. I would even go as far as to say, that your original comments didn't appear very feminist at first glance. I understand that vaginas, penises, breasts, butts, etc need to be visually shown. I just laughed when I put vagina in the en.Wikipedia search box a spread vagina is shown with all the much needed descriptors to the part. When I search in en.Wikipedia penis I get a collection of penises preserved in jars. There is a human penis article, again with all of the bits explained and shown. You just have to search for human penis or follow the links to it to find it. But frankly, if I'm going to look up penis on Wikipedia, I'm sure most people are looking for the human penis, not animal penises. I'm also sure more than a few of them pass over the direct for the human penis article. I think it's entertaining. Again, I know that a vagina needs to be shown in an article about a vagina, but, I was, for 5 seconds, taken aback. ::shrugs:: Now, please inform me, if you would want the kids today or a younger version of yourself to learn about sexual content from Playboys or Madonna's SEX (both are pretty antiquated today) or an Encyclopedia? you know where you Encyclopedias are boring, is what I would have said as a kid. When I was a kid I wanted juicy, fun, colorful, exciting content. Not a bunch of writing. I don't have children, but, I work in museums, and I worked at the world's largest children's museum, I have a little bit of knowledge about children's education (but nothing compared to others). Kids seek things out. They're sneaky, and parents aren't idiots - you can't hide things from your kids. I was one of those kids - I was going to to the bookshop in 1989 looking for Dr. Ruth books, I was sneaking off to the art books to look at Nan Goldin books. But, again, that's just my personal experience. And as a side note (and this goes to a number of people on this list): I don't need anyone, of any gender, questioning my feminism. It's as insulting as being called a censor. There are no rule books. But if there was... ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feminine_Mystique -Sarah -- GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for Wikimedia http://www.glamwiki.org Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Arthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch and Sarah Stierch Consulting *Historical, cultural artistic research advising.* -- http://www.sarahstierch.com/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
Tobias, you be the judge whether I misunderstood my fellow Wikipedians' comments. Here are some verbatim quotes, from different contributors: How exactly would you propose to get an appropriately licensed video of a rape? [...] I suppose, in the unlikely even that we were to get a video that were appropriately licensed, did not raise privacy concerns, and was germane to the subject, we'd use it. Why shouldn't we? The specific role of NOTCENSORED is to say We do not exclude things because people are squeamish about them, and replacing the word censor with editorial judgment is a simple case of euphemism, and does not change what it means. As to the beheading videos, yes, yes, and most certainly yes. We show graphic images of suffering in articles about The Holocaust, even though that may not be the most comfortable thing for some people. Why wouldn't we do so in an article about another horrific act, if the material is under a license we can use it with? I would have no issues with videos of animals (including humans) defecating on appropriate articles. I'm sure you were looking for an OMG THAT'S SO GROSS! response, but you won't find it from me. [me:] The question is not whether you would be grossed out watching it. The question is, what encyclopedic value would it add? I don't think there is a single human being on the planet who needs to watch a video of a person defecating to understand how defecation works. If that is your real rationale, then why aren't you going to support removal of images from human nose? But your chat about rape and beheading (both subjects for which I'd strongly advocate a video for, if there could be a free, privacy-keeping one) makes me lose WP:AGF a bittle on this grasping at straws of yours. Let me remember that we, as a culture, had to grow up a lot to accept not being censored. Censoring is the exact opposite of growing up as a culture. It sounded to me like they meant it. Doesn't it to you? They were all established users; one of them an admin. I had a long, and perfectly amicable e-mail discussion about it with him afterwards. Their position is entirely logical, but it lacks common sense and, indeed, a little empathy. Andreas --- On Fri, 30/9/11, Tobias Oelgarte tobias.oelga...@googlemail.com wrote: From: Tobias Oelgarte tobias.oelga...@googlemail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Friday, 30 September, 2011, 17:06 Am 30.09.2011 17:49, schrieb Andreas Kolbe: --- On Fri, 30/9/11, Ryan Kaldarirkald...@wikimedia.org wrote: From: Ryan Kaldarirkald...@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Friday, 30 September, 2011, 0:28 On 9/28/11 11:30 PM, David Gerard wrote: This post appears mostly to be the tone argument: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument - rather than address those opposed to the WMF (the body perceived to be abusing its power), Sue frames their arguments as badly-formed and that they should therefore be ignored. Well, when every thoughtful comment you have on a topic is met with nothing more than chants of WP:NOTCENSORED!, the tone argument seems quite valid. Ryan Kaldari Quite. I have had editors tell me that if there were a freely licensed video of a rape (perhaps a historical one, say), then we would be duty-bound to include it in the article on [[rape]], because Wikipedia is not censored. That if we have a freely licensed video showing a person defecating, it should be included in the article on [[defecation]], because Wikipedia is not censored. That if any of the Iraqi beheading videos are CC-licensed, NOTCENSORED requires us to embed them in the biographies of those who were recently beheaded. That if we have five images of naked women in a bondage article, and none of men having the same bondage technique applied to them, still all the images of naked women have to be kept, because Wikipedia is not censored. And so on. Andreas I guess you misunderstood those people. Most likely they meant, that there should be no rule against such content, if it is an appropriate Illustration for the subject. Would you say the same, if this[1] or some other documentary film would be put under the CC license? Wouldn't it be illustrative as well as educational? [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtvuLAZxgOM ___ 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] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
I would prefer to read these comments in context and not in snippets. Can you point me to the corresponding discussion(s)? -- Niabot Am 30.09.2011 19:02, schrieb Andreas Kolbe: Tobias, you be the judge whether I misunderstood my fellow Wikipedians' comments. Here are some verbatim quotes, from different contributors: How exactly would you propose to get an appropriately licensed video of a rape? [...] I suppose, in the unlikely even that we were to get a video that were appropriately licensed, did not raise privacy concerns, and was germane to the subject, we'd use it. Why shouldn't we? The specific role of NOTCENSORED is to say We do not exclude things because people are squeamish about them, and replacing the word censor with editorial judgment is a simple case of euphemism, and does not change what it means. As to the beheading videos, yes, yes, and most certainly yes. We show graphic images of suffering in articles about The Holocaust, even though that may not be the most comfortable thing for some people. Why wouldn't we do so in an article about another horrific act, if the material is under a license we can use it with? I would have no issues with videos of animals (including humans) defecating on appropriate articles. I'm sure you were looking for an OMG THAT'S SO GROSS! response, but you won't find it from me. [me:] The question is not whether you would be grossed out watching it. The question is, what encyclopedic value would it add? I don't think there is a single human being on the planet who needs to watch a video of a person defecating to understand how defecation works. If that is your real rationale, then why aren't you going to support removal of images from human nose? But your chat about rape and beheading (both subjects for which I'd strongly advocate a video for, if there could be a free, privacy-keeping one) makes me lose WP:AGF a bittle on this grasping at straws of yours. Let me remember that we, as a culture, had to grow up a lot to accept not being censored. Censoring is the exact opposite of growing up as a culture. It sounded to me like they meant it. Doesn't it to you? They were all established users; one of them an admin. I had a long, and perfectly amicable e-mail discussion about it with him afterwards. Their position is entirely logical, but it lacks common sense and, indeed, a little empathy. Andreas --- On Fri, 30/9/11, Tobias Oelgartetobias.oelga...@googlemail.com wrote: From: Tobias Oelgartetobias.oelga...@googlemail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Friday, 30 September, 2011, 17:06 Am 30.09.2011 17:49, schrieb Andreas Kolbe: --- On Fri, 30/9/11, Ryan Kaldarirkald...@wikimedia.org wrote: From: Ryan Kaldarirkald...@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Friday, 30 September, 2011, 0:28 On 9/28/11 11:30 PM, David Gerard wrote: This post appears mostly to be the tone argument: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument - rather than address those opposed to the WMF (the body perceived to be abusing its power), Sue frames their arguments as badly-formed and that they should therefore be ignored. Well, when every thoughtful comment you have on a topic is met with nothing more than chants of WP:NOTCENSORED!, the tone argument seems quite valid. Ryan Kaldari Quite. I have had editors tell me that if there were a freely licensed video of a rape (perhaps a historical one, say), then we would be duty-bound to include it in the article on [[rape]], because Wikipedia is not censored. That if we have a freely licensed video showing a person defecating, it should be included in the article on [[defecation]], because Wikipedia is not censored. That if any of the Iraqi beheading videos are CC-licensed, NOTCENSORED requires us to embed them in the biographies of those who were recently beheaded. That if we have five images of naked women in a bondage article, and none of men having the same bondage technique applied to them, still all the images of naked women have to be kept, because Wikipedia is not censored. And so on. Andreas I guess you misunderstood those people. Most likely they meant, that there should be no rule against such content, if it is an appropriate Illustration for the subject. Would you say the same, if this[1] or some other documentary film would be put under the CC license? Wouldn't it be illustrative as well as educational? [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtvuLAZxgOM ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___
[Foundation-l] French Wikipedian response to image filter
http://wikitrekk.blogspot.com/2011/09/out-of-blue.html - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:21 PM, Bishakha Datta bishakhada...@gmail.comwrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 9:45 PM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 16:24, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Milos, I believe this is exactly the kind of post that Sue was talking about in her blog. It is aggressive, it is alienating, and it is intimidating to others who may have useful and progressive ideas but are repeatedly seeing the opinions of others dismissed because they're women/not women or from the US/not from the US. The implication of your post is if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid. Your post here did not further the discussion in any way, and I politely ask you to refrain from making such posts in the future. As mentioned by Nathan and Oliver, I want to hear what do women think about the filter, how does it correlate with positions of men and how does it correlate with cultures. I am not convinced that all women feel the same way about the filter, nor all men - similarly, cultures are not homogenous. It is hard to generalize on any of these bases (plural of 'basis'), because there is no simple correlation. Different individuals can have different responses, regardless of gender or culture. It doesn't tie in so neatly. Speaking for myself, no, I can't see myself using the filter. So what? That doesn't mean I use myself as a proxy for the rest of the world to decide that no one else should, or that anyone who does is somehow a lesser human. And yes, I'm against censorship, but as I've said before, I don't see the filter as proposed as censorship. The world is made up of different folks, whether we like it or not. And just as we provide for the person who doesn't flinch when seeing a vulva, why is it so wrong to even think about the person who does flinch when he or she sees a vulva? That's what I don't get. Bishakha, call it editorial-content, call it censorship or any other euphemism - at the heart of it, it is deciding what someone gets to see and what not. It should not be our job to censor our own content. The strongest argument I read against this has been - it is not something WMF and the board should implement and develop, If there was a need to censor/cleanse graphic content, there would a successful mirror or a fork of the project already somewhere. Instead, we have small distributions/projects which use 1-2 year old offline dumps to cleanse and then consider safe. Now, If you were to apply this argument to a government, or a regime and they decide on removing things that make them flinch - how different would we be from dictatorial regimes who limit/restrict access to Wikipedia for all the people that do flinch? I can point to Indian IB ministry issues or Film censor board of India, but you probably know more about them than me. Regards Theo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Friday 30 September 2011 10:54 PM, Theo10011 wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:21 PM, Bishakha Dattabishakhada...@gmail.comwrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 9:45 PM, Milos Rancicmill...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 16:24, Riskerrisker...@gmail.com wrote: Milos, I believe this is exactly the kind of post that Sue was talking about in her blog. It is aggressive, it is alienating, and it is intimidating to others who may have useful and progressive ideas but are repeatedly seeing the opinions of others dismissed because they're women/not women or from the US/not from the US. The implication of your post is if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid. Your post here did not further the discussion in any way, and I politely ask you to refrain from making such posts in the future. As mentioned by Nathan and Oliver, I want to hear what do women think about the filter, how does it correlate with positions of men and how does it correlate with cultures. I am not convinced that all women feel the same way about the filter, nor all men - similarly, cultures are not homogenous. It is hard to generalize on any of these bases (plural of 'basis'), because there is no simple correlation. Different individuals can have different responses, regardless of gender or culture. It doesn't tie in so neatly. Speaking for myself, no, I can't see myself using the filter. So what? That doesn't mean I use myself as a proxy for the rest of the world to decide that no one else should, or that anyone who does is somehow a lesser human. And yes, I'm against censorship, but as I've said before, I don't see the filter as proposed as censorship. The world is made up of different folks, whether we like it or not. And just as we provide for the person who doesn't flinch when seeing a vulva, why is it so wrong to even think about the person who does flinch when he or she sees a vulva? That's what I don't get. Bishakha, call it editorial-content, call it censorship or any other euphemism - at the heart of it, it is deciding what someone gets to see and what not. It should not be our job to censor our own content. The strongest argument I read against this has been - it is not something WMF and the board should implement and develop, If there was a need to censor/cleanse graphic content, there would a successful mirror or a fork of the project already somewhere. Instead, we have small distributions/projects which use 1-2 year old offline dumps to cleanse and then consider safe. Now, If you were to apply this argument to a government, or a regime and they decide on removing things that make them flinch - how different would we be from dictatorial regimes who limit/restrict access to Wikipedia for all the people that do flinch? I can point to Indian IB ministry issues or Film censor board of India, but you probably know more about them than me. There is a big difference between *ratings* and *censorship*, a difference which the Indian government has routinely ignored or deliberately overlooked, as, I suspect is happening here in this discussion. Naturally, there are circumstances where ratings systems can be used to create effective censorship, but this doesn't have to be the case, and indeed isn't in various parts of the world - evidenced by the fact that virtually every country in the world has a ratings system for film. (Including Germany, by the way). Regards Theo ___ 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] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 11:14 PM, Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.comwrote: On Friday 30 September 2011 10:54 PM, Theo10011 wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:21 PM, Bishakha Dattabishakhada...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 9:45 PM, Milos Rancicmill...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 16:24, Riskerrisker...@gmail.com wrote: Milos, I believe this is exactly the kind of post that Sue was talking about in her blog. It is aggressive, it is alienating, and it is intimidating to others who may have useful and progressive ideas but are repeatedly seeing the opinions of others dismissed because they're women/not women or from the US/not from the US. The implication of your post is if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid. Your post here did not further the discussion in any way, and I politely ask you to refrain from making such posts in the future. As mentioned by Nathan and Oliver, I want to hear what do women think about the filter, how does it correlate with positions of men and how does it correlate with cultures. I am not convinced that all women feel the same way about the filter, nor all men - similarly, cultures are not homogenous. It is hard to generalize on any of these bases (plural of 'basis'), because there is no simple correlation. Different individuals can have different responses, regardless of gender or culture. It doesn't tie in so neatly. Speaking for myself, no, I can't see myself using the filter. So what? That doesn't mean I use myself as a proxy for the rest of the world to decide that no one else should, or that anyone who does is somehow a lesser human. And yes, I'm against censorship, but as I've said before, I don't see the filter as proposed as censorship. The world is made up of different folks, whether we like it or not. And just as we provide for the person who doesn't flinch when seeing a vulva, why is it so wrong to even think about the person who does flinch when he or she sees a vulva? That's what I don't get. Bishakha, call it editorial-content, call it censorship or any other euphemism - at the heart of it, it is deciding what someone gets to see and what not. It should not be our job to censor our own content. The strongest argument I read against this has been - it is not something WMF and the board should implement and develop, If there was a need to censor/cleanse graphic content, there would a successful mirror or a fork of the project already somewhere. Instead, we have small distributions/projects which use 1-2 year old offline dumps to cleanse and then consider safe. Now, If you were to apply this argument to a government, or a regime and they decide on removing things that make them flinch - how different would we be from dictatorial regimes who limit/restrict access to Wikipedia for all the people that do flinch? I can point to Indian IB ministry issues or Film censor board of India, but you probably know more about them than me. There is a big difference between *ratings* and *censorship*, a difference which the Indian government has routinely ignored or deliberately overlooked, as, I suspect is happening here in this discussion. Naturally, there are circumstances where ratings systems can be used to create effective censorship, but this doesn't have to be the case, and indeed isn't in various parts of the world - evidenced by the fact that virtually every country in the world has a ratings system for film. (Including Germany, by the way). How about an encyclopedia? Anywhere? Are you suggesting a rating system for an encyclopedia? Theo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 30 September 2011 09:15, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 16:24, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Milos, I believe this is exactly the kind of post that Sue was talking about in her blog. It is aggressive, it is alienating, and it is intimidating to others who may have useful and progressive ideas but are repeatedly seeing the opinions of others dismissed because they're women/not women or from the US/not from the US. The implication of your post is if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid. I just want to point out quickly that I am not American, and my position on all these issues is actually a very Canadian one. Ray and Risker and other Canadians will recognize this. Canada doesn't really feel itself to have a fixed national identity. We makes jokes about the fact that that IS our identity -- that we are continually renegotiating and stretching the boundaries of what it means to be Canadian. We believe our culture is the aggregation and accumulation of all the views and experiences and attitudes of our citizenry. Each wave of immigration --the French and the British, the Chinese, the Italians, the Indians, the Jamaicans, and so forth-- has influenced what Canada is, and how it understands itself. That's what I'm used to, as a Canadian -- it's normal for me to listen to minorities and find ways to incorporate their perspectives into mine. Thanks, Sue -- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation 415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell 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] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Friday 30 September 2011 11:19 PM, Theo10011 wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 11:14 PM, Achal Prabhalaaprabh...@gmail.comwrote: On Friday 30 September 2011 10:54 PM, Theo10011 wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:21 PM, Bishakha Dattabishakhada...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 9:45 PM, Milos Rancicmill...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 16:24, Riskerrisker...@gmail.com wrote: Milos, I believe this is exactly the kind of post that Sue was talking about in her blog. It is aggressive, it is alienating, and it is intimidating to others who may have useful and progressive ideas but are repeatedly seeing the opinions of others dismissed because they're women/not women or from the US/not from the US. The implication of your post is if you're a woman from the US, your opinion is invalid. Your post here did not further the discussion in any way, and I politely ask you to refrain from making such posts in the future. As mentioned by Nathan and Oliver, I want to hear what do women think about the filter, how does it correlate with positions of men and how does it correlate with cultures. I am not convinced that all women feel the same way about the filter, nor all men - similarly, cultures are not homogenous. It is hard to generalize on any of these bases (plural of 'basis'), because there is no simple correlation. Different individuals can have different responses, regardless of gender or culture. It doesn't tie in so neatly. Speaking for myself, no, I can't see myself using the filter. So what? That doesn't mean I use myself as a proxy for the rest of the world to decide that no one else should, or that anyone who does is somehow a lesser human. And yes, I'm against censorship, but as I've said before, I don't see the filter as proposed as censorship. The world is made up of different folks, whether we like it or not. And just as we provide for the person who doesn't flinch when seeing a vulva, why is it so wrong to even think about the person who does flinch when he or she sees a vulva? That's what I don't get. Bishakha, call it editorial-content, call it censorship or any other euphemism - at the heart of it, it is deciding what someone gets to see and what not. It should not be our job to censor our own content. The strongest argument I read against this has been - it is not something WMF and the board should implement and develop, If there was a need to censor/cleanse graphic content, there would a successful mirror or a fork of the project already somewhere. Instead, we have small distributions/projects which use 1-2 year old offline dumps to cleanse and then consider safe. Now, If you were to apply this argument to a government, or a regime and they decide on removing things that make them flinch - how different would we be from dictatorial regimes who limit/restrict access to Wikipedia for all the people that do flinch? I can point to Indian IB ministry issues or Film censor board of India, but you probably know more about them than me. There is a big difference between *ratings* and *censorship*, a difference which the Indian government has routinely ignored or deliberately overlooked, as, I suspect is happening here in this discussion. Naturally, there are circumstances where ratings systems can be used to create effective censorship, but this doesn't have to be the case, and indeed isn't in various parts of the world - evidenced by the fact that virtually every country in the world has a ratings system for film. (Including Germany, by the way). How about an encyclopedia? Anywhere? Are you suggesting a rating system for an encyclopedia? No. I'm suggesting that: Ratings are different from censorship. Sometimes, ratings can be used to create censorship. Often, ratings do just that - rate. For film. In several countries around the world, including India, and Germany. Theo ___ 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] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 30 September 2011 18:24, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote: Bishakha, call it editorial-content, call it censorship or any other euphemism - at the heart of it, it is deciding what someone gets to see and what not. That is just completely untrue. The image filter will allow people to choose what to see and what not to see. We won't be making the decisions... ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 19:59, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: I just want to point out quickly that I am not American, and my position on all these issues is actually a very Canadian one. Ray and Risker and other Canadians will recognize this. Canada doesn't really feel itself to have a fixed national identity. We makes jokes about the fact that that IS our identity -- that we are continually renegotiating and stretching the boundaries of what it means to be Canadian. We believe our culture is the aggregation and accumulation of all the views and experiences and attitudes of our citizenry. Each wave of immigration --the French and the British, the Chinese, the Italians, the Indians, the Jamaicans, and so forth-- has influenced what Canada is, and how it understands itself. That's what I'm used to, as a Canadian -- it's normal for me to listen to minorities and find ways to incorporate their perspectives into mine. Most importantly, you are a manger :P There is a line between protecting autonomy of particular community and protecting the whole: * When community around Arabic Wikipedia doesn't want to show Muhammad depictions, that's their right. * When community around Aceh Wikipedia wants to delete all Muhammad depictions from Commons, that's not their right. * When a person wants to remove whichever images from his or her Wikipedia interface, that's his or her right. * When implementation of that feature affects everybody, that's not his or her right. Without solutions like safe.en.wikipedia.org, I confess that I don't know how that should be solved. However, as successful manager, I am sure that you'll find a solution. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 11:31 PM, Achal Prabhala aprabh...@gmail.comwrote: On Friday 30 September 2011 11:19 PM, Theo10011 wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 11:14 PM, Achal Prabhalaaprabh...@gmail.com wrote: How about an encyclopedia? Anywhere? Are you suggesting a rating system for an encyclopedia? No. I'm suggesting that: Ratings are different from censorship. Actually, it's a matter of perspective if you consider that. If you read the history Censorship in United States, it has an entire section about Film censorship[1], also of relevance might be the MPAA crticism section [2] or Tipper gore led Parent's Music resource center [3]. My question was, has there been an instance of an encyclopedia being censored or even rated? Sometimes, ratings can be used to create censorship. Often, ratings do just that - rate. They actually restrict access, those ratings limit who can see a certain movie, depending upon the classification. Again, it is a matter of perspective. For film. In several countries around the world, including India, and Germany. Theo [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_States#Film_censorship [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_America_film_rating_system#Criticisms [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Friday 30 September 2011 11:47 PM, Theo10011 wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 11:31 PM, Achal Prabhalaaprabh...@gmail.comwrote: On Friday 30 September 2011 11:19 PM, Theo10011 wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 11:14 PM, Achal Prabhalaaprabh...@gmail.com wrote: How about an encyclopedia? Anywhere? Are you suggesting a rating system for an encyclopedia? No. I'm suggesting that: Ratings are different from censorship. Actually, it's a matter of perspective if you consider that. If you read the history Censorship in United States, it has an entire section about Film censorship[1], also of relevance might be the MPAA crticism section [2] or Tipper gore led Parent's Music resource center [3]. My question was, has there been an instance of an encyclopedia being censored or even rated? Sometimes, ratings can be used to create censorship. Often, ratings do just that - rate. They actually restrict access, those ratings limit who can see a certain movie, depending upon the classification. Again, it is a matter of perspective. No. It's a matter of fact. Ratings can sometimes lead to censorship, often don't, and definitely do not have to. For film. And the same logic can apply here on Wikipedia or with any other kind of media. Wikipedia already has extensive internal and external quality ratings; this does not mean that stubs are being censored. For film. In several countries around the world, including India, and Germany. Theo [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_States#Film_censorship [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_America_film_rating_system#Criticisms [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center ___ 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] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 11:44 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: On 30 September 2011 18:24, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote: Bishakha, call it editorial-content, call it censorship or any other euphemism - at the heart of it, it is deciding what someone gets to see and what not. That is just completely untrue. The image filter will allow people to choose what to see and what not to see. We won't be making the decisions... Actually, we will be. Depending upon how such a system is implemented, it will use the editors or categories to find out which images go where and what is offensive. If you look at the mock-ups used in the referendum page[1][2], you will see switchable content filters based on categories or something similar. What picture goes under which content tab, would probably be decided by the categories. People won't get to pick what goes under 'sexual content' or 'other controversial content' - for all we know, those 2 filters can occupy 90% of commons. I never got the impression that viewers would get a choice to pick and choose every single image they deem offensive, which brings the inevitable conundrum what is offensive to you, might not be for me. Then, there also Kim's challenge to break such a filtering system. Theo [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PIF-Proposal-Workflow-Anon-FromNav-Step2.png [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PIF-Proposal-Workflow-Anon-FromNav-Step3.png ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 30 September 2011 19:41, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote: Then, there also Kim's challenge to break such a filtering system. Kim doesn't need to do a damn thing. There are enough *actual* trolls on the Internet to mess with it just for the lulz. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Berlios.de is shutting down
http://www.berlios.de/ Is there anything we could do to help? Is this too far outside our area? I recall how useful and helpful BerliOS was back in the olden days when it was Wikipedia's downtime backup and news source ... before Wikipedia going down knocked over BerliOS too. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 9/30/2011 8:53 AM, Milos Rancic wrote: As mentioned in some of the previous posts, I think that it is much more feminist to defend right of girls to be sexually educated, even if it would mean secretly browsing Wikipedia articles on sexuality, than to insist on comfort of adult females in offices and questionable background of one pseudo-ideological position. From a feminist perspective, I would think there's clear reason for concern that the kind of sexual education (not just) girls would receive while browsing Wikipedia articles is built upon and reinforces many social elements connected with the oppression of women, and that the selection and presentation of images is a big part of the problem. Having divergent approaches starting with such basic topics as penises and vaginas suggests that that the difference in treatment is pretty pervasive. It's good to support education for girls, but if the kind of education provided is just going to perpetuate the problem, it's fair to question whether it's being conducted appropriately. On this score, it seems likely that we are failing to live up to one of our core principles, that of neutrality. I think we need significantly better editorial judgment applied to many of these articles to address it. That will be a challenge as long as we have a male-dominated community that lacks much appreciation for the nature of the problem, and often fails to recognize how diverse its manifestations are. But I suspect that if we were substantially closer to a neutral approach in our coverage of these topics, there might be much less pressure around the principle of resistance to censorship. --Michael Snow ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 8:41 PM, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote: That is just completely untrue. The image filter will allow people to choose what to see and what not to see. We won't be making the decisions... Actually, we will be. Depending upon how such a system is implemented, it will use the editors or categories to find out which images go where and what is offensive. If you look at the mock-ups used in the referendum page[1][2], you will see switchable content filters based on categories or something similar. What picture goes under which content tab, would probably be decided by the categories. No, we won't be. We will be putting certain categories/tags/classifications on images, but it will still be the readers themselves who decide whether or not they see the tagged images. People won't get to pick what goes under 'sexual content' or 'other controversial content' - for all we know, those 2 filters can occupy 90% of commons. I never got the impression that viewers would get a choice to pick and choose every single image they deem offensive, which brings the inevitable conundrum what is offensive to you, might not be for me. There might well be an option to show a certain image even though it's under the filter. Apart from that, if we were of the opinion that we should do something perfectly or not at all, we would not have any of our projects. -- 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] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On 30 September 2011 20:04, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com wrote: On this score, it seems likely that we are failing to live up to one of our core principles, that of neutrality. I think we need significantly better editorial judgment applied to many of these articles to address it. That will be a challenge as long as we have a male-dominated community that lacks much appreciation for the nature of the problem, and often fails to recognize how diverse its manifestations are. But I suspect that if we were substantially closer to a neutral approach in our coverage of these topics, there might be much less pressure around the principle of resistance to censorship. I have heard *many* laments about the quality of our coverage of feminist issues from women. This suggests even to my relatively privileged white male brain that there may be an actual problem here. Possibly a strike force of feminist academics, armed with print references out to *here*?q - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Berlios.de is shutting down
This is work for ARCHIVE TEAM http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=BerliOS 2011/9/30 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com http://www.berlios.de/ Is there anything we could do to help? Is this too far outside our area? I recall how useful and helpful BerliOS was back in the olden days when it was Wikipedia's downtime backup and news source ... before Wikipedia going down knocked over BerliOS too. - 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] Berlios.de is shutting down
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 21:01, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: http://www.berlios.de/ Is there anything we could do to help? Is this too far outside our area? I recall how useful and helpful BerliOS was back in the olden days when it was Wikipedia's downtime backup and news source ... before Wikipedia going down knocked over BerliOS too. How much money they need? Is it possible that WM DE helps them somehow? Besides being just a repository, they seem to be more useful for free software community, by offering other kinds of support, as well. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 2:14 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 30 September 2011 18:24, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote: Bishakha, call it editorial-content, call it censorship or any other euphemism - at the heart of it, it is deciding what someone gets to see and what not. That is just completely untrue. The image filter will allow people to choose what to see and what not to see. We won't be making the decisions... Since the filter doesn't exist yet, nor are there any technical descriptions of how it might work, it's impossible to make definitive pronouncements. Even so, readers won't be the ones making the crucial decisions about categorization - and readers might be at the mercy of libraries, schools, workplaces, governments, etc. that make use of the filter non-optional. We should assume that any system that relies on editor-generated categories will be a long-term battleground; as we've always seen, those with the most extreme positions come to dominate the most contentious areas - requiring the intervention of many others over extended periods of time to reach incremental compromises. The image filter will likely be no different. Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
André Engels wrote: We will be putting certain categories/tags/classifications on images, but it will still be the readers themselves who decide whether or not they see the tagged images. But _we_ will need to determine the categories/tags/classifications to use and the images to which they're applied. As previously discussed, unless we implement an unveiled women category (which is highly unlikely), readers who object to such images will be discriminated against. And for a hypothetical nudity category, we'll have to decide what constitutes nudity. This will trigger endless debate, and whatever definition prevails will fail to jibe that held by a large number of readers. We will be putting certain categories/tags/classifications on images, There might well be an option to show a certain image even though it's under the filter. Apart from that, if we were of the opinion that we should do something perfectly or not at all, we would not have any of our projects. As I pointed out to you in a previous reply, an alternative image filter implementation has been proposed (and is endorsed by WMF trustee Samuel Klein). It would accommodate everyone and require no determinations on the part of the community (let alone analysis/tagging of millions of files, with thousands more uploaded every day). Please see the relevant discussion: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Image_filter_referendum/en/Categories#general_image_filter_vs._category_system or http://goo.gl/t6ly5 David Levy ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:54 PM, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote: Bishakha, call it editorial-content, call it censorship or any other euphemism - at the heart of it, it is deciding what someone gets to see and what not. Theo: they are different things, and given the premium on accuracy and precision at wikipedia, I don't think we can claim that editorial judgments and censorship are the same. It should not be our job to censor our own content. We're not suggesting that as far as I know. Nothing is being removed from the sites. [1] The strongest argument I read against this has been - it is not something WMF and the board should implement and develop, If there was a need to censor/cleanse graphic content, there would a successful mirror or a fork of the project already somewhere. Instead, we have small distributions/projects which use 1-2 year old offline dumps to cleanse and then consider safe. Now, If you were to apply this argument to a government, or a regime and they decide on removing things that make them flinch - how different would we be from dictatorial regimes who limit/restrict access to Wikipedia for all the people that do flinch? There is no proposal to remove anything from the sites; as I understand it, it is proposed that users can click on a button to turn off some images - those who want to continue to see everything can continue to do so. Nothing goes. But when the Indian government bans Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses or James Lane's book on Shivaji, that is censorship.[2] I can point to Indian IB ministry issues or Film censor board of India, but you probably know more about them than me. Yes, I know from personal experience - had a huge brush with the Censor Board in 2001 and refused to remove any content from my docu as demanded by them. [3] Cheers Bishakha [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_India [3] http://infochangeindia.org/agenda/the-limits-of-freedom/the-secret-life-of-film-censorship.html ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 21:12, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 30 September 2011 20:04, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com wrote: On this score, it seems likely that we are failing to live up to one of our core principles, that of neutrality. I think we need significantly better editorial judgment applied to many of these articles to address it. That will be a challenge as long as we have a male-dominated community that lacks much appreciation for the nature of the problem, and often fails to recognize how diverse its manifestations are. But I suspect that if we were substantially closer to a neutral approach in our coverage of these topics, there might be much less pressure around the principle of resistance to censorship. I have heard *many* laments about the quality of our coverage of feminist issues from women. This suggests even to my relatively privileged white male brain that there may be an actual problem here. Possibly a strike force of feminist academics, armed with print references out to *here*?q I wanted to say the same. Hm. I'll talk with others from my organization and see is it possible to mobilize a couple of European feminist organizations to work on those articles. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Partnering with organizations - was: Re: Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 5:56 PM, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: I wanted to say the same. Hm. I'll talk with others from my organization and see is it possible to mobilize a couple of European feminist organizations to work on those articles. These are the types of discussions we frequently have on the gender gap list. Panyd in the UK is currently developing a program to work with women's organizations to not only bring more editors but also broaden content. If there is anything I can do to lend a hand, even from afar, please let me know. It's also something I hope to develop here in the US in the future. I encourage people interested in developing these types of ideas further to stop by gender gap-l as well! https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap But it's great to see these projects developing elsewhere, of course :D -Sarah -- GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for Wikimedia http://www.glamwiki.org Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Arthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch and Sarah Stierch Consulting *Historical, cultural artistic research advising.* -- http://www.sarahstierch.com/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
I wrote: And for a hypothetical nudity category, we'll have to decide what constitutes nudity. This will trigger endless debate, and whatever definition prevails will fail to jibe that held by a large number of readers. The above should read jibe _with_ that held by a large number of readers. David Levy ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Experiment: Blurring all images on Wikipedia
Hi, A while ago I made a bookmarklet that blurs images in articles on the english Wikipedia and reveals them when the user hovers over the image. I now had a chance to test this as a skin.js extension. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BlurredImages/vector.js http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BlurredImages/vector.css To try this out you would have to copy or import this code into your own skin.js and skin.css files which are available e.g. under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/vector.js http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/vector.css This only works in recent desktop versions of Opera and Firefox and only on devices where you can easily hover. It may show some images that it ought to blur for boring reasons. Spoilers ahead if you want to try it. Browsing around with that is quite interesting. Some findings: it is a bit annoying when UI elements (say clipart in maintenance templates) are blurred. The same goes for small logo-like graphics, say actual logos, flags, coat of arms, and actual text, like rotated table headers. I did expect that blurred maps would be annoying, but I've not found them to be. Take http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagebüll as example, the marker and text are overlayed so they are not blurred, and I can recognize the shape of Germany fine. I note that there is a perceptual problem if you click around to explore how blurring affects the experience as that does not reflect what a user would do. I noticed that my impression changed a lot when switching from actually paying some attention to the articles to randomly moving to the next article just looking at the images. Pages, or parts of pages, that largely lack content (say all you get on a screen is lone line of lead, table of contents, and image plus map on the side, or a stub that has four sentences and an image). There it's a bit odd, in stark contrast to an article like BDSM where I felt blurring is very unobtrusive. Another thing I've noticed is that I pay a whole lot more attention to the images when I focus them, decide to hover over it, reveal it, and then look at it, maybe read the caption and so on. I also noticed I do not really bother to read the captions before I hover and rather decide based on the blurred picture itself (I ignore most captions usually, so this is unsurprising). There are also many surprises, where images do not come out in the clear as you would have expected from the blur. My impression is that it actually makes it much easier to think about if an image is well placed where it is. If there are several images, you can focus more easily on just the one, and you remove to some degree the status quo effect, where you may be biased to agree with the placement because someone already placed it there. Images where red tones are used a lot seem to be rather distracting when they are blurred. Blue and green and yellow and black and white and so on are no problem, and the red tones are no problem when the image is crisp. Not sure what's up with that, I have not noticed this before. It would of course be possible to manipulate the colours in addition to the blurring. Largely black and white bar charts and tree diagrams and illustrations of data like them are also annoying when blurred, in part because there is inconsistency as some of them are not blurred because they are made not as image but using HTML constructs. They are perhaps too much like text so unlike a photo with many different colors they are harder to just ignore using one's banner blindness skills. There is also a noise factor to this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_induction for instance compared to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code -- in the former the graphic in the infobox is fine blurred while the latter irks me when blurred. Generally though the added nuisance is hardly worth mentioning, it works surprisingly well (well, this was the first thing I thought about when I learned of the image filter, but it does work a bit better than I had expected initially, and some issues would be easily fixed, like blurring only images larger than 50x50 would take care of most of the UI graphics for instance). So having conducted this experiment, I think the need to have some images hidden while having others in the clear, where the com- munity as a whole decided to show rather than hide, as in omitting them for all users, is not a legitimate need. regards, -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
Hiya Bishakha On Sat, Oct 1, 2011 at 2:20 AM, Bishakha Datta bishakhada...@gmail.comwrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:54 PM, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote: Bishakha, call it editorial-content, call it censorship or any other euphemism - at the heart of it, it is deciding what someone gets to see and what not. Theo: they are different things, and given the premium on accuracy and precision at wikipedia, I don't think we can claim that editorial judgments and censorship are the same. I have said, it is a matter of perspective how you view them. But if we go by the assumption that editorial judgement is a separate thing, whose job is it to exercise it? WMF has long held the position that the project are independent and it has not editorial control over what the community decides- this would not be the case if we consider the filter an editorial judgement. Keeping in mind the reaction that has been shown by different communities, would it mean, WMF would be exercising that control? using an already existing structure of categories created earlier, possibly by editors who don't agree with the filter, to implement the said editorial control? What about editorial independence[1]? It should not be our job to censor our own content. We're not suggesting that as far as I know. Nothing is being removed from the sites. [1] No, it is only being hidden. Based on an arbitrary system of categories that can be exploited. We are indeed hiding our content, same as any dictatorial regime who chooses to hide works of literature, art or knowledge (I hope the last one is not us) from its people. Mediawiki also works in a similar fashion, it hides revisions rather than delete it outright when an article is deleted - Irony? The strongest argument I read against this has been - it is not something WMF and the board should implement and develop, If there was a need to censor/cleanse graphic content, there would a successful mirror or a fork of the project already somewhere. Instead, we have small distributions/projects which use 1-2 year old offline dumps to cleanse and then consider safe. Now, If you were to apply this argument to a government, or a regime and they decide on removing things that make them flinch - how different would we be from dictatorial regimes who limit/restrict access to Wikipedia for all the people that do flinch? There is no proposal to remove anything from the sites; as I understand it, it is proposed that users can click on a button to turn off some images - those who want to continue to see everything can continue to do so. Nothing goes. I never said there was. I said restrict access to Wikipedia for all the people that do flinch. There is a big gap on how this system would be implemented, if we go by the proposed system in the mock-up, it would be using categories to implement what is deemed offensive. The problem is, when you click on a filter the decision on what is offensive might not be a users alone, but a standardized one across the board. But when the Indian government bans Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses or James Lane's book on Shivaji, that is censorship.[2] I can point to Indian IB ministry issues or Film censor board of India, but you probably know more about them than me. Yes, I know from personal experience - had a huge brush with the Censor Board in 2001 and refused to remove any content from my docu as demanded by them. [3] Depending on the perspective, one can argue that they only wanted the content hidden, not visible to those who do flinch. Would it be different if they argued that they were only exercising editorial control? for the children, the general public and all the people who do flinch. Regards Theo [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editorial_independence ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 04:12:37PM +0200, Milos Rancic wrote: Up to now, all females from US (four of them) are in favor of filter (though, Sarah just tactically) and the only one not from US (Brazil/Portugal) is against. This is not entirely true. At least one other .us female is against. (To wit, the one who asked me to post on foundation-l on this matter in the first place. ;-) ) sincerely, Kim TINC Bruning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 09:10:37PM +0200, Andre Engels wrote: No, we won't be. We will be putting certain categories/tags/classifications on images, but it will still be the readers themselves who decide whether or not they see the tagged images. Well, those tags would be public, so *anyone* can decide whether or not downstream can see the tagged images. Semantically and technically there's very little difference between our current proposed implementation and that of intermediate parties. The consequences are both obvious and chilling. We might be just a little too close to the edge on this one. We need some other options. :) Fortunately, people like Erik Moeller have been considering other implementations, where no central categories or lists are used. Those seem MUCH more sane, and are probably the way forward here. :-) sincerely, Kim Bruning -- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
--- On Sat, 1/10/11, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote: From: Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Saturday, 1 October, 2011, 1:58 We're not suggesting that as far as I know. Nothing is being removed from the sites. [1] No, it is only being hidden. Based on an arbitrary system of categories that can be exploited. We are indeed hiding our content, same as any dictatorial regime who chooses to hide works of literature, art or knowledge (I hope the last one is not us) from its people. You are aware, aren't you, that content is only hidden if the user specifically says they would like to hide content in that category? That is why it is an opt-in filter. If you don't make a point of opting in, you won't even know it's there. Unless you go into your account set-up and take the trouble to specify that you personally do not wish to see a particular category of images, you will see everything that you see now. Even if you have switched the filter on, you can still change your mind and view any image. One click on it is enough to show it. So what you are describing simply bears no relation to reality. If you want to make a valid counterargument, say that you are worried that some censorious ISPs and countries might use our category definitions as a starting point for a bolt-on censorship system that restricts access to these images. However, be clear that then it would be *them* who would be hiding our content, not us. The worst you can accuse us of is that we made it easier for them. We'd still be in good company, as all other major websites, including Google, YouTube and Flickr, use equivalent systems, systems that are widely accepted. If I google for images of cream pies in my office in the lunch break, because I want to bake one, I'm quite happy not to have dozens of images of sperm-oozing rectums and vaginas pop up on my screen. Thanks, Google. The point has been made that some people might be too inclusive in categorising, adding media to controversial categories that others would feel are not controversial at all. If this happens, the effect will simply be that fewer people will elect to use the filter. If a user switches the filter on, and finds that 9 out of 10 images the filter greys are images that they would really like to see, they'll simply get fed up with the filter and switch it off again. So it is in the interest of those wishing to offer people a useful filter not to go overboard in assigning media to any of the filter categories. Andreas ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] We need more information (was: Blog from Sue about ...)
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 08:36:43PM +0530, Bishakha Datta wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.orgwrote: **I am also dismayed at the use of the word 'censorship' in the context of a software feature that does not ban or block any images. But somehow there doesn't seem to be any other paradigm or language to turn to, and this is what is used as default, even though it is not accurate. It's been mentioned 1127 times in the comments, as per Sue's report to the board, and each time it is mentioned, it further perpetuates the belief that this is censorship. The term censorship _tool_ -however- is correctly used in the context of any of the proposed prejudicial labelling systems. In fact (in part due to the properties of prejudicial labelling) it is too easy to violate other aspects of the board resolution when implementing a form of labelling. Fortunately, labelling is *not* actually required by the board resolution. So, the solution going forward -imo- is to implement a software solution that doesn't depend on labelling. At that point, your arguments hold water; and I agree with them wholeheartedly. :-) sincerely, Kim Bruning -- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Experiment: Blurring all images on Wikipedia
Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote: Hi, A while ago I made a bookmarklet that blurs images in articles on the english Wikipedia and reveals them when the user hovers over the image. I now had a chance to test this as a skin.js extension. For a start, users would have to opt in to this, which may not be appropriate for casual readers brought to us from Google and other external links. I'm not sure it's a good idea to make it a default for unregistered users, many, if not most, of whom, might not want to be presented with a pre-filtered version of Wikipedia, and would be surprised to be so presented. It also presents a slippery slope argument in that nobody is realistically qualified, nor would want to be tasked with, drawing the line as to what images should and should not be treated thus. A similar argument applies to textual content of articles; however we try to achieve neutrality, it seems that there will always be some POV-pushers who will argue the toss ad infinitum, and we don't accommodate them. Neither should we accommodate those who do not understand that a value-neutral, world value, is not the same as their value. These people have their own texts, and I think that our response should be that they are welcome to them. Nobody is being forced to use Wikipedia, after all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BlurredImages/vector.js http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BlurredImages/vector.css To try this out you would have to copy or import this code into your own skin.js and skin.css files which are available e.g. under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/vector.js http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/vector.css This only works in recent desktop versions of Opera and Firefox and only on devices where you can easily hover. It may show some images that it ought to blur for boring reasons. Spoilers ahead if you want to try it. Browsing around with that is quite interesting. Some findings: it is a bit annoying when UI elements (say clipart in maintenance templates) are blurred. The same goes for small logo-like graphics, say actual logos, flags, coat of arms, and actual text, like rotated table headers. I did expect that blurred maps would be annoying, but I've not found them to be. Take http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagebüll as example, the marker and text are overlayed so they are not blurred, and I can recognize the shape of Germany fine. I note that there is a perceptual problem if you click around to explore how blurring affects the experience as that does not reflect what a user would do. I noticed that my impression changed a lot when switching from actually paying some attention to the articles to randomly moving to the next article just looking at the images. Pages, or parts of pages, that largely lack content (say all you get on a screen is lone line of lead, table of contents, and image plus map on the side, or a stub that has four sentences and an image). There it's a bit odd, in stark contrast to an article like BDSM where I felt blurring is very unobtrusive. Another thing I've noticed is that I pay a whole lot more attention to the images when I focus them, decide to hover over it, reveal it, and then look at it, maybe read the caption and so on. I also noticed I do not really bother to read the captions before I hover and rather decide based on the blurred picture itself (I ignore most captions usually, so this is unsurprising). There are also many surprises, where images do not come out in the clear as you would have expected from the blur. My impression is that it actually makes it much easier to think about if an image is well placed where it is. If there are several images, you can focus more easily on just the one, and you remove to some degree the status quo effect, where you may be biased to agree with the placement because someone already placed it there. Images where red tones are used a lot seem to be rather distracting when they are blurred. Blue and green and yellow and black and white and so on are no problem, and the red tones are no problem when the image is crisp. Not sure what's up with that, I have not noticed this before. It would of course be possible to manipulate the colours in addition to the blurring. Largely black and white bar charts and tree diagrams and illustrations of data like them are also annoying when blurred, in part because there is inconsistency as some of them are not blurred because they are made not as image but using HTML constructs. They are perhaps too much like text so unlike a photo with many different colors they are harder to just ignore using one's banner blindness skills. There is also a noise factor to this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_induction for instance compared to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code -- in the former the graphic in the infobox is fine blurred while the latter irks me when blurred. Generally though
Re: [Foundation-l] We need more information (was: Blog from Sue about ...)
On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 08:47:43PM +0530, Bishakha Datta wrote: On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.orgwrote: 24,023 people responded to that question, with 23,754 selecting a number on the scale. The result was mildly in favour of the filter, with an average response of 5.7 and a median of 6. How do we understand this? And how should this be factored into making a decision? The distribution is strongly bimodal. Describing it as mildly in favor is not accurate. sincerly, Kim Bruning -- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Experiment: Blurring all images on Wikipedia
On Sat, Oct 01, 2011 at 02:46:52AM +0200, Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote: Hi, A while ago I made a bookmarklet that blurs images in articles on the english Wikipedia and reveals them when the user hovers over the image. I now had a chance to test this as a skin.js extension. Constructive solutions FTW. :-) sincerely, Kim Bruning -- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
