Another item spotted by eagle-eyed Simon at
Icarus Publishing: apparently Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, creator of the Wikipedia competitor Citizendium (which I had never even heard of until today), has disclosed that he believes that Wikimedia Commons, the file repository for the public domain and/or freely licensed media (e.g. images, sounds) on Wikipedia, "may be knowingly distributing child pornography," and
has reported such to the FBI.
CUTE NOT PEDO! CUTE NOT PEDO! AAAAUGH!
The pieces that Sanger specifically pointed to? "A category about pedophilia" and "a category about something called
lolicon." (The links were redacted in the letter,
which is available online.) And Sanger specifically points to 18 USC 1466, the same law that Christopher Handley was charged with obscenity under, leading to his pleading guilty and being charged with six months in prison and 3-5 years of probation. You really should check out the letter if you can; Sanger argues further on the page with Wikimedia general counsel Mike Godwin, and the latter's thoughts are quite interesting.
I went to Wikimedia Commons and at least at this time, the worst you see in the "lolicon" category is panties. The "pedophilia" category has more detailed drawings that depict children in sexual acts; however, they were drawn in 1905 and are used only in two user galleries on Wikipedia, both of which are for "Historical Erotica."
Granted, it's entirely possible that more troublesome images have been deleted since this letter was sent out. And of course, we don't know what the FBI will or won't do in response. But if Wikimedia was charged, it seems clear that Godwin thinks that the Supreme Court would likely throw out the statute under which Handley was convicted-- so I wonder if they'd fight all the way up?
he ruined sanger's name, INCOMPREHENSIBLE SIN , burn kill maim
Since he can't beat them at their own game, he got desperate and used legal tactics in order to snuff them out. Handley this isn't, simply because the Wikimedia Foundation and by extension Jimbo Wales is already a known quantity.
As more of these issues and cases come up it seems that the world and the media are trying to make Handley into a pariah. Handley is an otaku like most the rest of us and it seems like the law and general public are looking at outlawing such a lifestyle and behavior. I await for something more legit to come about that worrying about the guys at Wiki. Kudos to Simon though.
Well said, Karkarov....he is just looking for some form of cheap revenge and wants to publicly humiliate his former company. Just wait until CNN hears about this...they will hype it up like the story they did about the rape-simmulation game Rapelay and this will get blown out of scale really quick.
Granted, it is good to be vigilant about what's uploaded to the site, but like Gia mentions, I've only ever seen pretty tame stuff linked from Wikipedia articles. Now, it is possible to upload things to the "Commons", which is a repository that isn't necessarily linked to actual Wikipedia articles. With that in mind, there's possibly stuff that could be purged, but it seems like this could have been managed without bringing in the FBI. Wikipedia (and all of its associated sites) is usually pretty good about self-moderation.
you know that is actually not a that bad of an idea
Just so we're clear here, Wikia is unrelated to Wikimedia. Wikia also uses the MediaWiki platform and was created by a co-founder of Wikipedia; but so is Citizendium.
Larry Sanger does appear... somewhat insane sometimes; but then again so does Jimbo. Larry Sanger is trying to make a legal battle out of something that is little more than a moral objection; but he does not deserve the disrespectful comments he's received on Slashdot or here.
Larry Sanger does appear... somewhat insane sometimes; but then again so does Jimbo. Larry Sanger is trying to make a legal battle out of something that is little more than a moral objection; but he does not deserve the disrespectful comments he's received on Slashdot or here.
There's a reason people are railing against him so harshly. The introduction to his letter is rather self-serving and does nothing to validate his objections, however valid or invalid. If he was really concerned about the material in question, he wouldn't attempt to shamelessly promote himself in a letter explaining his moral objections to the FBI. It has nothing to do with the issue at hand unless you're specifically trying to grab attention. At least Jimbo owned up to his previous transgressions. On the other hand, Sanger is proving why his ventures keep failing and it has everything to do with him and his attitude.
Citizendium is failing because of its model, not the actions or beliefs of its Editior-in-Chief. Jimmy Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation still do stupid things regularly, and people have no problem ignoring those.