[Clipart] Contributors and moderation

[Jonathan Phillips]

Alan, great idea on generating PNG previews of submissions. I think we
need to place emphasis on diversity on this project. Diversity through
content and rich metadata embedded in the images. From that, develop
filtering/indexing system.

Jon


On Mon, 2004-03-29 at 03:58, Alan Horkan wrote:
> Damn, I thought I had sent this last week.
> Sorry for the late reply.
> 
> 
> On Wed, 24 Mar 2004, Ted Gould wrote:
> 
> > Subject: [Clipart] Contributors and moderation
> 
> > Basically, groups are always started with good intentions by a group of
> > people who really want it to be successful.  Then other people join with
> > different goals, and things go a little bit crazy.  A good example of
> > this is Slashdot, who ended up implementing a rather sophisticated
> > rating system to handle the 'junk' submissions.
> 
> Clear goals certainly will help.
> 
> > I'm concerned that our clip-art repository may become victim to a
> > similar issue.  Some will do it on purpose, they'll try to submit junk
> > that is just entirely unacceptable (which is something we should define
> > clearly).  But, others will just make crummy clip-art.  If the
> > repository doesn't maintain some amount of quality it will be useless
> > for everyone.
> >
> > So, I guess I'm asking two questions:
> >
> > 1) Do we need an 'acceptable use' policy that specifies what is
> > acceptable and what isn't?  What should it include?
> 
> Are you perhaps referring to a certain historical flag that people
> objected to?
> I would suggest we try not to refuse anything but be extremely careful
> about how we categorize and package some of the more contraversial types
> of artwork.
> 
> > My response:  Yes, we do.  I think it should include:
> >   -- Graphics are Public domain
> 
> A license that allows artists to use the SVG without fear of being asked
> to pay royalties is essential, what is in and isn't derivative work is too
> difficult to work out fairly.
> 
> Public domain seems like the best choice, but I cannot help wondering if
> there is an alternative that would protect use from being totally screwed
> over and exploited.  Could copyright be pooled (given to freedesktop.org)
> rather than dropped entirely to give the group some ability to deal with
> any potential 'abuse' or unwanted exploitation of the collection?
> Anyone have a friendly lawyer we can ask?  What do the Free software
> foundation recommend for this kind of 'data files'
> 
> >   -- SVG
> >   -- Not intended to harm or offend as determined by?
> 
> This is impossible to determine and is tantamount to censorship.
> Ideally we would have a searchable repository and flag certain items as
> contraversial and only offer them for individual download rather than as
> part of any packaged collections.
> 
> If you have not already witnessed the flag discussions it is surprising
> how many flags people find offensive (or to give a more real world example
> how offended people get by flag burning).  (And lets not forget my
> favourite censorship topic: Art or just nudity?)
> 
> > 2) How do we police works that are in the repository?
> 
> As little as possible.  Censorship quickly spirals out of control a
> minimal policy is probably the best bet.  If we can flag certain items as
> contraversial and allowing people to 'self censor' it would be ideal.
> When I say 'self censor' just as one can choose not to look in certain
> directory categories in Yahoo and just as one can choose not to read
> slashdot without moderation.
> 
> Hopefully there is a clean way we can fit this in with the Metadata
> proposals.
> 
> > Do we need a
> > group that is in charge of this?  What mechanisms are required to be
> > built in for this to occur?  Is being able to roll back malicious
> > changes enough?  Do we have a different set of what appears on the
> > webpage that what we expect distributions to ship?  Do graphics need
> > ratings?
> 
> I'd prefer rich metadata and categorisation rather than ratings
> specifically but we still need to avoid pitfalls like Microsoft Encarta
> and their "Monkey (bars)"
> 
> > Okay, I think I've talked enough - I really don't want this to be a
> > monologue - what do people think?
> 
> Is there a suitable gallery content management system people have in mind,
> ideally something being used by another project?  Presumably we could
> setup RSVG to automatically generate PNG previews.
> 
> Sincerely
> 
> Alan Horkan
> http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
> 
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-- 

Jon Phillips
Graduate Researcher
Visual Arts Department

PO BOX 948667
LA JOLLA, CA USA

cell.858.361.2811
jon at jonphillips.info
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