[Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

Sat May 8 00:58:59 UTC 2010

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This, my friends, beyond the porn debate, is an important lesson about
the vulnerability of wikipedia.
You just have to threaten or convince Mr. Wales to control or shutdown
the entire project. The whole community is powerless.
When this crisis is over, we should think about giving a stronger
autonomy to wikipedia. A project of this magnitude can no longer rest on
the shoulder of one man, depending on his good faith.
Wikipedia is making enemies (today: the prudes). One day they'll force
Mr. Wales to denature the project. Is it today? I don't know.
But don't be fooled about the appearances: the real crisis is not about
porn, but about who has control on the project and who has control on
these critical persons.

If this is an emergency situation requiring a justified, immediate,
unilateral, king-like massive action, I regret Mr. Wales didn't take the
time to explain the emergency to us.
By rush-imposing his views and decisions on people who are not out of
the debate yet, he is browbeating their inner self, ignoring their
beliefs and opinions, discarding the value of the Other. This lack of
respect and of equality of vote should be extremely well argumented and
the reasons transparently communicated.
Otherwise, trust, faith and adhesion to the WMF values dissolve.
I don't think we should let this happen.

Mr. Wales, I hope you enter reason and dialogue realms again.
 We're not idiots who can't understand strategy. And by the way, if you
pretend to calm puritan donors in a first time, then try to reconquer
the lost ground later, you just surrendered the whole project to them by
showing that you will cede before their threat.
Maybe it is time to adopt a bold secularism (morally neutral, but still
respectful of humans)?

Anyway, will I, for one, accept the situation if you don't explain?
I would oppose any person pretending to dictate non-consensually how to
handle the human knowledge: it is part of the Humanity Heritage. But
you're the founder and I'm powerless. Am I? I think many of us are
having these very questions now. Is it good for the WMF that we're
asking them? Is it the consequence of Wales' bold actions? Is the board
voluntarily ignoring our legitimate feelings ?

On 07/05/2010 17:19, Marcus Buck wrote:
> I try to understand what happened, but I'm not sure whether the pieces 
> that I found so far add up.
> 
> * Larry Sanger is mad about Wikimedia. [apparent]
> * Larry Sanger notifies the FBI and tells them Wikimedia hosts child 
> porn. [affirmed]
> * The FBI is rather unimpressed and does not take swift action. [apparent]
> * Larry Sanger informs media about us alleging Wikimedia of hosting 
> porn. [unaffirmed]
> * The (conservative) TV station FOX reports about Wikimedia and contacts 
> many important companies that have donated money for Wikimedia in the 
> past whether they want to comment on the allegations. [affirmed]
> * The companies are contacting Wikimedia to ask what's going on. 
> [unaffirmed]
> * The board worries about losses in donations and either sends Jimbo to 
> Commons or Jimbo unilaterally decides to handle the case. [unaffirmed]
> * Without mentioning the previous developments Jimbo starts to delete 
> all files that are "porn" (in his opinion, not sparing PD-old artworks 
> etc.). Even engaging in edit-warring and ignoring input from the Commons 
> community and ignoring community policies. [affirmed]
> * The Commons community condemns Jimbo's actions but has no power at all 
> to stop the "Founder"-flagged berserk. [affirmed]
> 
> Is this the story? Or are there any story arcs that I missed? Please 
> correct me, wherever I am wrong.
> 
> Marcus Buck
> User:Slomox
> 
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> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
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