--- On Tue, 11/5/10, wjhon...@aol.com <wjhon...@aol.com> wrote:
If there is enough of a perceived need for content filtering, someone will fill
that void. That someone does not need to be us. Google does this job with
their image browser already without the need for any providers to actively
"tag" any images. How do they do that? I have no idea, but they do it. I
would suggest a "child-safe" approach to Commons, is simply to use the Google
image browser with a "moderate filter" setting. Try it, it works.
It doesn't work if you enter Commons through the main page, or an image page,
and then search through its categories. The best-thumbed pages of library books
are usually the ones that have nude images; it's human nature. Commons is no
different if you look at the top-1000.
With respect to minors, the libertarian position that anyone should be able to
see whatever they want to see is simply a fringe position. Every country
legally defines some things as "harmful" to minors* and expects providers to
behave in a way that prevents that harm. Arguing about whether the harm is real
is an idle debate that's of no interest to teachers, say, who are legally bound
by these standards and can experience professional repercussions if they fail
in their duty of care.
I would suggest that any parent who is allowing their "young children" as one
message put it, to browser without any filtering mechanism, is deciding to
trust that child, or else does not care if the child encounters objectionable
material. The child's browsing activity is already open to five million porn
site hits as it stands, Commons isn't creating that issue. And Commons cannot
solve that issue. It's the parents responsibility to have the appropriate
self-selected mechanisms in place. And I propose that all parents who care,
already *do*. So this issue is a non-issue. It doesn't actually exist in any
concrete example, just in the minds of a few people with spare time.
As I see it, a working filter system for adult content would relieve teachers
and librarians of the headache involved in making Commons or WP available to
minors. Do we have figures on how many schools or libraries in various
countries block access to Wikimedia sites over concerns related to content
harmful to minors? Is this a frequently-voiced concern, or are we making more
of it than it is?
The most sensible access control system would be one that can be set up on a
physical computer used by minors. (Linking it to user account data would not
work, as IP users should have normal access.) And if the same child is allowed
to surf the net freely by their parents at home, then that is perfect. It is
the parents' choice, and every parent handles this differently.
If an outside developer were to create such a filter product, that would be
great too. I just wonder how they would cope with categories and images being
renamed, new categories being created, etc. And does anyone actually know how
Google manages to filter out images in safe search?Andreas
* See the Miller test for minors reproduced at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Pornography
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