Ad aprile di quest’anno Larry Sanger ha denunciato Wikimedia Commons all’FBI in quanto – a suo dire – presentava del materiale pedopornografico (ne abbiamo parlato qui).

La vicenda ha avuto diversi strascichi interessanti:

• il board di WMF ha votato la delibera Commissioning Recommendations from the Executive Director, in cui dà mandato all’Executive Director di indagare in ogni modo il tema dei materiali “controversi” e di produrre delle raccomandazioni per il board. (qui le FAQ)
• è stato pubblicato ([parte 1], [parte 2], [parte 3]) uno studio sui materiali “controversi”, l’2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content, a cura di Robert Harris e Dory Carr-Harris.
  Nel Wikimedia Foundation Report di agosto, a proposito dello studio, si legge:

  During August, the Wikimedia Foundation continued work on the Controversial Content Study. In June, the Board had asked the ED to commission a study with the goal of figuring out what –if anything– to do about controversial material in the projects. Sue hired Robert Harris and Dory Carr-Harris to conduct the study, and they spent July and August investigating: speaking with Board and some Advisory Board members; reading thousands of wiki pages of policy and discussion; having e-mail exchanges, Skype calls and wiki discussions with community members; finding and reading dozens of research papers about how governments, industry organizations, technology companies and parents grapple with these issues; and interviewing experts including people from large websites, and interest groups on all sides of the issue. They have not done any primary research: this terrain is fairly well-studied, and they were able to find lots of relevant material. Robert and Dory will continue their work for two more months, whereupon their recommendations will be presented to the Board of Trustees at its October meeting. Specifically, literature gathered and reviewed included examination of cultural attitudes, regulation and/or filtering practices in over 70 countries including: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

• su Wikimedia Commons è in discussione una policy a proposito di “sexual content”: la discussione è in corso da lungo tempo, ma la stesura proposta della linea guida è diventata più puntuale da aprile in poi

Il dibatto su it.wiki si è tenuto (per ora) qui e qui.