Wikipedia community split into filter

Wikipedia community split into filter

The result of the referendum on the establishment of a youth protection filter in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia is now available: Although only a relatively small proportion of the participants the filter as "unimportant" rejects moves straight into the German community opposition to the project, controversial content hide .

The vote was the result of fierce dispute over the cancellation allegedly pornographic images on Wikipedia, and the multimedia repository Wikimedia Commons. To the Board of Trustees had decided in June of the Wikimedia Foundation, a filter against "controversial content" set, which the user can switch autonomously. As the filter is to be implemented concretely and which image should be filterable categories is not yet clear.

Although there was no option in the referendum to reject the project, the results show up in the division of the Wikipedia community. A total of more than 24,000 Wikipedia authors participated in the vote - more than ever before. Nearly 16 percent percent of the facility to hold for not important at all, for nearly 20 percent of the project, however, has the highest priority. Show more unity on other issues, the Wikipedians: so call it about 40 percent of respondents as extremely important that readers of the filter itself can also disable it if should be filtered out or too many false images.

Meanwhile, the German Wikipedia was started in a separate opinion. So far, 250 people here opposed the establishment of the filter, less than 50 to support the introduction of the filter.

As the operator of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia can not provide the necessary software installed on the servers. To implement the filter, but it is dependent on the support by the community. Only if authors and administrators to sort images reliably in the filtering categories, the system can work. In the past the Wikimedia Foundation had always considered the sufficiency of the individual Wikipedia offers and unlock new features such as the sighted versions of the article only at the request of the relevant Wikipedia communities.