Wikipedia talk:Toby/uncensored

message: Offensive images above. You have been warned. (This is for people who press "End" and then start going up.) ~~ N (t/c) 00:38, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  (spacer) 

message: • Nickptar, I appreciate your expression of support. You don't see why I think these potentially questionable images must be present to illustrate the debate; I don't really empathize with your view, either. That's why we need Toby -- so that all parties can have their cake and eat it, too -- or not, just as they please. 
• UnlimitedAccess suggests we can just assume that most potentially questionable content is not going to show up on the screen of anyone not actively searching for it. 
I disagree, and in any case, that's insufficient. We need to supress the display of very nearly all potentially questionable content for users who require this suppression. Nothing is perfect, and we can't guarantee Toby will be watching everything, all the time -- but he will do a much better job than the Community at large, including some of us who have a very hard time seeing the other side of the debate. 
An important feature of Toby is that although Toby can be enabled and disabled by any user, Toby's icon is visible onscreen at all times when enabled. A supervising teacher or fearful cubby rat is reassured that the next click of the mouse will not bring disaster. While many of us disdain such hand-holding, it is highly valued by others. 
You need to understand the way the web really works in the ordinary home. A youngster, perhaps as young as 8 or 9, sits at the screen for hours and surfs around. Having demonstrated good judgement (as Mom sees it), he surfs with minimal supervision. Mom looks in from time to time, but does not sit with him and look over his shoulder. (Perhaps she should, but she does not. Really.) Now say we get Toby up and running; Mom will turn it on and insist it stay on. Sooner or later, the curious young male surfs on over to Autofellatio -- a topic of burning and very pertinent interest. Stymied by Toby, he turns the fucker off. Mom walks in, sees a photo of a man doing an impossible act -- but Toby is not there! Guess who gets blamed? (Hint: Not us.) 
: ...if someone searches for "human feces" and is surprised by the "offensive" content...then they shouldnt of been searching for it....
I agree with you, but then I place a very high value on personal responsibility. You might be surprised to learn that there is a very large fraction of the greater population that does not. They think that governments, corporations, organizations, teachers, and parents have a positive duty to treat everybody like a tiny infant, and keep them safe from every imaginable harm, even if they are grown adults and freely choose a risky activity. I don't agree with them, but I don't think our Project needs to be a basket of test cases. 
 
Meanwhile, there is a vast gray area between Autofellatio on Main Page and photos of windmills in Holland. 
Say a grade schooler looking into Black History Month comes across the highly disturbing :Image:Lynching-of-lige-daniels.jpg. Now, there are some grade school teachers who might insist that the whole class study this photo, and meditate on the nature of the human condition that created it. Some would condemn the murder, some would pray to their gods. But other teachers would see something like that -- in a perfectly reasonable context (Lynching in the United States, where it appears top-right sans warning) and scream. Such people are often quite disruptive and persistent when annoyed. 
We need Toby. In the example, the first teacher can simply reach over, click Toby, and tell him, "Toby, we want to see this, now." The second teacher is not only spared the sight; she can see (from the placeholder left behind, the text link or caption) just what she's been spared. Now we've made a friend, not an enemy.
• VisibleInk asks if the issue is not all about images, and why they can't just be globally disabled; Nickptar thinks that's a good idea, too. The gentleman from Nebraska suggests that this should be done by the user, directly from within the browser. 
This is, of course, two distinct points, which I shall answer distinctly. Yes, images are disproportionately flagged as potentially questionable content; there is something about a full-color photo that seems to push people's buttons faster than the written word. But no, that's not all of it. Many of the same people who find an image distasteful would not really want to read the accompanying article, either. Mom may not pick up on the article Autofellatio as fast as the photo, but she'll get just as pissed -- at us, if we're not careful. Same goes for Boss -- he may be really slow at first, but he will catch on. 
As the gentleman from Nebraska says, yes, browsers can be set to disable images. Some users even know how to do this; others are unable or unwilling. But I have yet to see a browser that can disable potentially questionable text, or tell the difference between the vast majority of perfectly tolerable images and the few potentially questionable ones. We don't want to force the user into deciding between all images or none. — Xiong熊talk* 20:28, 2005 August 26 (UTC)
:The below comment is copied from the uncensored page:
:Look, this page is censored for the same reason that we don't have huge pictures of penises on every relevant page: it's not necessary, an impediment to viewing, and pisses people off to no gain. I find this comment - "But I cannot imagine, personally, how grown people think to debate potentially questionable content management without looking at potentially questionable content. I guess we really need Toby." - silly. I have no desire to have any articles blocked from my view; I have no desire to take graphic images off articles that deserve them; I have no desire not to see autofellatio when browsing Wikipedia alone. But, people, I USE WIKIPEDIA AT SCHOOL. I'm sure many, many people browse it at work or school, and will not only be annoyed, not only get people pissed at them, but be disciplined harshly if they accidentally get, e.g., a large penis on the screen. This is what I've constantly been saying.
:Besides, there's the PR. Can't forget the PR. I know this might not be the most relevant page for PR concerns, but seriously, if the proposal is written in language a child can read, surely the talk page should be appropriate for a child...? ~~ N (t/c) 22:02, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Now, again, I support Toby, but it's no solution to schoolsafety, because I might want to read about pornography or autofellatio at school, and probably wouldn't put myself at too much risk by doing so (if I had a decent excuse), but I just wouldn't want to see the images. Hence disabling image inlining. I'm glad you've adapted to the fork solution. I'll try to keep the pages synchronized as much as I can. ~~ N (t/c) 22:07, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

text: While the concept is not childish and may open up Wikipedia to large numbers of middle-school-age students, its name and the wording of the policy are unnecessarily childish. Why? Well, do you think a second-grader is going to get much use out of Wikipedia, except for the Simple English WP? ~~ N (t/c) 18:51, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  More points answered 

message: Toby is not ideologically driven; I just cooked up a pragmatic response to an oft-declared need -- while respecting those who not only don't see the need, but are actually hostile to its expression. It's a proposal in the Everyman tradition of Harry S Truman: "If it works, great. If it doesn't work, well then, we'll try something else." 
Right now, I see an alternate solution (* suggested above by Nickptar) that might be an easier sell both to the Community as a whole and to the developer team: Simple Toby. 
* Stick a tiny Toby on every page -- yes, it really does need to be the graphic, a text link is the wrong choice. 
* Clicking the tiny Toby puts a big Toby up and suppresses the rendering of all other images. (The tiny Toby in the sidebar remains, though. Click to discontinue Toby.) 
* Since pages are constructed with images in mind, I suggest images not be replaced by text links, but by placeholders -- not images, just cells with a neutral-colored background, same size as the images they replace. Thus, page layout is not disturbed. 
If you'd asked me a week ago, I'd say Simple Toby was not enough, but right here we have a little test tube of what people will and will not accept. I can imagine a great deal of potentially questionable content that is not in the form of an image, but you know what? Maybe I'm just thinking too hard. I wonder if the people most loudly demanding a solution to potentially questionable content management -- who may not be Wikipedia users at all, but their bosses, parents, teachers, or other overlords -- may not be thinking so hard, or be so difficult to please. — Xiong熊talk* 04:22, 2005 August 27 (UTC)
:Good idea. I'm working on the code for something similar right now. However, I think a "preferences" option is better (so you don't have to change it on individual pages after seeing obscene images), and a neutral-color placeholder with a text link (so you can see unobjectionable images) plus a Javascript button to put the image inline (once you've verified its safety). ~~ N (t/c) 18:56, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simple Toby 

message: Putting aside any objections I might have behind the purpose and usefulness of Toby, it is obvious to me that it would put a tremendous strain on our systems. Here's how I see it:
Right now, when a page is requested, it goes to a Squid server that stores a cache of te most viewed pages. The various Squids handle about 75% of Wikipedia's traffic. If the page that is requested is not found in the Squids' cache, it is then requested to an Apache server that holds the master database. Even with this simplified approach, most (if not all) of all the servers are overloaded.
Now, throw in Toby. For every page, there would have to be whole new to way to access the database. Here's the way I see it occuring. I've italicized the required new steps:
# User requests page to Squid.
# Squid searches whether page is Tobyed or not.
# If page is not Tobyed, then use current procedure.
# If page is Tobyed, then Squid must request to the Apache whether the user has turned on Toby protection or not.
# If Toby protection is enabled, then send Toby image from Squid (since it's going to be encountered often, then Toby will reside in the cache).
# If Toby protection is disabled, then Squid must request offending image from Apache (since it's going to be blocked, it's not going to receive as much traffic, making it much more likely for it to reside in the main database instead of the cache).
# Apache sends image to user.
Right now, we're requesting donations to purchase servers just to keep up with current demand. It would be abusive to make even more load, when there already is a disclamer in place. I don't see how it could be fair to make the Wikimedia Foundation purchase new servers if we aren't streamlining the access methods to their database. 
Just my two cents in... is Toby feasible? I don't think so. --Titoxd 00:42, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Question: How are existing user preferences in rendering pages (date style, thumbnail size, skin, etc.) handled, then? ~~ N (t/c) 00:45, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There is an easy client-side fix for images. Every browser can be told not to display them by default. Now EVERY page is tobyed, just like it will be as soon as this project ever goes live. Hipocrite 14:41, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Answer: WP:VPT#How can Wikipedia use Squid? ~~ N (t/c) 23:16, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, that's a bit useful. I still don't think it is a good idea, but if the devs give it the green light, I'm just going to turn it off for me and forget about it. --Titoxd 23:27, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can Toby exist? 

message: :If Toby is implemented, I will write a bot that "Tobys" images, at random, at a rate of 1000 images a day.  How will your "Toby" system react to that? --Carnildo 07:30, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Carnildo's bot threat 

message: Looking at your demo I see that its the same article, only without images. Wouldn't this just waste a bunch of time? Would every article I write have to have a Tobified and an unTobified version? And having a censored and uncensored discussion is useless cause people may want to go to this page or the other to list their concerns. And one other thing, why do you say 'look at the censored if you are above 21'? That really IS asserting that Toby seems to be censoring Wikipedia for minors. And the law has nothing to do with that as none of those images are porn, and there are very few images at wikipedia that can be considered porn, and most of those are up at IfD anyway. Redwolf24 (talk) 23:19, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You never addressed my concerns. Such as the 'must be 21' part which I don't see mentioned anywhere else. You just left a message on my talk page saying I'm shitting on you. Redwolf24 (talk) 23:48, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

text: No, the page fork is only needed for this demo. "Toby" would do it automatically. I've deleted the "over 21" part - I think this is the second time that's been done. It's just silly. I'm waay under 21 - will you give me a talking-to for viewing the uncensored version? ~~ N (t/c) 00:37, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The fork certainly adds to the confusion since it has no bearing on the Toby proposal, anyone object to me just redirecting it back to here and removing the confusion at the top of the page? (or one or the other) - P.S., since you've viewed the uncensored version, instead of a talking to I suggest a sick bag is more in order :p - Joolz 00:41, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, keep the fork, it suggests well what a Tobyed page would look like. And I pride myself on a strong stomach.  ~~ N (t/c) 01:01, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two versions?? 

message: When I think what I was able to do with the demo, I start to thinking that we don't really need any sort of Community support to enable Toby. True, I began by planning Engine changes, to be implemented by the development team -- but that's so far-fetched a hope! Even if the whole Community got solidly behind Toby (as the Bridge over the River Styx froze over), when would the developers get around to it? It's not like we're paying them to work.
It's clear that Simple Toby can be implemented with nothing but a few lines of JavaScript, and that might be the most efficient implementation. Indeed, I've about convinced myself that Original Toby can be written in JavaScript, hitting an external Toby server. (The elegant way, to a fine point, would be to have the JS code hit the watchlist of User:Toby, but that username is already taken.) The only thing missing is the convenient sidebar link for the newcomer to the site, who will have to search for Aftermarket Toby and install it -- otherwise, all the same functionality will be available, including instant-on, instant-off, and of course the shared watchlist. 
Hell, if you throw me a few donuts, I could probably flange up even Custom Toby without any cooperation from the developer team -- the whole thing a JS bookmarklet, download it here. 
If you think about it, this is one reason why opposition to Toby really doesn't make any sense -- it's not as though anybody has the power to stop Toby from being -- or being used. 
The big advantage to Proposal Toby is security. With only one version of Toby running local to the server, Toby's watchlist has increased integrity. No chance of spying his watchlist or deleting items off it to advance any agenda. Although most Aftermarket Toby users will happily run the JS stock, there will be a subset of the user base (as always, the most creative, therefore the most unruly and mischeveous) who will hack Toby into a long line of bizarre variants. Naked Toby (replaces all images with Autofellatio), Commie Toby (changes all text instances of "Taiwan" to "the renegade province of"), Toby on Wheels (use your imagination!). None of these bother me as much as the possibility that an evil user will fiddle with Toby's watchlist directly, thus messing with other, Straight Toby users. 
That's a shame, because the obvious alternative is to have Toby hit an external server after all -- my external server -- which puts me in control of Toby's watchlist, which means you all have to trust me not to fool with it. Gee, I'm starting to like Proposal Toby better all the time.
— Xiong熊talk* 22:53, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that - as I've found out the hard way - user JavaScripts can't edit a page until the whole page (offensive content and all) has been loaded and displayed. I wish it would work, though. Copying to censored page. ~~ N (t/c) 22:59, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mad scientist