[Clipart] Contributors and moderation

[Jonathan Phillips]

On Wed, 2004-03-24 at 00:46, Ted Gould wrote:
> Okay,
> 
> Nathan pointed me to this article:
> 
> http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
> 
> And, I think it directly applies to what we are trying to do here.  I'll
> try to summarize a touch, but I'd recommend reading the whole article
> (it is long though).
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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?

Yes, and the formal constraints you mention are the beginning. The key
is to not place too many barriers/thresholds in the way of the community
so that it can emerge.

> 
> My response:  Yes, we do.  I think it should include:
>   -- Graphics are Public domain
>   -- SVG
>   -- Not intended to harm or offend as determined by?

Not too sure about that last one. I think that the constituency of the
clipart submissions will be determined by the community that surrounds
the project. I think we should see who surrounds the project first,
types of submissions and then be ready to adapt as needed. My fear is
actually that we are only get submissions from the open source community
and will get like a few thousand penguin shots. I think this project
would be successful to be put on the pop charts in trying to get
realworld graphic designers/artists to submit. At that point this
project will be scaled too big I'm sure.


> 2) How do we police works that are in the repository?  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 think, as Shirky mentions in his article, that the core group
(members) will develop over time, just as has happened in Inkscape and
happens all the time in communities. I think that the first line of
defense is to enforce our constitution of sorts that defines the general
repository.

Maybe what we need to detail is a constitution/document detailing
first-level thresholds. Ted, you started them above, I think we just
need to think about them, debate them, and then technologically automate
enforcement.


Here is the start of a constitution of sorts:

Graphics are Public Domain
==========================
- AUTOMATE: make sure public domain license is embedded as xmp in the
images.
- Also, policy needs to be in place for dealing with copyrighted work be
submitted.

Graphics must be Compliant SVG (1.0 or 1.1)
===========================================
- AUTOMATE: We can check each submission for compliance automatically
right?
- We need to decide what level of SVG compliance will be asked for. I'm
thinking 1.1.

Content of Images
=================
- This is far more ambiguous.
- AUTOMATE: could look at and/or require metadata descriptions of
images.

Reputation System
=================
- The reputation of the submitter somehow should be regulated to insure
quality. This will happen anyway (without intervention) if the community
is small enough. Technological systems will only have to be implemented
if the community goes over 20 people (in which it starts to move to
being an audience and unmanageable).
- This will need to be discussed further, but is the main threshold that
is used in OSS projects and social software to insure quality of
collective project(s).


Please cut/paste thoughts...This is why we need that wiki up as this
type of thing needs to start to get catalogued in a visible place as a
collection of our group memory.

Thx,
Jon


-- 

Jon Phillips
Graduate Researcher
Visual Arts Department

PO BOX 948667
LA JOLLA, CA USA

cell.858.361.2811
jon at jonphillips.info
http://www.jonphillips.info