Advice for the Wikimedia Foundation (not for Wikipedia!)

Since before I left Wikipedia, even before I proposed the old Sifter project in 2002, Wikipedians have talked about a method of using experts to rate, or approve, or review versions of Wikipedia articles (cf. this Slate interview).  Similarly, some of the cooler heads both inside and outside Wikipedia have wished that Wikipedians would tag their copious amounts of porn and other child-unfriendly content, so that pages containing that content could be efficiently blocked by filters.  (Speaking as a father of two, I now actually think about such things.)

Of course, the problem with all such sensible suggestions is that the Wikipedia community is not very sensible.  As anyone familiar with the community knows, if such things are left up to Wikipedians themselves, they will never happen.  They will have to be done independently.

But it occurred to me that there is no reason whatsoever that the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) could not do these things independently of Wikipedia.  They could be other WMF projects, like Wikimedia Commons, Wikibooks, and so forth, but scrupulously independent of Wikipedia itself.  I call on the WMF’s Executive Director, Sue Gardner, to investigate the viability of these and other such independent projects personally, and not just leave them to “Wikimedia Strategy” groups such as this one.

Let me try to put this suggestion into perspective.  For a long time, whenever anybody suggested expert review, porn labelling, or other obviously good ideas, there was always one big argument-stopper: the community would never stand for it.  They can’t be moved.  You can persuade all the people you like outside the project, you can raise a ruckus in the media, but the Wikipedia community just won’t go for it — period.

The WMF showed that it could work independently of the Wikipedia community when it hired someone to write a report of recommendations of how to deal with “controversial content.”  Besides, Wikipedia and the WMF are both constantly saying that the Foundation does not control editorial issues.  If they are independent entities, then what, really, is stopping the WMF from starting credible projects to do expert labelling and independent labelling of porn (and other images inappropiate for children)?  Theoretically, they don’t have to answer to the Wikipedia community in order to start such projects.  And we can start blaming the WMF itself, and its management, if such projects are not started, because it is well within their power and authority to do so.