The Wiki Fire talk:Code of Ethics

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Mood

• I guess the most imporant question for me at this point is, should The WikiFire aim to be encyclopedic like Wikipedia is? On Wikipedia subjective statements are fair game to be removed, but at least one editor on WikiFire has indicated that opinions are fine, and that the subjectivity of information is not ground for it to be disincluded. I'll add something to the "Mood" section, but just as a starting point. I hope other people will help work out an answer to this question.

• I feel like subjectivity is one of the elements of this site that will have to somehow be judged on a case-by-case basis. This site does not have the same goal that Wikipedia has, I don't think. The truth is as the heart of the site, but "truth" here means "true" student opinion. I feel like the site should be an accurate portrayal of how students define their school and community. So we are not creating an encyclopedia the way Wikipedia is, we are creating an encyclopedia of student emotion and sentiment. But that is just how I see it. If others would like to see it go a different way, it can and should be up for debate. Please, let's get more voices on this. — Tfooq 04:19, 9 May 2007 (CDT)

• Even wikipedia allows opinion in a form, it's possible to express opinion and stay objective. If the page details popular positions held by the student body / staff, and the author makes an attempt to record all those positions we go from a biased article to a thorough article. I think it's when an article only expresses one opinion that the truth gets skewed. — Mattbaker 10:13, 9 May 2007 (CDT)

• I agree with Tom on the case-by-case thing. As far as I've seen, though, articles have been monitoring themselves pretty well--someone will say a one-sided thing, and someone else will add the other side. Having biased opinions is okay as long as we have a variety of biased opinions, I figure. -deana

Policy on people

I just have this nagging feeling that TWF needs to pre-emptively have more of a policy with respect to pages and statements about specific people. I sandboxed a draft of such a policy at User:Blahedo/Policy on people; please edit and comment. (Note also that this policy really ought to apply even to people not specifically "members of our community"....) /blahedo (t) 21:27, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

"Thoughts"

The following text is basically discussion, so I moved it off the main page. /blahedo (t) 02:47, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

• We should make available the Creative Commons license that prevents the use of the materials for commercial purposes. This will encourage people (I'm thinking photographers) to contribute without fear that anyway can just take anything and make money off of it.-afitz
• The reason I made it completely free is so publications, which are commercial, will be able to use the information. I feel like free information should mean free information. A photographer's incentive, therefore, could be recognition. There is no rule against putting a credit to the photographer in the caption, or, let's say, a link to his/her photo Web site.-tfooq
• Well of course free information is free information, as it is free information by definition no doubt. It just seems that we run the risk of limiting content when we don't allow people to say "Hey, I'm sharing this with all of you, you just can't sell it or make money off it." While the probability that someone looking for stock art or something runs across a Wiki image and takes it and uses it is fairly low, it would make me feel better (if nothing else) if I had the option to say "Hey, you can use this for personal use, but you can't use it commercially." I would certainly contribute more if this were the case. People are still going to use the images whether or not it's legal, I guess the point is if someone really uses an image, then legally I would be protected and I could make them stop using it. I'd rather put up my own stuff and make it high quality rather than someone swiping it from somewhere, putting up a low quality image, and then attributing it to someone else (which has already happened on here.) Just my thoughts. Oh, and most photographers consider name recognition on things like this to be pretty worthless.-afitz
• This is a good conceptual and theoretical debate. It cuts to the core of the free information movement. We should get more thoughts on this.Tfooq 02:51, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

Deleting pages

So, I've been poking around on WikiMedia, learning more about Wikis in general. It seemed like the whole Fag/Faggot page issue would be a good test case to sort out TheWikiFire's conventions for deletion--ie What kind of pages can be deleted without discussion, how long discussion should be allowed to procede before action is taken, etc. GreatHeights 15:12, 17 May 2007 (CDT) - moved here from Tfooq's user talk page

I agree. There are some pages that could hardly have a place. I would say that they might some day be able to have a place if it so,e how came up in campus conversations and debate (see "Jesus Fucking Christ"), but as it is now, it is just mean. Does that sound reasonable? We should add a section to the code of ethics.Tfooq 15:16, 17 May 2007 (CDT) - moved here from GreatHeights's user talk

Sounds good to me. Do we want to use Wikipedia's guidelines for how long to allow discussion on a page proposed for deletion as a starting point? Or do we just want to start from scratch? BTW, I'm working on getting up some templates for things like proposing deletion, merger, etc. GreatHeights 15:20, 17 May 2007 (CDT) - moved here from Tfooq's user talk page

Also, are you thinking that, regarding the specific pages in question that we should go ahead and delete them without discussion? I'm personally not opposed to that. I just wanted to make sure that some sort of discussion regarding deletion got started. GreatHeights 15:21, 17 May 2007 (CDT) - moved here from Tfooq's user talk page

I don't know who I was responding to either, since they didn't sign their comment. I have a tendency to want to "clean up" and organize, and that's why I was deleting some of the superflous pages and redirects. After someone questioned it though, I stopped to think about it, and realized that, like you said, there was really no harm being caused by those pages and no need to delete them. It also prompted my interest in establishing some guildines for deleting pages on TheWikiFire. GreatHeights 15:58, 17 May 2007 (CDT) - moved here from Blahedo's user talk

That's cool, man. I just don't see any reason those deserve articles, but I see no problem with setting proper precedent.--Ocarina 20:56, 17 May 2007 (CDT) - moved here from GreatHeights's user talk

"Obscene" images

The issue of typically-considered "obscene" images was bound to come up, so we should have a conversation about it now so we can come up with a guideline of some kind. It somewhat started with the lemonparty image, but has been brought into the realm of potential legitimacy on the Jesus Fucking Christ article. A user has uploaded an obscene cartoon, and I deleted it because A: It was probably copyrighted and B: it did not bring much to the Knox discussion table. However, that user then brought a counter-argument that I thought was valid enough to bring to the table. The idea that being offensive, or maybe not, is at the heart of this campus-wide debate. And I should not be the decision-maker. I will copy User:Mantique's couter-argument below. Please lend any thoughts to the matter.Tfooq 21:23, 24 May 2007 (CDT)

It's o.k. ...really. This is in no way libelous. It is a useful graphic illustration of the contraversy. Wiki fire should not be in the buisness of deciding what is and is not 'suitable' . More precisely, *you* should not be in that buisness. This is a democratic space -- at the very least, give some time and discussion before making hegemonic decisions. Or, better, we can just let the fucking FCC make the decisions for us. User:Mantique