QUOTE(Somey @ Sun 2nd May 2010, 11:15pm)
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I have to admit that I was incredulous, at least initially, about your not being aware of those images on Commons. I'm not saying that I thought you'd seen them personally, though - just that we'd been discussing them here for some time, and these things have a tendency to get talked about. I hadn't realized the degree of disaffection you seem to have from there, though, so I think I owe you an apology for that. Sorry I doubted you!
No problemo. I knew about the bountiful hardcore porn and "Virgin Killer" (did a blog post on the latter in 2008), but I did not know about the drawn child porn. I hardly ever looked at Wikipedia Review until recently. So, I really just didn't know, and I really was surprised. The contents of Category:Pedophilia was, for me, a new low--and pretty much the last straw.
I have to tell you that I might have done nothing if the statute itself did not say that my only positive defense was to report the violations to law enforcement. This personalized the situation for me, and made me consider the situation not just as a violation of the law, or as a potentially embarrassing scandal; it made me think of it as a personal and morally serious matter, and one that I am better-placed to address than many people.
QUOTE(Moulton @ Mon 3rd May 2010, 6:36am)
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It may be that a multi-pronged approach will be required.
The more I think about your question, the more I think the most impactful thing could be a comprehensive, moral-philosophical expose of Wikipedia's history of governance snafus and scandals, from a respected journalist in a top-rank magazine, which is then read and discussed as much as, say, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" It would not just be a list of scandals, which are all old news, but a successful summing-up, something that connects the dots and explains to the uninitiated (which is almost everybody who uses Wikipedia) exactly how the various problems illustrate the project's patterns of abuse.
See, it's true that most people know that Wikipedia isn't perfect and that it has various problems and scandals, but these are regarded as little quirks, or as basic Internet stupidity at worst. Not very many people regard Wikipedia as a sort of rogue state, which is basically what it is. But if they knew what I, and most of the people on this forum, knew, there would be an uproar in many quarters. Wikipedia has been safe from serious external criticism only due to the ignorance about it on the part of people like those school district filter managers I was talking to.
Wikipedia is like any brand, it has a reputation, and its reputation needs to be brought more in line with reality. When that happens, one can hope that the WMF and/or ordinary Wikipedians will look to revitalize the project by making some positive changes.
@dogbiscuit--I understand, and I'd love to talk about it, but I don't really want to give people like Anthony the satisfaction of preening over his response to whatever I say.
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I happen to believe the solution is fairly simple, but it requires the WMF to accept that while they can hide behind S.230, they still have an ability, and a duty, to set up processes to deal with the various problems that exist within Wikipedia.
I can certainly say that I hope
that will happen. But then, the WMF has to take responsibility for making and enforcing policy. But the WMF desperately wants to avoid this, I'm sure. It would cause a veritable revolution within the ranks of Wikipedia; all the inmates in the asylum would revolt over the notion that the WMF can make and enforce policy. That's centralization. That's the end of their much-cherished anarchist-mob rule. For their part the WMF would hate it too because it means that they would then be answerable
both to rank-and-file Wikipedians, who would demand more transparency and more meaningful democracy in exchange for the loss of their own arbitrary and unanswerable authority,
and to the general public and authorities.
But, realistically speaking, I doubt this will happen just as a result of official action. The WMF will insist only on "taking down" whatever the authorities instruct them to take down. This avoids all the necessity of setting Wikipedia up as a proper polity. If the FBI or any other entity suggests that they set up
processes for self-monitoring and taking down, they will push back hard, and if forced, they will try to make the processes as lightweight as possible, and tell the contributors that the government has ordered them to do this; meanwhile, Wikipedia's true believers will howl censorship at the tops of their lungs, and probably practice all sorts of "civil disobedience." In other words, the opposite of transparency, meaningful democracy, and more responsible governance.
QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Mon 3rd May 2010, 2:06pm)
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Welcome to WR, Larry. It's really good to see you here at last. (IMG:
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Just curious though, since you cited my post elsewhere: are you in the "(a.) Wikipedia must die" group, or the "(c.) serious critique is necessary" group, or (a.+c.) both?
Also (and no offense, but): if Jimmy hadn't been such a dick to you over the years, would you have still taken this course of action? I'm just curious how much of this is a battle of egos vs. a conflict of ideals... or (again), both.
Thanks for the welcome, and I would put myself in the © group. It would be a shame if Wikipedia were to die. For many years, and even after starting CZ, I said that Wikipedia is incredibly useful and largely a force for good. But with each new outrage from that den of creeps, my respect for it even as a reference resource has taken a heavy blow. It's getting harder and harder for me to separate my absolute loathing for the behavior of some of the people in authority from my support for all the good, useful work that rank-and-file Wikipedians have done over the years. All that said, I remain somewhat optimistic--no, make that
hopeful--that Wikipedia can be reformed.
I really do think I would have the same reaction, and taken the same actions, regardless of how Jimmy Wales had treated me. If anything, his treatment of me has made this even harder for me, because now the feces-throwing howler monkeys of Wikipedia can accuse me of "payback." Anyone who knows me personally knows that I have a long history of speaking my mind to authority. I'm a classic nonconformist or individualist, not a 60s hippie type (we had plenty of those at Reed College where I went to school), but the type that is suspicious of "in" groups of all sorts. If I don't speak out when I can make a difference, I feel like I'm doing something wrong. It makes me feel cowardly.