User:AlecMeta/Alec's Solution to Image Filters

How would you do it, then?

Criticizing on the sidelines isn't the same as being in the driver's seat. If you criticize, you have a duty to try to help find a solution you wouldn't criticize. This is my attempt.

Reframe theoretically

Identifying the set of objectionable content is very controversial.
But identifying the set of "high-quality" content is routine.
- Featured Articles, Good Articles, and other committee-based methods successfully identify quality content.
- Voting-based methods also successfully identify high-quality content.
- The article feedback tool is the most powerful tool of all, collecting per-reader feedback on quality.

Diff?

Why is flagging okay for "high quality" but not "offensive"?
"High-Quality" is an "objective-enough" term that we can basically agree what it means in practice.
"Offensive" is an emotion. The proof that an image is offensive is a human sincerely saying they were offended by the image.
Objective measures work, Subjective measures don't work yet.

Measuring the subjective

Our readers will have highly subjective reactions to our content.
We should empower our readers to share their reactions to our content. The more feedback we get, the better.
Instead of asking readers for a 1-10 quality rating, we could also let them "tag" specific content with their own subjective reactions. If somethings "mindblowing" or "hilarious" or "eloquent", let them record that opinion.

A good tool with a good purpose.

The main purpose of a "tagging system" is to find our "BESTEST" content, where "BESTEST" is a subjective tag.
The main purpose of a tagging system is to find good content.
- BUT--- if a user tags an image as "objectionable", we could shutter it for them in future.

Simple tagging

Every user will disagree greatly about what content is "mindblowing". The term is really vague. That's okay.
If readers keep tagging the same content as "mindblowing", we can assume it probably is. It's a subjective statment.
When I ask to see the "most mindblowing image", sort by the rate people have assigned that tag to that image.

Replace "mindblowing" with "offensive" and the argument still works.

Content recommendation

Netflix and Amazon know what I want before I do.
If we create a "tagging' tool/project, we can start collecting that kind of data from our editors, with an eye towards providing them with "recommended content" suggestions in the future.

In short

Create a whole new undertaking to let people collaborate on subjective tagging of WM content.
As an afterthought, let them also tag "objectionable" content.
The real feature is the thousands of other tags, not the tag "objectionable".