Shakeup at Wikipedia in Wake of Porn Purge | Hacker News Reader

Shakeup at Wikipedia in Wake of Porn Purge

foxnews.com

16 pointsgibsonf123 comments

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I'm confused. Exactly which images are at issue here?

It appears that the images originally complained about were the drawings of "child pornography" which were supposedly on Wikimedia Commons.But does it extend to the more encyclopaedically justifiable (though still occasionally somewhat gratuitous) photos which illustrate relevant articles on wikipedia?

Incidentally, I think wikipedia deserves credit for being one of the few places proudly exhibiting pictures of Muhammad.

I'm not sure I understand why the admins got so upset about it. If, in fact, Wikimedia Commons was hosting illegal images, why shouldn't the foundation take actions to ensure they were removed?

He wasn't removing illegal images, he set out to remove anything that might make Wikipedia look bad to donors.

Wikipedia looking bad in the eyes of donors would be catastrophic considering the Wikimedia Foundation's sole source of revenue is donations.

Now, I am a self-professed idealist sometimes, but it strikes me that what would really be catastrophic would be an encyclopedia altering their content solely in response to a moral hysteria whipped up by a partisan media organization (regardless of their affiliation).

At least they're not allowing donors to change facts, like this "history" project is doing: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1502076070/mondo-2000-an... (check out the prizes on the right-hand side).

I thought the idea of getting donations instead of having ads was to avoid the theoretical possibility of altering the content. If indeed this is related to donor perception you might as well rely on ads, which are not certain to alter the content AND will make Wikimedia a financial powerhouse able to pursue multiple other projects.

Although I must confess that at this stage, the thought of Jimmy Wales commanding a billion dollar empire does not necessarily excite me.

Why do you make an assumption that these images are illegal? Photographs of genitalia are not necessarily pornography, much less illegal or obscene. The hysteria that Fox seems to be trying to whip up is that children in school might learn about sex.

Osiris didn't say the images were illegal - Osiris asked whether the foundation had a right/obligation to remove the images "if, in fact," they were illegal. Seems like no one can say, at this point, whether the images were or were not illegal, since that question has not been decided by a court.

To clear this up (and as I mentioned on the original article):

No, these images are not illegal.

IANAL - but I am one better, someone who grades such images for court.

[on the issue raised; clearly the foundation does have a right/obligation to remove illegal images. Indeed even if they suspect them to be illegal. However any expert they could have found would have told them they are fine. I think the uprising is more against the impression that the foundation has bowed to their sponsors rather than take a realist/rational approach]

Perfect example of how ridiculous the power structure is on Wikipedia. Administrators of the site seem to think that they must be consulted before the Wikimedia board can do anything. The Wikipedia community has some serious problems.

It's an interesting topic, but could we find a better source than Fox News?

To the extent Fox New coverage of this has been driving any of it it's an important source. That's been reported and I think their contacting sponsors is a matter of record.

The article also seems to be accurate and exhaustive, maybe even fair and balanced ^_^.

To say that "[t]hose images have been the subject of heated discussion within the community since their existence was revealed exclusively by FoxNews.com on April 27" is disingenuous considering Larry Sanger has been ringing this bell for quite a while now.

To say "... the images, which legal analysts say may violate pornography and obscenity laws" is border-line FUDish. Even something like "there is no agreement among legal analysts whether or not some of the images violate pornography and obscenity laws" would be better. It would be nice if they would get some experts to go on record and explain their reasoning, but I'm truly not expecting that much.

To say "images ... that could be considered child pornography" is a smear. If they want to call it CP, or get an expert to go on record as calling it CP, go for it -- but don't hide behind the "could" while invoking a moral panic.

They undoubtedly violate the child pornography laws in some jurisdictions and are perfectly legal in some others. The US may be one of the borderline cases.

> They undoubtedly violate the child pornography laws in some jurisdictions

Not in any particularly relevant to this situation.

I see no problems with the article. What I do find problematic is Fox contacting Wikimedia sponsors "for comment". It seems to me that they were actually trying to apply pressure, which is not at all proper behavior for a news organization.

Accurate and exhaustive?

I suppose you could apply those words in this context but the article sets off my BS detector in a huge way, reminds me of my old hometown paper when their editor was insulted at some dinner the previous week.

EXCLUSIVE: Shakeup at Wikipedia in Wake of Porn Purge

... oh wait it turns out that the huge shakeup was some privelege change that was done a long time ago, and some extremely mild quotes from a "source"

Then we have these gems: Those images have been the subject of heated discussion within the community since their existence was revealed exclusively by FoxNews.com on April 27.

...

On May 7, FoxNews.com reported exclusively that Wales had personally deleted many of the images from Wikimedia's servers

...

The debate heated up when FoxNews.com began contacting high profile corporations and foundations that have donated to the Wikimedia Foundation for comment — including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Best Buy, USA Networks, Craigslist, Ford Foundation and Open Society Institute.

What the fuck is Fox News' problem with Wikipedia?

Actually no, since Fox News precipitated the event. FTA:

>The debate heated up when FoxNews.com began contacting high profile corporations and foundations that have donated to the Wikimedia Foundation for comment — including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Best Buy, USA Networks, Craigslist, Ford Foundation and Open Society Institute.

>...["think of the children" argument]...

>When the donors started calling, Wales immediately called on the sites’ editors to quickly purge any possibly obscene or pornographic content from the sites.

But should someone involved in the incident be the one reporting on it?

So Fox News is the best source because they're the ones creating the story? Are you being ironic?

Hey, I'm not an expert, but does calling up major supporters with incendiary allegations strike you as the behavior of a news organization? Are they doing this to bring important information to the public?

I work at the Wikimedia Foundation. I do not speak for the organization -- I'm just a programmer -- but these are my own impressions.

First, I've heard from our press guy that Fox News hasn't called the WMF once for any comment on this story.

Also, the atmosphere in the office isn't exactly "chaos", as the article alleges. Lots of other business is proceeding normally, like the revamp of the Wikipedia interface that went live last week.

I'm just a hired hand, and not much of an expert on the Wiki* communities, but it seems to me that Fox News is reigniting an existing debate about how to manage the tiny, tiny minority of Wikimedia Commons images that could cause offense to people. We're talking about a website where the biggest news of last month was that some guy donated his collection of images of rocks and minerals.

Jimmy Wales decided to do a purge on his own authority, but was widely criticized for overshooting what was needed. This provoked another meta-debate about founder authority. So he voluntarily gave up his "founder flag" rights, so the debate could get back on track. There's been a lot of very frank discussion, which is how Wikimedia lists are all the time, but Fox News is focusing on only the divisive aspects, which are already way out of date in my opinion. Some (not all) community members who were very vocally displeased a few days ago are now happier with how things are proceeding. And are back contributing to the main work of the site, you know, that whole free knowledge thing.

And that's where things sit as of this moment, to my knowledge. People are still working out what changes to practices are necessary.

No, Fox News is the ONLY source because they're the ones creating the controversy. It's how they work. They manufacture controversies if they don't have something to talk about.

Look what happened with places like ACORN. Those "ACORN tapes" were heavily edited and manufactured. Like I've literally seen 90-minute action movies with less fakery than those tapes. Or look at the "Tea Party" rallies - they were like a fraction of the size of prior immigration and anti-war rallies, but they're covered like they're the largest of the century.

Looks like Fox has played the Drama Monger card. Good move.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DramaMongerTCGproposal.png

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