Re: [Bug-gne]Ideologies vs. Practicality in GNE

[Bob Dodd]

> How many classifiers would include such articles? Why are they
> necessarily bad, especially when you consider that probably dozens of
> well-written and researched ``counter articles'' would likely be
> submitted, and could easily be included as ``related'' articles by a
> classifier?

I certainly think there's a place for classifiers. They handle
ideologies, philosophies, and theologies very well. I don't think they
handle  truly objectionable material e.g. material that exploits others
and/or which is obtained by an abuse of power/position/trust. Child
porn is in that category, as is how to get date rape drugs, and "good"
locations for sex tourism. 

I think Tom is well on the way there by saying we hold only informative
material. I would add that how the material was obtained, and its
possible use must also be taken into consideration.


> > We've come up with plenty of examples here in past weeks of
> subjects
> > which *are* extreme, and the project may never have submissions in
> > these areas at all. But I think it's useful for GNE to have a
> > philosophy explaining what happens if such articles appear.
> 
> I agree with both points; it is inevitable that some article will
> appear which will be ``controversial'' (in the sense that people
> involved in the project will [dis]agree with its merit) and we do
> need
> a clear policy on what happens.
> 
> I do somewhat like Tom's idea for a ``yes only'' vote system, but
> this
> system should have extremely clear guidelines on what its intent is.
> I
> think its intent should be ONLY to reject articles which are CLEARLY
> just garbage, like random binaries and the like. It should NOT be for
> rejecting ``questionable'' articles; *anything* which is written
> content should be accepted, IMO.
> 
> > It's particularly important to cover those areas which are illegal
> > in one country or another. Regardless of how any of us feel about
> > another countries laws (or our own for that matter), they do exist,
> > can and often are enforced, and can have an effect on the reality
> > and the public perception of a project like GNE.
> 
> True. Some method of optionally excluding articles from mirrors may
> be
> the best solution here. That is: one can host a mirror and keep out
> ``illegal'' information. Of course, this brings up the nasty and
> undesirable requirement of keeping meta-information in the
> repository. I think this should be kept strictly separate, so this
> would mean a separate database of article IDs which are in some
> manner
> ``questionable''. This would ideally be a list of countries where
> particular article IDs are either illegal or ``potentially'' illegal.
> 
> HOWEVER, doing this also means that we do open up the specter of
> easily-enacted censorship (and here I hope to use the word correctly)
> by groups who would like the see such information eliminated. Having
> ``potential legality'' meta-information would make it almost
> ludicrously easy for a {court,government} to demand that all such
> articles be deleted.

For the mirror solution to work, we would need to be very sure of the
laws in the mirror countries in respect of what the mirror may know of
illegal material in other locations. Telling people "we can't host it
here, but use this id on this server instead" may well be seen as
consipiracy to break the law. Missing info may need to by truly
missing...


> > I think that there are some subjects which shouldn't be published
> at
> > all.
> 
> I disagree.

I'll tell you what Mike. Give us your name and address, and the first
time GNE hosts child porn, I'll pass it on to the Obscene Publications
Squad (who would no doubt distribute it to Interpol) in the UK together
with a copy of all the mails where you campaign to allow the material
to be stored and distributed by GNE. I'll pass it on to the national
newspapers as well so that you can give them a nice quote about freedom
of speech.

I'm sorry Mike, I know you hold very strong views on censorship, and it
is a fair intellectual position to hold. It's not one that I hold: I
have too many reservations regarding how material was aquired, and it's
not one held by society at large either. If you wish to stand up for
your principals and possibly go to jail (or end up being door-stepped
by "Dateline" or "Panorama" or the newspapers), good luck to you, but
you have no right to expect myself, Paul, Hector or RMS to stand in the
law courts, and in the court of public opinion,  with you. 

There really  is some content (not subjects: content) we should never
hold. In fact I would go as far as to forward some submissions directly
to the police both in the state where the GNE server is located, and to
the host state where the material originated.

/Bob Dodd

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