Wikipedia talk:Toby

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Contents 1 Proposal 1.1 Mechanics 1.2 Toby's not forever 1.3 How fast should Toby forget? 1.4 Visible vs Invisible Toby 1.5 Category 1.6 Outcome 1.7 Rational compromise 2 Discussion 3 Fork 3.1 Moving right along 4 Fork again 5 This is childish and contrary to policy 6 More points answered 7 Holy feces this is great 8 Comments 9 Recap 10 WTF? 11 Ridiculous 12 The Trouble With Toby 13 I had a word with Toby 14 Childish and ridiculous 15 Similar option 16 Toby destroying the sense of community in Wikipedia 17 Third Schoolsafety Idea 18 Let's cut the poo-poo 18.1 Two sides to Toby 18.2 Toby is not a cop 18.3 Toby is not an editor 18.4 Toby's face is useful 18.5 Toby makes no judgements 18.6 Toby is everybody's friend 19 Toby isn't everyone's friend, because he isn't mine. 20 "no judgements" leads to consensus? 21 Answer to Joolz 22 Answer to IByte 23 Carnildo's bot threat 24 Practicality? 25 Toby/How, Toby/Do 25.1 Howdy Doody, Toby 26 Supporters and Objectors 27 TOBY (talk · contribs) 28 MD 29 Toby Idea 30 Proposed 31 Thoughts 32 I'm out, here's the deal 33 Army of One 34 Mad scientist 35 meatball:VotingIsEvil 36 Straw poll (yes polls are evil, but still) 36.1 Rejected 36.2 Proposed 37 Poll removal 38 From [[User talk:Redwolf24#Wikipedia:Toby]]

[edit] Proposal

This apparently simple-minded proposal is designed to be readable by children, while retaining every important element. I urge anybody who is moved to edit the proposal (and yes, it is editable, it's a wiki) to keep this in mind.

This is as good a time as any to remember that Wikipediaspace and talkspace are publicly viewable. I don't think we gain anything by trying to banish the potentially offensive to a purely theoretical ghetto.

Those who wish to edit the proposal, please remember that a certain degree of ambiguity is key to the concept. Do not try to define Toby, or say why is is watching.

[edit] Mechanics

• Add Toby to any image or page you deem potentially offensive for any reason. Autofellatio, topless women, animals reproducing, a bowl of porridge, broccoli, natto, people setting each other on fire, aftermath of train wrecks, lynchings in which the victim is placarded with a deprecated classifier -- you choose.

• This works well provided we adhere strictly to two simple rules:

1. Don't ever say why you put Toby there.

2. Don't fight about Toby. Let Toby be there.

• Ideally, of course, we urge the development team to upgrade the engine so that every user, on every page, is offered a tiny Toby button. Clicking Toby brings up a simple page offering 3 choices:

1. I want Toby to watch out for me.

2. I think Toby should watch this page.

3. No thanks, Toby.

I think you get the idea. All pages, all content flagged with Toby are hidden from those who so choose. Those who do not so choose, see all.

Toby-flagging is irreversible -- oh, I suppose I might entertain some rather high bar one might be able to climb over to remove Toby from a page, but it would have to be pretty high for me to accept it. Nothing would destroy the concept faster than Toby wars.

Toby always wins.

Those who ask Toby to "watch out" get redirected to Toby himself when following a link or search to a Tobyed page or image. At this point, Toby simply offers the choice: Toby, or no Toby. This doesn't affect the target, only the user.

Tobying an image itself does not affect directly any page upon which the image is normally displayed, but converts the inline display to a link. Following the link, of course, takes you to Toby.

Remember, those who tell Toby "no thanks" are unaffected. This is a persistent user state.

[edit] Toby's not forever

To some reductionists, if we never remove Toby from any page, then eventually all pages will be Toby's. That's not true -- for a couple of reasons.

• This assumes that every single piece of information in the Project will be deemed Toby-worthy by Somebody. I'm not sure that's true.

• This also assumes that no new pages or images are ever added. Naturally, new pages are not generally created Tobyed, unless the creator does it.

That said, I agree, over time there may eventually be too many Tobys. I would tolerate many, many Tobys, though, before I ever started to get worried about it. A general reference work for children and infantilized workers is just naturally going to be small.

Even so, I think, Toby should forget as time goes by. There's no need for Toby to remember every single page he ever sees. Hey, he's just Toby.

No worries that Toby will forget Autofellatio; I'm sure that the moment he does, Somebody will remind him. We're very good at that sort of thing.

[edit] How fast should Toby forget?

I'm in favor of an extremely complex algorithm, which nobody can understand, in which a whole basket of variables are tossed together, including how many users Toby the page (see note), how many Toby-safed users try to access the page, how many pages the Tobyer has Tobyed recently, and how many pages total Toby is trying to remember.

For efficiency, the best way to work this is simply to assign each page a Toby number, which gets incremented and decremented according to the ridiculously complex algorithm each time Somebody Tobys the page or reads it.

The more often a page is Tobyed, the more likely it is that Toby will remember it for a long, long time. I don't think Toby will ever forget Autofellatio, and we won't have to make it a special case, either.

But if Somebody who just doesn't like User:Zoe Tobys her user page, well, Toby will forget about that a week later.

• Note: An already-Tobyed page can still be seen by those who don't have Toby filtering for them -- and note, such users aren't even aware Toby is already watching that page. So a page can be multiply Tobyed. Obviously, though, a given user can only Toby a page once.

[edit] Visible vs Invisible Toby

At present, the only (crude) implementation of Toby is just to add Image:Toby.png to the questionable page or image. We let some third party add the image to some blacklist. Of course, that's not the best approach, for a couple of reasons:

• We don't want to depend on outside filtering services at all (basic principle).

• We don't really want the Toby-flag itself to be visible. Invisible Toby removes an incentive for people to deprecate content for the sheer pleasure of seeing it deprecated. The only way even to know if a page has been Tobyed is to ask Toby to step in and filter the site for you.

Thus, ideally, we do it all with our own engine. Ordinary users just see a tiny, discreet Toby button on every page, which allows them to transact with Toby. Users who choose to have the site Tobyfied see a pretty large Toby at the top of every page.

[edit] Category

From time to time, editors create categories with names such as Category:Porno and attempt to tag pages into this. These measures always fail, and incite a large body of users who are inflamed by any attempt to label content in any way.

Part of the problem is that there is no possible text that can impartially describe content. "Adult", "Porno", "Objectionable" -- try as you may, the effect is always to deprecate the target.

Toby says nothing at all about why he is watching a page; all you know is that Somebody -- maybe you -- put Toby there. No value judgement of any kind is displayed.

Another shortcoming of categories is that a page is thus generated that concentrates all such content. We wish to avoid that, explicitly; there must be no "What links here" for Toby!

[edit] Outcome

Yes, eventually a goodly fraction of the Project will pick up a Toby; but then, a goodly fraction of the Project ought not be seen by small children and workers who are infantalized by the terms of their indenture.

Liberal Toby tagging is a good thing. As more pages and images are Tobyed, any onus is devalued. Toby inflation works to make Tobying more acceptable, since we're now all in the same boat. Toby doesn't mean much.

[edit] Rational compromise

We may be full of ideals, but we have to live in the larger world. Those of us who want to see some things removed from the Project have to live with those of us who think everything should be kept. All of us have to be aware that very large numbers of human beings do not share our views.

Toby is a rational, realistic compromise between extremes. No content is deleted or removed from public view; but much content is not viewed by those who don't wish to view it.

The slashed red circle is universally acceptable. I'll entertain criticism of the specific image and cook to order in my laboratory for community review, but we hang onto the red NO -- because it is understood.

We need to be aware that Wikipedia is no longer an experiment. It is a tool that schools and offices depend upon for reliable, factual information on a wide variety of subjects. It does us no good to anger anyone, even those who disagree with us.

Anyone upset by the recent IfD and FPC nominations should endorse Toby, and get it over with.

— Xiong熊talk* 22:17, 2005 August 22 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

• Don't fight about Toby. Let Toby be there. That cucumber looks awfully phallic. JRM · Talk 22:31, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

  Toby is not supposed to be green; he's supposed to be gray. I keep trying to upload the right image, but I'm having trouble there. Let's see if this works. — Xiong熊talk* 00:53, 2005 August 23 (UTC)

  Fading Tobies are a good way to guard against the temptation of mass-insertion. Some trolls will still feel tempted, but I think administrators can be expected to step in and remove some Tobies, when clearly added in bad faith. (I realize many people will shout "cabal!" again, but it's either this or be at the mercy of the trolls.)

• This is almost, but not quite, my Ideal Solution. My Ideal Solution involves giving everyone any number of Tobies they want: porn Toby, violence Toby, women with hair in their armpits Toby. Only you can define those Tobies (and your porn Toby isn't the same as my porn Toby) and only you can add and remove your Tobies. You don't have to use your own Tobies, though: you can choose to trust someone else's Tobies, and anyone can choose to trust yours. You'll see the same things together, and avoid the same things together. Tobies for everyone! JRM · Talk 22:31, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

  Wonderful idea! A global-Toby would be very easy to abuse, but your proposal would create various providers of Toby-lists which people could choose to trust... wholeheartedly support. Make it less infantile, though. ~~ N (t/c) 22:38, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Just one Toby, please. He's enough -- too much for some, not enough for others. More Tobys means more to fight over. — Xiong熊talk* 00:53, 2005 August 23 (UTC)

That's just the point, actually: my idea is based on the impossibility for users to fight over each other's Tobies. If people want to fight just because they don't like each other, that's another matter. But the idea is that you can neither remove other people's Tobies nor add Tobies they don't want to trust. There's simply no way to fight over them, no more than you could fight over the preferences you can set today. JRM · Talk 01:27, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

• On second thought, this would probably find no practical use. It's worth a try, but I think my "no-inline-images option" proposal is more worthwhile. In fact, I should get around to writing the code for that when I have a break from school. ~~ N (t/c) 23:28, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

• oppose in the strongest possible terms. This was discussed previously and heavily rejected then (I'll dig out a link later). The reason being that if it is on a selection of articles, it is inherently POV. For example, I consider pictures of naked and partially naked people perfectly fine for children to see but others disagree strongly with this. If it is on all articles then it is useless as it doesn't actually mean anything and is redundant with Wikipedia:General disclaimer linked to from every page already, Wikipedia:Content disclaimer linked from the general disclaimer, and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors. Thryduulf 23:19, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Are we already voting now? Don't you think we could let the proposal age a few hours before shouting it down?

Nothing is "inherently POV"; the phrase is without meaning. Perhaps you just mean "biased judgement". If so, I agree: Tobying a page is a judgement call, and it certainly reveals that the Tobyer has a bias against the page. So what? That's the whole point of it. Some of us want to see everything, everywhere. Some of us don't want to see things that some of us are biased against.

However, Toby has no agenda -- or, if you prefer, Toby's agenda is the sum total of all other agendas. In the end, his agenda will be as neutral as such a thing is likely to get. — Xiong熊talk* 00:53, 2005 August 23 (UTC)

• So if somebody puts Toby on my User page I can't get rid of him? And what happens when I put him on George W. Bush? Zoe 23:20, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

If somebody Tobys your user page, it's because somebody thought Toby-users shouldn't see it. Oh well. Same for Dubya. They may be right; they may be wrong. We don't care; we don't ask Toby to watch out for us.

We do need a way to get Toby off some pages; please see my edit above ("Toby's not forever"). — Xiong熊talk* 00:53, 2005 August 23 (UTC)

• Saying that the issue is solved is perhaps not very accurate. The Toby thing is a good idea (not to mention a catchy name) but it is not flawless. You state that the only way Toby would work is if two conditions are met, that you never state the reason for Tobying, and you never question it. To me that goes against much of the core principles of wikipedia. But even if you say that the ideological discussion of abandoning discussion is merely academic ("if it works, it works, screw ideology"-style) there are significant practical problems with it. Say that a vandal start tagging every image he sees with Toby? What would you do? It would be a breach of Toby-policy to remove them. Then we can add a amendment to Toby-policy saying that in cases of clear misuse, it is ok to remove them. But what if an editor adds it to, I don't know, Image:Wikipedia blue star of david.png. He finds it offensive, so by toby-law, it can't be removed (you say so yourself on the talkpage "anything that anybody finds offensive"). Your proposal simply isn't feasble. gkhan 22:40, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Toby does go against our usual method of doing business -- but our usual method of doing business isn't working. I'd rather concentrate all such anomolies in Toby, rather than watch the entire social fabric of the Community rip from one side to the other.

To a Palestinian who just had his village burned by Zionists, a blue star of David might just be offensive enough that he wouldn't like his kids to see it. Toby will watch out for them, too. One interesting feature of Toby is that users brave enough to turn him on and off will be astonished by the amount of stuff that Somebody doesn't like.

The nice thing about Toby-vandalism is that it doesn't do any real damage. The content is still there, still untouched, and still completely available to the majority of users.

Anyway, I've solved the vandalism issue in general, too -- but not here. — Xiong熊talk* 00:53, 2005 August 23 (UTC)

• See JRM's suggestion about individual Toby-lists, web of trust, etc. ~~ N (t/c) 22:43, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

  I still don't like it. Should porn-toby be added to Image:DanniAshe1.jpg? Perhaps, it's a very sexual image of a pornstar. If so, how about Image:Greatesthitsmyprerogative.JPG? It is certainly a sexual image of a woman. So somebody might add a toby to it, and it can't be removed. Soon Image:Jenna Jameson (promophoto).jpg simply because she is a pornstar, not that the image is sexual at all. Soon the only image we will be able to show is Image:Nuns001.jpg. We can't abandon discussion, it simply doesn't work. We have to be able to question judgement on wikipedia. I think that making wikipedia "kid-friendly" isn't necessarily a bad idea, but this is not the way. gkhan 22:52, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure Hard-Drive Danni will be one of the first to pick up a Toby. That's fine. Jenna won't last long, either. For all I know, those nuns won't pass Toby's bar, either.

It doesn't really matter. Anybody who doesn't ask Toby to filter the site will never be aware he's there, aside from the little bitty sidebar button. For those who want Toby to watch, well, it will be a much smaller encyclopedia, with a lot fewer illustrations. And it will be safe. And that's the way it should be. — Xiong熊talk* 00:53, 2005 August 23 (UTC)

But those who do ask will see nothing. Because vandals will Toby-tag every page, and the process to get it removed will (AFAICS) be very tedious. ~~ N (t/c) 22:46, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

• I just realised that I had missed one of JRMs points about web of trusts. I think that that would a) be mindnumbingly hard to implement (instructioncreep? Ohh, the humanity!) and b) only a teeny tiny fraction of all images that should be flagged will be flagged. There are literally 1000s of images that people will find offensive, and selection a few users list wont be nearly enough to cover them all. And if you expand the web, the points of my earlier comments will be painfully valid. gkhan 22:58, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

  Implementation-wise it's not so hard (to clarify: you need software support for this, it can't be done consistently in just any old wiki because there's no way for people to "own" their Tobies), but I won't dispute this will not get you universally useful lists right off the bat, and it will take a very long time for a significant portion of Wikipedia to be covered. But here's the rub: no matter what proposal for tagging you'd support, you'll need to go over them all eventually anyway. Your point about "images that should be flagged" is just right: you have to flag the images you think should be flagged. Not going fast enough to your liking? Organize with others whose Tobies you trust. I'm pretty sure the "major" viewpoints on the important things to tag will get support quickly. This is the idea as I see it drawn to its logical conclusion, though, and I doubt anyone can argue it's not a solution we can all live in harmony with—except for those people who absolutely must insist on objective criteria for what people should and shouldn't be exposed to, and those people will always split into groups that can't get mutual agreement. JRM · Talk 23:57, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

• Second point: I don't necessarily agree we need image tagging. I only sketched the way I think is ultimately the most agreeable if we do have image tagging. JRM · Talk 23:57, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
• Also, I think Xiong is to be commended for providing a proposal nobody has any difficulty understanding. This seems trivial, but it's anything but. JRM · Talk 00:04, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I repeat, Wikipedia:Toby is meant to be read and understood by fairly young children. If they can understand it, I'd like to hope we can, too. — Xiong熊talk* 00:53, 2005 August 23 (UTC)

I'm glad it's clearly written, but there's no point in putting it in simpler language than the articles themselves. ~~ N (t/c) 22:46, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

• It's funny—I came here opposed to the idea, but after reading it a few times and perusing the discussion, it doesn't seem like such a bad idea. If this could be implemented, I think it just might work. The algorithm will be the tricky thing—I think it'd be good if just one person places a Toby, it fades quickly or something. And of course, the key is that this should be an on-demand service—users who don't wish Toby's services should be unaffected without having to change any settings or follow any extra links. It'd be nice to be able to freely surf Wikipedia from my place of employment. — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:21, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

I dont trust Toby, people hate a lot of weird things who knows would would repeatedly end up on their, the Nazi symbol, scantily clad women, anything to do with homosexuality, pictures of raw meat, images of Jesus dying on a cross?!? For me deleteing images like Autofellatio because they are used for vandalism isnt a valid excuse because you can always question it and fix it, but not being able to question and fix Toby is not a good idea. Toby works if you believe the "will of the people" will likely result in something useful, but in my experience 99% of people are complete nutters and logical debate and the ability to question all decisions and authroity is the only model that works. Protecting children should be the job of the childs parents, if the parents let their child visit the Autofellatio page thats their own agenda. By the look of Toby it is their to protect children under 10 years old, what are they doing looking up Autofellatio to begin with? - UnlimitedAccess 18:35, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

• Er, what? If you find any page offensive for any reason, add a red circle to it? How is that supposed to help? How is this different from any of those templates "this article may contain offensive stuff" that we generally delete? If it shouldn't be removed, how do we deal with POV or POINT warriors who put it everywhere? Especially if people aren't supposed to explain why they put it there. Radiant_>|< 15:12, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
• If this could be implemented technically so that you could opt out of the whole scheme altogether, then it would be possibly acceptable. Unless and until that happens, it amounts to censorship and denigration of articles by fiat. -Splash 22:58, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
  • That's the idea, only people who chose to would notice Toby. ~~ N (t/c) 23:05, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
    • I think that if we have to have a system like this to allow censorship of wikipedia, then it needs to be an opt-in system. Thryduulf 10:32, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
      • It most definitely needs to be opt-in rather than opt-out, as people are going to be using it to hide information. I should also note that developers are unlikely to implement something like this - the servers are overloaded as they stand. Radiant_>|< 12:51, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

NOTE: Many of the below linked-to images are disturbingly violent, sexually explicit, or otherwise potentially offensive and probably not safe to view in public. They were added inline by Xiong (in a probable WP:POINT violation), and de-inlined by myself. ~~ N (t/c) 21:10, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, I've restored all the Tobyable images to this page, since I consider them an integral portion of my perspective -- I'm a visual artist. I might take offense at this bowdlerization of my comments, but I don't. You see, I really can see both sides of the argument. Thus, I've forked out the censored version. If we had Toby working for us, of course . . . — Xiong熊talk* 00:27, 2005 August 26 (UTC)

Offensive images from this point on. You have been warned. I still think this is absolutely unnecessary, a violation of WP:POINT, an unnecessary impediment to editing of this page, and a danger (yes, danger, as in danger of discipline) to those browsing this page who are unaware. This is very important to me, as I regularly browse WP at school. As such, I will conduct all further discussion on the censored page, and take all possible precautions on this page against people inadvertantly seeing the images. ~~ N (t/c) 00:37, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

No offensive images now, thanks to Radiant. Xiong, if you revert back to the offensive version, please reinsert the spacers. Don't surprise people. ~~ N (t/c) 14:07, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I think some folks just aren't bothering to read all about Toby. Why in the world would anyone think Toby would take anything away, or watch out for adults? Toby is for kids, and for people whose bosses treat them like kids, or just want to pretend they're kids -- er, sorry, "people with high moral standards".

Yeh, some folks find any mention of Nazis offensive. Toby will watch out for those folks. Pictures of raw meat might get Tobyed, too. And I wouldn't be surprised if Somebody wanted Toby to keep an eye on paintings of a Man beaten, whipped through the streets, nailed to a tree like a common thief, and left out to dry. This kind of stuff is ugly, and people who don't want to see ugly stuff don't need to see it -- and we don't need to force them to see it, either. In fact, we can provide Toby, who will put his hands over their eyes -- if that's what they want.

I notice some editors object to Toby on the grounds that such a wide range of pages and images will get Tobyed. So what? Why is that bad? You and I believe that everybody should see everything -- but others disagree. Where to draw the line? Don't! Let Toby watch anything at all that anybody at all shows him. Yes, pretty soon, Toby will be watching a whole lotta stuff. That sounds just about right to me. Better that Toby should not show a borderline item to A READER WHO HAS SPECIFICALLY ASKED TO HAVE THIS PROJECT CENSORED FOR HIS PERSONAL BENEFIT than that we should take a chance and show it anyway.

Toby is not going to make one damn bit of difference to most of us. If we don't ask Toby to watch, he won't, not for us -- he'll watch for those who desire it. I imagine that, if it annoys you, then you can go into "Preferences" and remove every visible trace of Toby from your skin, your rendered pages. You don't even need to have the ability to turn Toby on, let alone to Toby pages yourself. For you, Toby won't even exist.

• Does everybody here understand that I'm the fellow who nominated Autofellatio for Featured Picture? That was not a joke, either. I sincerely believe it belongs on the Main Page, the sooner the better. I get violent when people suggest censorship; I have issues with the withholding of the Deleted table from dumps -- hell, I have issues with the Deleted table at all.

I worry that there's no longer any image at Image:AbuGhraibAbuse05.jpg. What frustrated meddler removed it? This is a piece of history, and a damn important one, too. I think nobody should be prevented from seeing it -- but why should anybody be forced to do so?

But Toby doesn't worry me at all, because I won't be using him. Meanwhile, I will rest easy knowing that Toby will placate all the narrow-minded souls who voted to delete Autofellatio because they're afraid Somebody might see it. I won't have to throw hours of my life away defending a photo of a man with his own cock in his mouth. Toby will take the pressure off contentious content. Then maybe we can talk about Something Else.

The last-commenting gentleman has become an expert at setting up straw men and raising pointless FUD objections to every rational comment. I suggest he try reviewing proposals before attempting to quash them.

We don't "deal with POV warriors"; we don't contest or even question those who Toby content we think is neutral. If substantial numbers of biased readers Toby such content, then Toby will keep it clearly in his mind for a long time -- and that's the way it should be. If one random nut Tobys the article on Refrigerators, well, Toby'll forget all about it a week later.

I'm going to bet the worthy gentleman Tobys my user page ten seconds after Toby comes online -- and I won't even know or care. This is good, since I can't even get angry about it -- and nobody will know if he did it.

The entire key to Toby's success is that he is quite immune to comment or question. We can fight all day, trying to achieve an impossible consensus on content such as I've gathered here -- or we can just let the people who don't want to see it -- not see it. And if we never say why we Toby something, we can't fight about it.

As far as developer support goes, well, who do you think these guys are? Demigods? LAMP jockies are perhaps not a dime a dozen, but they can be had -- I daresay there are quite a few within our Community who are not even on the development team. We can't all work for no money! It's a commmon and popular skill, and the more money we pay in wages, the more and better talent we will attract. Does everybody here understand clearly that, at last count, WMF had exactly one full-time paid employee?

Our Community, like any other association of free humans, can do pretty much whatever we like, within the bounds of our collective power. Given several thousand active Wikipedians, if we want a feature added to the engine, we can have it. I'm real tired of our current, infantile business model. We can remain committed to our goals, have plenty of money flowing through, and a staff of well-paid developers who run the server effectively and implement needed changes quickly. We don't even have to pay for it out of our own pockets.

All we need to do is:

1. Stop pretending there are no other people in the world; and

2. Stop pretending there is no money.

Be nice to Toby. Toby is your friend. Even if you don't need Toby yourself.

— Xiong熊talk* 18:10, 2005 August 25 (UTC)

You will have to go mucu further than that to offend me. Nevertheless, I now have considerable doubt over whether Xiong means this as a serious proposal or merely performance art. -Splash 21:05, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm now concerned because the idea sounds less and less like "here's the solution to our decency/censorship problem" and more and more like "this will shut up those whiny prudes." I'm all for whiny prudes shutting up, but they should do that because they're content, not just because we foisted a censorship system on them. It seems clear that Toby would censor too much, but this proposal ignores that just because The first rule of Toby is you do not talk about Toby. LizardWizard 21:21, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fork

This is the restored, potentially questionable thread; for the benefit of Toby's friends, the censored version is forked to Wikipedia talk:Toby/censored. I'll try to keep the threads synchronized from this point, but I make no guarantees. — Xiong熊talk* 00:27, 2005 August 26 (UTC)

[edit] Moving right along

Splash, I most certainly did not intend to offend you; I mean to offend Somebody else, who shall remain nameless. I have only respect for you, Sir.

You know, I did a double take on your remarks, because I completely missed your intent on first reading. I thought you took exception to something I wrote -- but now I think you mean the collection of images I included in my remarks.

You see, I don't personally find any of those images unviewable, with the sole exception of Image:Pikachu.png. (That one turns my stomach, and no, that's not a joke -- it really annoys me. Yes, I can tolerate it, barely; at least it's not as bad as Hello Kitty, which I consider to be the incarnation of the Anti-Christ and a gateway to hard drugs. That is an image I must inline.)

I would not only welcome Autofellatio on Main Page; I would stand on my chair and clap if Image:Lynching-of-lige-daniels.jpg was there for the entire month of February. Yes, it's offensive -- amazingly so. I'm only sorry it's not one of the even more charming photos taken with the victim wearing a placard announcing his "crimes", surrounded by the toothlessly grinning, inbred murderers posing for the shot. Some of the most offensive photos in our history have been the most educational, often those taken during wartime.

I'll go so far as to say that it is the offensive images that tell us the most about ourselves -- not merely because of the interesting question of which exact images offend some, but because -- almost by definition -- images that offend are those that speak deeply about the human condition. Sex and Death are the boundaries of our lives, and it is there that taboos sprout, as we foolishly attempt to control not only the Universe, but our own lives, down into some aseptic, white-coveralled, utopia/dystopia in which if anybody ever shat, it would come out as a pretty lavender pill.

Serious proposal or performance art? Must it be either-or? Why can't it be both-and? Have we become so humorless and gray already, that we cannot abide debate that engages the soul, as well as the brain?

Although potentially questionable content may well include the written word, it is images that seem to push buttons faster than anything else -- thus, when we debate potentially questionable content management, we really ought to do so surrounded by potentially questionable images.

LizardWizard, please, don't throw yourself out of joint trying to figure out what Toby sounds like. This is both the solution to our censorship/decency problem and a way to shut up those whiney prudes. It all depends on which side of the fence you find yourself.

We foist Toby on nobody; he is a free choice, and the choice can be unmade or made again at any time.

Why do you think Toby will "censor too much"? Because you think Somebody Else will Toby something you don't think should be Tobyed? Hey, that might happen -- and it probably will. But so what? You're a free soul; if you attempt to view a page and find yourself looking at Toby, just turn him off. Or do you think you must dictate to all those who would really rather not see that?

In any case, we can, in the broad sense, control Toby so that he is not suppressing the output of the entire Project. We're not stupid -- or at least, we don't have to be. We can react to customer complaints at least as efficiently as the Bank of China, perhaps as well as the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

If Toby-users complain that Toby is forgetting to watch enough potentially questionable content, why, we just fix Toby. If Toby-users complain that nothing on the site seems to be accessible anymore, well, we just fix Toby. Toby's ridiculously complex forgetting algorithm can be fiddled with endlessly. Don't forget the power of the machine. We can identify, if need be, Tobyfiers who regularly login and Toby hundreds of obviously innocent articles -- note that we do not do this manually, and we do not fool with Toby directly, by un-Tobying pages -- we simply train Toby to listen to such compulsive Tobyfiers a little less closely.

We will know that we have Toby tuned just right when the venom from all sides is roughly equal in intensity.

The key is to be completely neutral in our instructions to Toby. We don't tell Toby, "Never remember Main Page". Main Page may well have potentially questionable content on it Someday. We do say, "Toby, forget heavily-read pages faster than others." If a page is heavily read, then there is a greater chance that a reader will Toby it -- so, if there really is questionable content on Main Page, Toby will remember, even if each click is only worth five minutes. If not, well, then that one wacky nutball who Tobyed Main Page for a photo of fat old Pavarotti will buy himself five minutes of peace, and then we'll move on.

(To be more precise, the Toby-users will move on; the rest of us won't know and won't care, because Toby touches nothing. Toby only watches if you ask him to watch -- for you.

The first rule of Toby is not "Don't talk about Toby." The first rule is just "Don't talk about why you put Toby on a given page or image." Why? Because it doesn't matter why, and any reason is debatable, and we respect those who aren't real good at putting their opinions into words. Maybe we don't respect them most of the time, and certainly not on any matter of importance -- but Toby is unimportant. Hey, I think a six year old is smart enough to be told by a reasonable Mother, "If you see something you don't like, click Toby." But I don't expect that kid to be able to explain the action. And although we'd probably like it if we knew grade schoolers weren't surfing the Project, we don't.

We don't rationalize Toby on a case-by-case basis; that way leads to contention and agenda-driven micromanagement. But we most certainly do talk about Toby's overall methods -- that's why we're here. — Xiong熊talk* 01:30, 2005 August 26 (UTC)

Well, Toby is certainly starting to sound worth a try to me. I'm not sure how well it'd work out, but I'd certainly like to have an experiment. However, do you really think Wikipedia (except the Simple English Wikipedia) will be of much use to a six-year-old?

As to autofellatio or lynching on the main page, and the topic of the worth of offensive images in general, I agree with the worth and the need for these things to be exposed; however, they don't need to be trumpeted to the world (through the Main Page or even through inlining in articles), because Wikipedia has PR concerns (can you imagine the uproar resulting from a story about "Best-known Internet encyclopedia puts guy sucking own dick on front page"?), and because of worksafety/schoolsafety, which as an HS student is always my top concern in debates about WikiCensorship.

And finally, re "performance art": OK, but it doesn't excuse making this page (of all pages) non-worksafe, and it must be reconciled with professionalism. (Re professionalism: this dovetails nicely with the PR concerns I mention, and contrasts oddly with your comments somewhere above on this page about money.) ~~ N (t/c) 01:43, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

• Even after reading your essay, I still think the whole concept of Toby is redundant. To bring up pictures of penis's, clitoris', swastikas, human feces, Jesus, autofellatio, raw meat, someone still has to type it in, or actively search for it, its not like we have porn popups (like most of the Internet). Bottom line, if someone searches for "human feces" and is surprised by the "offensive" content about human feces (whether offensive words or images) then they shouldnt of been searching for it. You dont just stumble into controversial pages at Wikipedia, you have to be looking pretty damn hard for it. Hell, alot of the time the wikipedias editors strive to not be overtly offensive we do this naturally out of good faith by making sure offensive images are small, and are not at the top of the page to draw our attention, one example is, Syphilis, but again whats an 8 year old doing looking that up? If we strive to make Wikipedia tasteful, ie by not link spamming Bukkake/anal warts on every page I think the wikipedia peer review process is enough. Implying that we need Toby to prevent autofellatio from being on the Main page etc is scaremongering, the peer review process has it's own safeguards, or dont you have Wikifaith? - UnlimitedAccess 06:51, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

• If the issue here is predominantly about images, why isn't a means to switch off all images a viable option? (opt-in, of course) VisibleInk 14:44, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • Any browser can be set to turn off images. Any good browser can be set to turn off images from a specific site. Radiant_>|< 14:52, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • Hah! I've proposed this (option to disable image inlining) a zillion times, and I'm glad to see someone else suggesting it. I intend to work on it as soon as I have some free hacking time. ~~ N (t/c) 15:24, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Oh! That's what you meant by inlining? (wasn't familiar with the term, still fairly new here) It seems like a fair option. Explorer doesn't seem to allow selective blocking, although Firefox's help page says it does. I suppose simply a guide somewhere on WP pointing out how a person unfamiliar with the process could switch off inlined images in whichever particular browser they're using might be a good compromise. VisibleInk 16:02, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

My reply is on Wikipedia talk:Toby/uncensored. Why don't I just synchronize the pages, as I promised above? Because Somebody used up the time I might have spent in this janitorial work re-fixing what he broke. Now Somebody (or Somebody else) can take over the responsibility. — Xiong熊talk* 19:18, 2005 August 26 (UTC)

[edit] Fork again

Is nobody ever happy? Are we all completely unable to compromise? Like I said before, no matter what you think, there is a sizable segment of the Community that disagrees with you.

Somebody screwed up my perfectly fine and reasonable compromise -- forking the debate into a censored and an uncensored version -- by making a messy page move. What got into his head, I'll never know. Some folks think that not only do they not want to see, they don't want you to see, either. Well.

I've swapped the censored and uncensored versions around this time. Next time I see this kind of malicious mischief, I'll move the censored version and the uncensored version and leave Wikipedia talk:Toby blank, with nothing but a pointer to each version.

I dunno about some folks. Rodney King took so many blows to the head that he's permanently brain-damaged, and was still able to urge us to get along. Maybe that's a bad example... — Xiong熊talk* 18:49, 2005 August 26 (UTC)

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)

Hey, I'm genuinely sorry to PO one of my biggest fans. I agree you should be able to browse this Project without putting your job in jeopardy, or getting grounded by your Mom for the rest of your natural life, or being forced to sit on a hard chair in principal-is-your-pal's outer office until he's done getting his lunchtime you know what from the girl's volleyball coach.

On the other hand, as a 45 year old man who answers to nobody at any time, I think I should be able to illustrate my comments richly (and I wish others would, too). I'm an intensely visual person; despite my oft-noted graphomania, I'm an accomplished graphic designer, and I'm rather unresponsive to long-winded, rambling comments presented as great, unbroken sheets of text. Nor is my selection of images gratuitous; I swear I think long and deeply on it. Each one is an example of an image that Somebody might find potentially questionable -- and each imparts a distinct coloration to the debate.

Removing the images from inline display is like cooking without spices or salt -- you may be able to choke it down, but I can't say I'm eager for a second bowl. But then again -- just as some folks cannot eat spicy, salty food, and must restrict themselves to a diet worthy of socialist dystopia -- some folks cannot tolerate the least little bit of potentially questionable content.

That's why I forked the discussion, as clumsy a solution as it is; and that's why we need Toby. — Xiong熊talk* 07:15, 2005 August 27 (UTC)

All right, I see what you mean by the need to illustrate, though I still wish you would have put a big bold warning and spacer. ~~ N (t/c) 15:33, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This is childish and contrary to policy

This proposal is childish. Wikipedia is not censored for minors. Our purpose here is to create an encyclopedia -- a unified, coherent presentation of all knowledge. It is not to categorize bits of that knowledge as "safe" or "unsafe" according to anyone's POV, or anyone's complaint or grievance. There is no way to support any kind of coherent tagging scheme without turning the encyclopedia into a soapbox for whatever POV is supported by that tagging scheme, or whatever Mrs. Grundy cares to besmirch articles with grievances.

By "coherent" I mean that the scheme actually expresses any distinctions. A tag which can be defensibly applied to every page and image is not a coherent one; if a user can tag anything and simply be expressing their own personal opinion, then the tagging system is incoherent. Moreover, it's contrary to Wikipedia's core NPOV policy: the encyclopedia is to be governed by a neutral point of view, not simply the aggregation of grievances. --FOo 21:38, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More points answered

Copied from uncensored page.

Image:Birthday cake.jpg • 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.

These windmills are not actually in Holland. Meanwhile, there is a vast gray area between Autofellatio on Main Page and photos of windmills in Holland.

Image:Lynching-of-lige-daniels.jpg 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)

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)

[edit] Holy feces this is great

Yeah --SPUI (talk) 01:03, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Wait, this is actually a serious proposal? It's, uh, interesting. Strangely addictive. Like certain illegal drugs. --SPUI (talk) 01:27, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

• Object.

"As far as developer support goes, well, who do you think these guys are? Demigods? LAMP jockies are perhaps not a dime a dozen, but they can be had -- I daresay there are quite a few within our Community who are not even on the development team. We can't all work for no money! It's a commmon and popular skill, and the more money we pay in wages, the more and better talent we will attract. Does everybody here understand clearly that, at last count, WMF had exactly one full-time paid employee?"

"Our Community, like any other association of free humans, can do pretty much whatever we like, within the bounds of our collective power. Given several thousand active Wikipedians, if we want a feature added to the engine, we can have it. I'm real tired of our current, infantile business model."

"All we need to do is: 1. Stop pretending there are no other people in the world; and 2. Stop pretending there is no money."

Wikipedia is not a business. It does not have a business model. We are here to create an encyclopedia and should not let monetary issues get in the way of creating policy. As far as Wikipedia's policy is concerned, there is no money. The entire idea looks highly unprofessional, childish, and unencyclopedic. The proposal itself on this page looks like a marketing idea, if not a theme for a cult. Toby would look hideous anywhere on a page in contract with our current layout, no matter how small it is. The only way I might consider having the slightest possibility of letting the thought pass into my head of supporting this, Toby would have to be completely invisible.

Creating the uncensored and censored versions, for example of marketing ploys, was a dirty trick and is reminescent of how people with political agendas often pass out pictures of aborted fetuses and mangled bodies.

"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.)"

Why would we get blamed in the first place, legal or otherwise? He looked up autofellatio himself, likely from another sex topic. WP:NOT censored already removes that responsibility. If I look up an article in an unwikified paper encyclopedia on genitalia, I'll likely see a diagram, perhaps a picture of a victem in the article on a disfiguring disease. Wikipedia is except from laws covering "obscenity" because these are being used in an educational manner.

The idea Toothpaste 13:04, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Gee, Toothpaste. I don't mean to talk down, but how old are you? Have you ever had a job, paid rent, tried to pay bills, support a family, put a daughter through school? I mean that seriously; I don't take the answer for granted, since any number of youngsters are running around in here.

When you get out into the outside world, you swiftly learn that Nothing is free. It would be really cool if there was free stuff, but in the end, Somebody always pays. This may dawn on some folks slowly; for others, the horrible truth comes like a bucket of cold water in the jockeys.

Anybody ever told you something was free, it was a lie. Absolutely everything in your world, with the possible exception of your dreams, cost. It is either a resource, therefore limited; or it is a manufactured good, or a service; therefore the product of labor, capital, or both. Water is not free. We spend literally billions of dollars ensuring our supply of clean water. Air is not free. We can look back today on about 35 years of intense political battles over the question of who will pay to keep the air clean. The Earth is not free. If you ever find some free real estate, let me know, because I would love to build a home there. Fire is not free -- indeed, it is the most expensive of the ancient elements; we Americans are busy on the other side of the world killing and dying in order to protect our supply of this precious stuff.

Speech is not free. Brave men and women have spent their whole lives creating a little bubble of safety around you and your "freedom" of expression. God is not free. Walk into the nearest house of worship, sit down and watch the show. No matter how traditional or how eccentric; no matter the Name called upon or the songs sung; I guarantee that sooner or later the plate will be passed. The net is not free. DARPANET was funded as a military research project, paid for out of American tax dollars; today, the net is huge big business. For the $19.95 a month you pay for dialup, you get a helluva lot -- the net is very cheap -- but it's not free.

And Wikipedia is not free. See that little banner at the top of this page? Wikimedia Foundation is most certainly a business; it has officers and offices, books, income, expenses, payroll, overhead, and a product it delivers to customers all around the world -- customers like you and me. It is a so-called "not-for-profit", 501(c) corporation -- but that just means you can't buy shares, and it's exempt from some taxes. It definitely must run at a profit, because the only alternative is to run at a loss; and if you do that for very long, you go broke.

Toothpaste, you are right about one thing: Wikipedia does not have a business model. Well, strictly speaking, that's not true either -- you could go down to Florida and see Jimbo's business plan. I'm sure he'd show it to you. I'll bet it is full of details. The trouble, as I see it, is that all of those details pertain to how the money will be spent. Near as I can tell, the entire income side of the business plan consists of beg -- and if there's much sophistication to the begging, I don't see it.

Many organizations subsist on donations, and do not charge for the services they render. Most of these get substantial amounts of government funding. All spend a great deal of time, money, and energy just planning how to beg -- and very few do not find something to sell, as well, quid-pro-quo.

Even without a particularly healthy business model, we're not broke. We can certainly pay for Toby; he works cheap.

I'm sorry you find Toby unattractive. Hey, my business model sucks, too. Or else I'd find a way to get all you guys to pay me for my professional services, and then I could spend a few weeks designing a buffed-up, 3-D, drop shadow Toby. As it is, this is what you get for "free". This is a wiki -- I don't own Toby -- if you have a better design, upload it. I daresay I won't be the one to revert you.

If the proposal looks like a marketing scheme, that's because it is. This is a marketplace of ideas, and Toby is what I have to sell today. Buy or don't buy, it's your choice. Would you feel better if I just uploaded the image and left you alone to figure it out? I did. But that was months ago. Guess you need a little more help than that.

Suggest you read the proposal before commenting; it will inform your words. If you don't use Toby, then you don't see Toby. There has to be some sort of button or link or whatever into the world of Toby; otherwise, nobody could ever get there. (!) But content that Toby is watching does not look in any way different from any other content -- not to non-Toby users, such as yourself. You will never even know he is there.

I don't know why we would get blamed in the first place for illustrating articles on foreskins with photos of foreskins. I don't really understand why some folks are offended by most things. I have to admit, chicks with dicks make me a bit sick. But I would never go out of my way to delete them. I certainly wouldn't tell anybody, "Don't look!"

But what you must realize is that not everybody agrees with you. There's a whole world full of people out there, many of whom get positively furious that you or I should, even in the privacy of our own homes, view an image of an unclothed human person. These are not just isolated nutballs; I can show you entire cities of such people. We can't fight the world.

— Xiong熊talk* 15:28, 2005 August 27 (UTC)

Yes, nothing is "free." I myself have been angry at people on television frivolously destroying very exensive objects for entertainment value and replacing them, acting as if nothing had happened, when the money that had been used to make the replacement could have been used very well elsewhere. In the process of "fighting the world," you throw away all of the standards you started with. Then you don't really have Wikipedia anymore. I did read the proposal, and I do not appreciate your condescending to me and the other people who have objected. If I was near supporting this, then I would say it should be an option in the "preferences" section of Wikipedia, and even then, I think it would be best not to call it "Toby." Toothpaste 16:27, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

• Vehemently object in the strongest possible terms - Not only is the idea unworkable, as vandals will simply Toby-tag every single image for fun and profit, but it goes against the Wiki principle of "anyone can edit." The only possible "Toby-tag" I would support is a USER-LINKED system in which a user-flagged image tag ONLY applies to that user login. In this system, a reader can flag images he or she wishes not to see in line again, and the system saves those preferences (in a special userspace page?) No single reader's personal biases and preferences should be allowed to alter the way the content of the encyclopedia is displayed to the readership at large, and "Toby" would do just that. FCYTravis 13:22, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Hurts you? No single reader's bias will affect affect Toby, since Toby listens to everybody who talks to him. And Toby has nothing to say whatever to "the readership at large", since nobody has Toby thrust on him -- You must choose Toby; otherwise, he does not affect you. I don't know why it is so hard to get this simple point across to folks. — Xiong熊talk* 15:28, 2005 August 27 (UTC)

• It's simply not going to work is it? Generally the people who don't want to see images of Autofellatio or whatever don't want everyone else to see it as well. Also, if someone uses Toby because they don't want to see images of Autofellatio, but then find out they can't see images of George W. Bush, who they want to see, they're going to stop using Toby. And for the people who don't want to see Bush (err, George that is ;) but want to see Autofellatio, they're not going to be able to use it either. It's not going to help children out because they might need to see the Israeli flag, or any pictures related to democracy which could get tobyed. - Joolz 13:55, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I think this complaint is pretty valid. ~~ N (t/c) 15:32, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Toby will work. Toby must work. It's elementary, my dear Watson. Our Community is no longer a cozy little group of like-minded editors who agree on everything, or can at least entertain the views of others. As the debate over Toby itself proves, large segments of our Community are completely unable to tolerate others. And the extremists are found on both sides of the fence. We introduce some sort of compromise, or we endure an endless war, in which there are no winners, only sore losers. — Xiong熊talk* 15:28, 2005 August 27 (UTC)

• Saying it will or it must work does not make it so. Toby is not the Little Engine That Could ;) -- Joolz 16:46, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Recap

Our Story Thus Far: Members have weighed in on every possible side of Toby. A few are enthusiastic; most either think Toby goes too far or not far enough. This is despite the flexible nature of Toby, which permits one side to have him all over the place, and the other to avoid him entirely.

This is about what I figured, and I offer it as proof that Toby must be about the right idea. When both sides are equally unhappy, it must be the best possible compromise.

Simple Toby is the lightweight version of this proposal now; instead of allowing readers to flag content for Toby's watchlist, all images are automatically Tobyed, and nothing else. The demo implements this simplified model. — Xiong熊talk* 15:28, 2005 August 27 (UTC)

[edit] WTF?

I went to the uncensored version of this page, and, WTF? Why the hell do we need pictures of THAT on the talk page of a proposal? That's one of the biggest WP:POINTs i've seen in a while! Anyway, just say no to Toby. Anything to censor wikipedia in any way is not encyclopedic. If you don't want to see the images, disable them in your browser. And then you won't have to see THAT, which silly people put on talk pages of policy proposals! *UGH* --Phroziac ^(talk) 16:47, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

• Indeed, those pictures add nothing of relevence to the debate, the talk page is here for us to debate the proposal, having forks of the debate to have some irrelevent pictures there is not constructive or helpful, and only serves to either stifle or fragment discussion. I suggest that that page be closed and redirected back here, where we can discuss the proposal together. -- Joolz 16:54, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, of course. --Phroziac ^(talk) 15:31, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

• Xiong wrote: "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." I think this is where we are going to have to disagree. As said earlier I believe the community at large will do a sufficient job, and I would even argue a superior job than Toby would provide, because it wont have any false positives. I think it really does depend on how much Wikifaith you have, I believe all content related problems will be fixed through the natural Wiki process of dicourse. As noted, we cant guarantee that something on the page is not going to be offensive, but we also cant guarantee that Toby will hide it either, and in the end I trust the Wikipedia process enough to leave it as is, as it stands it is quite good, and as with everything involved with wikipedia its only going to get a hell of a lot better, ie Toby would become more and more redundant. The overly sensitive have a voice, and we ALL should encourage them to use it, providing them with software to hide "difficult" pages, means that each "difficult" page will only have one type of author, resulting in it being unbalanced. Wikipedia needs the overly sensitive just as much as it needs people who believe XXX porn should be on here, it results in a balanced encyclopedia approved by all groups of society, what could be more Toby friendly than that? So not only is Toby (ever increasingly) redundant it could upsets this delicate balance we have and increases the risk greatly of pages becoming POV. - UnlimitedAccess 00:03, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually i haven't seen any porn on wikipedia yet. I sure don't get anything from that threesome with the tophat dude picture. --Phroziac ^(talk) 15:31, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree, thus proving my point. The sensitive and easily offended rein in the the more liberal members (non political sense), and that works both ways, it establishes a balance, "Toby" could upset that balance. - UnlimitedAccess 16:49, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ridiculous

This whole concept is ridiculous. You're saying that Wikipedia (the source of the information) should directly provide the means for end users to block its own information, when it should be the highly configurable middle man that does this job (ie, the browser or other software). If someone thinks their kids will see offensive photos, they need only block the downloading of any photos whatsoever. Rather than having an anonymous vandal deciding what can be seen by people who only wish not to see nudity, it should be entirely left up to the end user to decide how to use (or not use) the internet and all of its contents. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-08-27 22:47

• I think Toby is silly. Elfguy 00:59, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
• While I thought Toby was cute and a good idea, I now see the problems with this idea. My main objection is this line: "If you see something you don't think your friends should ever see, just put Toby there. Don't say anything more, because we don't want to start a fight. Just tell Toby" This will be a problem, since there are editors who will tag stuff. And, if I read this right, there is no debate on wether or not Toby should be used and once Toby is used, no one can comment on it's removal. If something major like Toby is being introduced, there needs to be a discussion before he gets to be used anywhere. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 05:20, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Trouble With Toby

...is that this is fundamentally an attempt at developing a technical solution to a social intercourse problem. I'm skeptical that this will accomplish anything other than adding yet another confusing user interface element getting between users and the information they need. (Note that I'm not talking about censorship here. Just usability.) Nandesuka 05:44, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes down with bureaucracy :). - UnlimitedAccess 09:35, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] I had a word with Toby

I had a word with Toby. He told me if I didn't want to see something I shouldn't look at it. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 06:01, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Childish and ridiculous

I find the tone of this proposed guideline to be childish, patronising, and frankly quite ridiculous. We're actually being asked here to talk to an imaginary robot like he's some kind of teddy bear. What is this, Wikipedia or kindergarten? I'm all for discussions on content or ways to solve these ongoing editorial issues, but this is ridiculous. --IByte 13:54, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Similar option

(moved from the demo talk — Xiong熊talk* 10:52, 2005 August 29 (UTC))

Rather than using Toby, what's wrong with a simple option in preferences? The navigation path would take the same number of steps, and the implementation could take a very uncontroversial position, like so:

It's not making any value judgement on whether images are bad, it's not explicitly linked on every page, but it would still be available on the preferences. Users who enabled this would save a bit of bandwidth, I imagine. The images would still be there, but as file names to click on, similar to the autofellatio page. -- Norvy (talk) 16:20, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes! You are absolutely correct! This is Simple Toby! This is what Toby looks like on the Preferences page -- although I would still root for the cute little cartoon guy right there. But the icon is not really needed on the Prefs page.

Toby does not make any value judgement -- not Simple Toby, not Original Toby. Toby is completely indifferent to any values whatever. Simple Toby watches all images across the board; Original Toby watches whatever anybody tells him to watch. But either way, Toby is purely a user preference -- not a thing stuck to article or image pages. Please read the proposal before commenting, eh?

And Thank You Norvy! — Xiong熊talk* 11:01, 2005 August 29 (UTC)

YES! YES! THANK YOU! I'm currently trying to code this - wish me luck. ~~ N (t/c) 14:08, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

The browser should be responsible for images to be displayed or not; this should not be a server-side issue. Dysprosia 09:39, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Why? Browser-side image blocking is inconvenient to turn off when you actually want to see an image. This could let you see the image in its own page, or even provide a JavaScript link to put the image inline (once you've confirmed its safety). It has much more potential for flexibility. And I'm not sure IE lets you configure what servers you want to show images from. ~~ N (t/c) 19:02, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

• Ah, that's a good and simple software solution. It needn't be server-side even, this can be solved with something as simple as CSS. And it's way better than sticking icons all over the Wiki. Radiant_>|< 11:56, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

The icon is required; it serves two important purposes: (1) To enable young users and those whose computer skills are poor to enter the Toby system at all (because the symbol is immediately recognized by the great unwashed masses); and (2) to show clearly at all times that the user has entered the Toby-state.

There is no suggestion that icons will be "stuck all over"; this is classic FUD. One tiny icon in the sidebar -- which could be disabled in Prefs, of course, for the hardcore hardcore viewers -- and one great big icon floating above every page, in the same corner of the window, for Toby-users only. For the 37th time: If you don't want to see Toby, deal with Toby, or even think about Toby, you need never do so. — Xiong熊talk* 21:18, 2005 August 30 (UTC)

For the Nth time: do you really think Wikipedia (aside from the Simple English version) is useful or interesting to really young users? And the Toby icon is not at all clear - to me it indicates "This will disable surprised green cherries". Nothing wrong with a prefs option. Agreed on your 37th-time statement. I don't know what reasoning hardcore anti-deinlining-ists like Dysprosia above use - I'd be interested in hearing it. ~~ N (t/c) 22:03, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

• • Hmm. CSS? How? That would be very, very good. ~~ N (t/c) 19:02, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Much can be done in CSS -- look how far I got with the demo! I think a little developer support will be required, even for Simple Toby -- but of course, the best solution is the least expensive. CSS is amazing -- if your browser supports it properly. Unfortunately, it is exactly those young users with downrev machines and older browsers whose behind-the-curve guardians are most likely to feel the need for Toby. — Xiong熊talk* 21:18, 2005 August 30 (UTC)

Good point. WP is already CSS-heavy, but doesn't rely on it for manipulating the content - this should be done server-side. ~~ N (t/c) 22:03, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

A 'disable all images' opt-in preference option might be a simple and uncontroversial (though not all-encompassing) solution, yes, but I feel absolutely no need for "cute" names or images. Why can't the replacement image just say "Images disabled, see preferences"? I like Norvy's pragmatic suggestion far more than any Toby, Barney, Tinky-Winky or whatever; why target the lowest common denominator? I still feel that violates WP:NOT. --IByte 23:05, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes. How's "deinlining" for a technical term, and "disable display of images in articles" for a preferences option? ~~ N (t/c) 23:08, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

I think the devs have already figured out how to do this, see MediaWiki:Bad_image_list. It's simply a matter of letting it be a per-user option, and making it blacklist all images. See also: AN discussion. -- Norvy (talk) 21:53, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, I'll have to look at that while I'm trying to code. ~~ N (t/c) 22:03, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

It sounds completely useless to me. Who on earth is going to select this option anyway? It's useless for children, whose parents want to stop their kids from viewing a few selected pages whether or not the child is capable of clicking "log out". And it's useless for adults, who would never disable all images just so that they don't have to look at a few ugly ones. Even if there was someone who wanted it, it's already implemented in many browsers, with a much more convenient UI available for those who care to look for it (e.g. [1]). -- Tim Starling 02:55, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

It's useful for people at work or school who don't want to risk showing the whole room a penis. I would certainly use it, despite your comment about "all adults". Browser image disabling is inconvenient because it's less easy to turn off - with this, you could just click on a link to see the Image: page with the image on it, or even click a Javascript link to put the image inline once you've confirmed its safety. You could even elect to see all images as tiny thumbnails with a Javascript link to enlarge them if they look safe. Much more flexible. And anyway, do all browsers allow disabling images by server? Does IE? ~~ N (t/c) 14:13, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

There's no such thing as a browser 'supporting' image disabling; if the server doesn't serve an image, the browser doesn't (can't!) show it, which obviously works in all browsers, and so do replacement/blank images. The same goes for hyperlinking the replacement image to the actual image, no Javascript required. --IByte 15:46, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

I know, that's my point. I was talking about browser-side image disabling like Tim suggested. ~~ N (t/c) 01:46, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Toby destroying the sense of community in Wikipedia

One of the great things about Wikipedia is that we talk to each other when trying to make this better, thus growing our own perceptions. If Toby came into play, that would be gone. Something you don't like? Toby it! Somebody you don't like? Toby them! Something you think others shouldn't like? Cabal Toby Advocacy! Toby might not have biases, but the people who would use him sure do.

Despite the astronomical violations of WP:POINT and WP:NPOV that would occur by trying to get people to put blinders on their world view with Toby, our goal of trying to reach consensus in our efforts would become secondary towards putting things to fit into our own little box.

Xiong seems to have put this up in good faith, which I applaud, but I believe that the best way to solve any parenting problems is to install a filtering system like Netnanny, or even better yet, go on Wikipedia with your kids and talk to them while doing so. Karmafist 13:12, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Now, I agree with this. Any system of trying to make WP suitable for young users is going to run into horrendous POV problems surrounding the definitions of "suitable" and "young". A democratic solution like Toby would lead to everything being marked unsuitable - even a "fading" system would fail because most non-vandals, I suspect, wouldn't care enough to mark pages as inappropriate.

My nightmare, BTW (which I don't think Xiong or anyone else on here supports, but some of the "encyclopedic merit" people might), is Wikipedia requiring an age-verification system to view/do certain things. ~~ N (t/c) 22:07, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Age verification...that's ridiculous...all wikipedia's problems are solved if we just have something like this on the main page...then, not only can we toss credibility out to the dogs, but we no longer have to worry about any legal attack from some far right relgious group who finds out that we don't keep age verifications on the people who have posted their images of autofellatio et al. I understand the concept of Toby but think it parallels tagging and doesn't help with credibilty issues Wikipedia has.--MONGO 08:37, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Please provide more warning before providing links to porn sites as examples! What if my parents saw that? --Phroziac ^(talk) 00:24, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

Well, if you are worried about your parents seeing it, then they must be worried about what you're looking at.--MONGO 00:32, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

Point being? (Oh, and I agree with Phroziac - I clicked that link at school and had to close the tab dang fast. And then delete it from my history.) ~~ N (t/c) 00:34, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Point made...if that is offensive, then what happens when you click onto an article and someone has posted an image of an overt sex act in the article, just as a joke...happens all the time and remember, even if an article is reverted quickly, not all of them are, so whatever your page loads is the one you get until you hit refresh or close out. Don't again put in false innuendo when you discuss "encyclopedic merit".--MONGO 00:41, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Third Schoolsafety Idea

This is kind of getting away from the point of Toby, but... a proxy that filters out inline images and provides links to view them? People could run it on a home machine or on the machine they browse from. Probably better than putting it in MediaWiki. ~~ N (t/c) 16:17, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

This can be done now with any browser that allows you to disable inline images. (E.g. Firefox's "Load Images" option. With this on, images aren't loaded, but you can right-click on the missing image and select "View Image" to see it.) If you're considering suggesting that people run additional software, why not just have them use software which already exists rather than creating a new program just for this purpose? --FOo 18:13, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Because this is more flexible. This would allow a Javascript link to put the image back inline, whitelisting of pages/images, quicker viewing of full-size images (1 step rather than 2), &c &c. ~~ N (t/c) 21:45, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Sounds more platform-specific and more demanding of the browser. Some folks browse with JavaScript turned off, or greatly restricted, for privacy and security reasons -- e.g. to avoid pop-up ads. Why prefer a system that works only for Wikipedia, when we can recommend something that helps people avoid unwanted offensive images on any site and with any other set of browser settings?

In the end, we need to recognize that power is with the user. We need to be compatible with user choices, and encourage users to make those choices -- e.g. disabling JavaScript or images in the browser if that suits their needs. Rather than telling users, "Turn on JavaScript and images, and use our app to avoid seeing images you don't want, on our site only" we can instead tell them, "Turn off images if you do not want to see images -- it works for both our site, and every other site that might show offensive images, too!" --FOo 22:59, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

This wouldn't be anything Wikipedia-official - just a proxy that individual users could choose to run. But as I'm getting less concerned about schoolsafety (just don't look up "penis", and be ready to hit alt-F4), I don't think I'll put any work into writing this, so unless there's further interest, never mind. ~~ N (t/c) 23:21, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Let's cut the poo-poo

Please read before you post!

I realize this discussion has gotten very long, but I think it is still important to read what has gone before, in order to get a realistic idea of what Toby is and what Toby is not. There are a great number of pretty bad ideas that are not Toby -- and I'm not suggesting any of them.

It's disheartening to come here day after day to answer the same objections, as if nobody has the patience to read. I'd like to suggest that if I've answered your objections, don't just repeat them. At best, that's carelessness; at worst, it's spreading FUD.

We all have agendas and you're welcome to advance yours. But the way it works in a scholarly Community is that you discover a potential flaw in a proposal and mention it. If that flaw is shown not to exist, you have to move on, and find another potential flaw -- it just doesn't make any sense to keep setting up the same straw man so you can knock him down again.

[edit] Two sides to Toby

Please note that there are two Toby implementations in play here:

• Original Toby is able to filter out text as well as images. Content is assigned to Toby click-by-click by any reader. As time passes, Toby "forgets" these clicks, so infrequently clicked items pass out from Toby's filter. Frequently-clicked items remain.

• Simple Toby just filters all images, period. Images are replaced by placeholders.

[edit] Toby is not a cop

Toby has absolutely no power. Anybody can ask Toby to watch; anybody can ask him to stop watching. Either way, the effect is immediate. This has nothing to do with whether one is logged in or not -- indeed, logging out and logging in under a different user name will not affect Toby in the least.

Toby is turned on with a click -- two clicks, really: The first click takes you to a simple choice page: Toby or not Toby. Toby is turned off the same way: The first click takes you to the choice page, and another click takes you right out. No arguments, no hassles.

[edit] Toby is not an editor

Toby does not tag pages in any way visible to the user -- reader or editor.

• Original Toby keeps track of "his" content internally -- there is not even any way to review which content he is tracking without turning Toby on and browsing the Project.

• Simple Toby filters all images, so there is not even anything for him to remember.

Either way, Toby touches nothing and neither creates nor destroys any content. To a reader who does not require Toby's services, Toby has zero footprint.

[edit] Toby's face is useful

There are very good reasons to have an icon representing Toby. This has nothing to do with whether you personally like Toby's face. Toby represents a service in a clear, identifiable way. This particular image -- incorporating the slashed-red-circle NO -- is acceptable to a great number of people whose backgrounds, biases, and outlook you may not relate to very well. And that's the way it should be.

There is a definite advantage to providing the Toby-service through a clickable icon. This lowers the bar to its use -- and while you may not really think that's a good thing, why not? The whole point of Toby is that we respect other's needs. It's not nice to put something needed *just* out of reach. Let's put it right down where even the dummies can find it.

I don't think some of us want to believe what minimal computer competence some of our readers have. With great popularity comes great responsibility, and now we need to take care of the same people who still touch a keyboard in fear that black smoke will come rolling out of the vents if they type the wrong word. To such people, the Preferences screen is intimidating. Naturally, we want to be able to control Toby on an individual basis from Prefs -- but the butt-simple stupid interface is a little picture you click on to make stuff go away.

As I've mentioned before, displaying a Toby icon while Toby is watching is greatly reassuring to that certain segment who will actually want to use Toby. Let's be nice, and give the customer what she wants.

The rest of us can go into Prefs and disable Toby entirely, so even that little icon does not show.

I'm asking you all to have a little humanity and empathy for those without all the advantages -- in skills, in brains, in cosmopolitan thinking -- that you enjoy.

[edit] Toby makes no judgements

It is basic to this proposal that we do not define the type of content Toby filters. We do not label it as "bad", "non-child-safe", "adult" -- or in any other way. No point of view or bias is being advanced -- none whatsoever. Indeed, we forbid speculation or explanation of Toby, precisely to avoid the trap of labeling content. Toby does not label content in any way -- Toby does not judge.

It is pointless and divisive to try to define the type of content that some do not want to see, or why. Toby does not do this.

Please dispense with attacks on Toby based on anticipated bias. Of course any reader using Toby will see a biased selection of content -- that's the whole purpose of Toby. But Toby's agenda is controlled by consensus -- consensus of those who think they need Toby. Anybody who disagrees is welcome to turn Toby off.

[edit] Toby is everybody's friend

Toby stands ready for all, never intrudes unless asked, and goes away when he's not wanted. What more can you possibly ask? I don't know who will use Toby; nor do I care. Anybody will be able to do so, and that's enough.

We're ever so much bigger than we think. This is not a tight little cliquey clubhouse. It may seem that way at times, but that's because very few readers ever turn over the page and start commenting on Talk. Very few indeed -- a fraction of a percent. The great unwashed masses out there have opinions incredibly divergent from any of ours -- and they are our customers; they are our readers; they are the ones we work for.

We are not met here to amuse ourselves, to serve our own purposes alone. If we were, then we'd stop licensing our content out freely -- we'd encrypt the site and charge admission. We give this Project away freely to the entire human community as a public service -- and it is high time we began to serve.

— Xiong熊talk* 08:46, 2005 September 2 (UTC)

Do you have to do this marketing spiel every few days? You certaintly didn't address my objections (see further above) and I really doubt most objections can be overcome. -- Joolz 01:59, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Toby isn't everyone's friend, because he isn't mine.

Everyone who wants to hide (i.e. "Toby") some kinds of images also wants to see some other kinds of images. If Toby hides anything that anyone wants hidden, then both the flaccid vs. erect penis picture and the main picture of George W. Bush are going to be hidden to Toby users. Each camp will find that Toby restricts the images they do want to see. Or they will just think we have a stupid encyclopedia that doesn't even have a picture of a penis/a president, if Toby is that invisible. Either way, Toby will not do what they want. FreplySpang (talk) 00:30, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

Toby is opt-in, so people won't think that we don't have a Bush picture, unless turning on Toby is the first thing they do and Toby provides no indication that there was supposed to be a picture somewhere. Still, you're right that all images would become invisible because vandals would tag everything. Oh, by the way, can we stop calling it Toby now??? ~~ N (t/c) 01:11, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "no judgements" leads to consensus?

You write "Indeed, we forbid speculation or explanation of Toby". So we would have a policy of which it is prohibited to discuss or dispute its content, and this is supposed to help consensus? That doesn't make sense to me, it sounds rather oppressive. (And I'm being driven to the brink of insanity by the ongoing habit on this page to refer to this proposed policy as if it were a person/cuddly robot.) --IByte 01:03, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Answer to Joolz

I'm sorry if you think it's a marketing spiel. I come, I answer all objections; I go away for half a day; I return to find the exact same objections raised all over again. Now, if you'll grant, just for the sake of the argument, that you might find yourself in my shoes; what would you do?

I do apologize that I didn't address your concerns; I overlooked them in the flood of reflex-thrown tomatoes. I believe you refer to:

the people who don't want to see ... Autofellatio ... don't want everyone else to see it as well. Also, if someone uses Toby because they don't want to see images of Autofellatio, but then find out they can't see images of George W. Bush ... they're going to stop using Toby.

This is two objections and I promise not to leave here until I have satisfied you on both points. First:

the people who don't want to see ... Autofellatio ... don't want everyone else to see it as well.

You are correct, to a point. Some of the people who don't want to see X don't want anybody else to see X, either. And this is a non-trivial group.

Let me speak to such folks directly:

You are not winning this battle. You are woefully outnumbered by hardline porno inclusionists. Autofellatio_2.jpg, the Bête noire around which Toby circles, has been nominated for deletion three times and has again been kept -- in spite of all your organizing efforts. If you can't get such a patently offensive image out of this Project, you're not going to get anything out.

Toby is the very best proposal on the table, from your point of view. It is a very, very hard sell to the hardliners as it is -- you cannot hope for anything more favorable to your side.

We can't please all the people, all the time. We can throw them a bone, though -- and if it costs us very little, why not?

Second, you suggested that some will be dismayed to find Bush invisible, as well as bushes and other natural bits. They'll turn off Toby so they can see Flag of Israel and then get angry all over again when they see Moshe Dayan naked.

To begin with, I have to say, "Well, sorry. This is the best we're going to do for you." Realistically, it's just hard enough to bring enough voices to the table to endorse even Simple Toby -- and harder still to get the development team to implement it. For now, this is what you get. Turn on Toby, read Wikipedia without images. When you see something you think you want to see, you can take a chance and turn Toby off -- or not. It's your free choice, and more than you have now.

Original Toby does not really answer this objection fully, either. Bush will get Tobyed within 60 seconds of activation; so will quite a lot of content. Every reader has the same choice: See everything; or turn Toby on and see less.

What this comment grasps after is Custom Toby. This is the variation proposed by JRM. In short, every user who Tobys a given bit of content would generate a different Tobylist -- rather than have one single global Toby, there would be one Toby for each user.

Of course, a new visitor to our Project would have an empty Toby, if nothing were done. No point in asking him/her/it to train his very own Toby all over again. So, there has to be a method of exchanging Tobylists. JRM mentioned web-of-trust. The trouble is that a new visitor trusts nobody -- knows nobody. Punching the Toby button should immediately bring up a certain level of protection.

There are a great many technical approaches to Custom Toby that violate nobody's rights, that stringently avoid assigning any label to any given bit of content; that offer a generic level of protection to the new user, while enabling a wide range of customizable features: no images, no big images, no images with a lot of skin color in them, no articles with a certain degree of correspondence (word match) with articles you personally have already Tobyed; thresholds based on number of recent Tobyings; thresholds based on number of links to other Tobyed content.

All of these approaches sound complex, and indeed they are. However, we have the power of the modern 21st Century high-speed digital computer at our disposal, and literally millennia of combined experience programming the darn things to do everything except stand up in front of a teevee camera and lie convincingly about the need for young men and women to go around the world to kill and die. Nothing in the very most sophisticated version of Toby is beyond the least-experienced developer on the team. Heck, even I could do as much.

Trouble is, development costs money, and right now, the budget is tight. One reason money is tight is that we run into a problem selling our product to the very market most likely to pay very well for free content: grade and high schools. You do see where I'm going with this, don't you?

Simple Toby first; then, as we can afford the resources, perhaps Original Toby -- or a much improved variant of that idea; we'll have plenty of time to knock it around. Eventually, maybe, Full Custom Toby -- and more. We can do anything we put our minds to, if only we have the willingness.

Please try to remember: It doesn't need to work perfectly in order to be of help. Those who wait for perfect cake often go to bed on an empty stomach, while others make do with bread. — Xiong熊talk* 04:03, 2005 September 3 (UTC)

[edit] Answer to IByte

IByte writes So we would have a policy of which it is prohibited to discuss or dispute its content, and this is supposed to help consensus? That doesn't make sense to me, it sounds rather oppressive.

Before I joined Wikipedia, I thought I was rather good at explaining things clearly. I've often been told by my students -- among others -- how amazed they are to have complicated concepts explained in such clear, unambiguous language. This includes Chinese who barely understood one word in four, but whose eyes lit up just the same, the light dawning as certainly as the Sun over the Pacific Ocean.

Let me see if I can address your objection clearly.

The big objection to prior content management schemes is that they labeled content. That is, they attached specific labels to disputed content: "Adult", or "Not child safe", or simply "Objectionable". Naturally, there is a great section of our Community totally unwilling to stand for such labeling:

1. Any label that is even remotely descriptive boils down to a negative stigma. Search all you like, but you will not find a word or phrase in any language that means "raunchy" or "you could get fired for looking at this at work" without saying as much.

2. No matter how you define the category of labeled content, if you define it at all, you invite wars over whether the label is appropriate to this or that item. Dead gory people is not mainstream porno; adults may not wish to view adult content. Any discussion of what may be called what guarantees a discussion worthy of fifty angry rabbis stuck in a stalled elevator with a ham sandwich drawing flies on the floor.

So, labeling cannot work, as such. No word, no phrase can be employed that so much as suggests the nature of what is so labeled.

Enter Toby.

Now, some of you have expressed unhappiness with Toby's name and face. Why? He may not be the most attractive little guy; but then, I'm a poor illustrator. The face we can fix. The name? What do you want? Erastosthenes? "Toby" has the merit of being short and easy to type. It is also a name used for both boys and girls, so it is non-sexist. Not only that, it is sufficiently common to be non-weird; yet sufficiently uncommon not to provoke instant confusion. We don't want to call it Little Jimmy. "Toby" gets fewer than 5000 hits within Wikipedia right now -- as against, say, almost 67,000 for "Bob".

Please, try to follow my reasoning. No matter what you think of Toby's name or face, you can't say he carries any particular stigma around with him. Toby is not known as a violent serial killer (unlike "Wayne"); he does not come freighted with negative connotations beyond those you try to attach to him right here.

Anything can be Tobyed, and as long as we leave it at that, all is well. We didn't say the content was porno; we didn't say it was racist; we didn't say it was adult or political bull or naughty or violent or disturbing. All we say is, Toby is watching it. Toby is too small and too insignificant to have an agenda.

The only thing that can possibly destroy this perfect neutrality is a user shouting, "Hey! I Tobyed Chief of the Turkish General Staff because it is inherently POV." This opens the door to argument, which is the very thing Toby is here to help us avoid. So, it is forbidden to do this.

You can still shout, "Chief of the Turkish General Staff is inherently POV." You'll sound pretty foolish if you do, especially if what you mean is, "I think Chief of the Turkish General Staff is a biased article and I can't think of a way to improve it." But you won't harm Toby's neutrality.

Of course, if an evil developer were to implement Toby in such a way as to automatically and permanently hide all images of the residents of Trinidad and Tobago, then it wouldn't really be Toby, and we would all be justified in remarking on this.

But the basic concept behind Original Toby is very, very sound: Toby anything you like, but never say why. Think about it. — Xiong熊talk* 04:49, 2005 September 3 (UTC)

[edit] Carnildo's bot threat

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)

Gee, I dunno; but that might be seen as a WP:POINT violation. Better run it through a sock, eh?

Simple Toby watches all images, all the time (as in the demo); so you'll have to wait to fire up that bot until we get Original Toby running -- if necessary. Custom Toby users will simply ignore your Tobys, I imagine.

I don't really think your bot, as you describe it, will have much effect even in the Original Toby world. I suspect all images will start out Tobyed. Of course, you might then sic your bot on article pages.

Original Toby, as first conceived, accepted all Tobyings from all users and forgot nothing. Your bot would certainly screw that up; but that was tossed long ago. Now, Original Toby selectively forgets content that is offered to him -- and obviously, we control the Toby algorithm, so we can simply exclude obvious bots.

Prankish users are a bigger problem. Any user can Toby anything, and we don't usually want Main Page Tobyed -- not until Autofellatio makes Featured Picture. Please read carefully my description of Toby's ridiculously complex forgetting algorithm. So long as we have the keys to the rack room, we can do just about anything.

By "ridiculously complex", I mean something that basically you have to have a little background in data processing to understand. Original Toby doesn't just forget everything he sees, five minutes after he sees it. And it's not necessary to fix Toby's algorithm in stone -- Toby is not the embodiment of a principle, but a purely pragmatic solution to a human problem. You find out if he's doing a good job because complaints and contentious debates fall off. You find out if he's doing a poor job because complaints increase. You listen to those complaints and tinker with the algorithm. So long as you're honest, and you don't introduce any specific content into the algorithm, Toby remains unbiased and fair. It's perfectly acceptable to drag on one or another corner of the envelope until Autofellatio remains hidden 365 days out of the year; and until Statue of Liberty remains visible virtually all the time.

For a gory exposition of a rough concept of the Original Toby watch/forget algorithm, see (just as soon as I write it) Wikipedia:Toby/Do. — Xiong熊talk* 11:44, 2005 September 3 (UTC)

[edit] Practicality?

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Nickptar has it right -- he's read the proposal carefully. Pages are not forked to make life easier for Toby! I constructed a demo of the Simple Toby concept by hand -- it's a demo, you do whatever you have to do to present the concept, it has nothing to do with implementation at all. This discussion page is forked due to the strenuous objections of those who insist on debating potentially questionable content without actually seeing it. Again, Toby will do this with much greater fidelity, and with no muss, fuss, or editor intervention. Only one page will be maintained!

Yes, I strongly object to redirecting one on top of the other! That is just more tunnel vision. Why not redirect the censored version to the uncensored version? Oh, but you don't like that. Well, that's why we need Toby -- because some like cream in their coffee, and some don't.

— Xiong熊talk* 09:28, 2005 September 11 (UTC)

[edit] Toby/How, Toby/Do

Original Toby algorithm outline posted at Wikipedia:Toby/Do. Also, for interested parties, details of graphic technique used to create Toby.png at: Wikipedia:Toby/How. — Xiong熊talk* 23:23, 2005 September 3 (UTC)

[edit] Howdy Doody, Toby

[edit] Supporters and Objectors

Based on comments:

Supporters:

• Xiong
• SPUI
• Nickptar - worth a try to see if it works out. It probably won't.

Objectors:

• Toothpaste
• Redwolf
• Phroziac
• Joolz
• IByte
• FCYTravis
• UnlimitedAccess
• BRIAN0918
• Zscout370
• Nandesuka
• Karmafist
• Radiant
• WikiFanatic
• Peter ^Isotalo
• Ral315

Feel free to take your name off or add it to either list. Toothpaste 04:20, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

This isn't necessary. The policy is obviously rejected by everyone's standards but Xiong's. — Dan | Talk 17:13, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] TOBY (talk · contribs)

Adding Toby-tags to stuff, voting on VfDs, and using obscene edit summaries. Obvious sockpuppet. Administrator intervention may be warranted. ~~ N (t/c) 04:42, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

CesarB says: "That user is obviously SPUI having some fun. Just look at the VfD comment he made.". I don't know SPUI well enough to judge this, but I can believe it based on the Tobying. ~~ N (t/c) 16:36, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

It is especially obvious if you know SPUI, but that page's history (in particular, this edit) show it to be SPUI having a bit of fun. Did he add the Toby tag to anything (aside from this page)? The VfD votes I assume were made in error, with him being logged in under the wrong account. — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:29, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

No, he didn't. ~~ N (t/c) 01:35, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, my comments weren't meant to imply that you had overreacted or anything—you were right to bring this matter up. — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:08, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] MD

This page survived a MD which can be viewed here. Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 20:56, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Toby Idea

Fragmented discussion merged from User talk:Xiong -- please avoid fragmented discussions. — Xiong熊talk* 09:11, 2005 September 11 (UTC)

I don't know if Toby discussion is still open, but why tag articles, when you can tag images? Good idea? Bad idea? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 03:01, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

We welcome your participation in this debate, which is most certainly still open; but it's suggested that you read it over in some detail. You'll find that several different versions of Toby are under discussion. In Simple Toby, images are not displayed for Toby-users.

Note that in no version is any content "tagged". Tobying is an invisible process that does not affect page markup in anyway, nor does it affect display for non-Toby users. — Xiong熊talk* 09:11, 2005 September 11 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed

220px|right There are roughly 350,000 users registered on Wikipedia; statistical analysis shows that about 20,000 of them are somewhat active editors. At the time I write, exactly 41 distinct user names have commented on Toby -- including at least one blatant sockpuppet created either for personal amusement or deliberately to discredit the proposal.

This says nothing about Community consensus; and even less about the desires of our readership -- which, judging by our rise in Alexa traffic rankings, must be in the several millions.

Toby is not some trivial procedural point; Toby is the beginning of a workable solution to a long-standing, highly contentious, extremely important problem. It is absurd to think everything about it will be perfect -- ever -- and even more absurd to think it can be perfected in three weeks by 40 editors, many of whom clearly have failed even to read the proposal, let alone make any attempt to improve it. Some editors have made substantial contributions and improvements -- Thank You -- and many early hit-and-run editors have had their objections answered fully and repeatedly.

• If you want to comment, read the proposal first. If you don't understand what you've read -- and yes, it is complex -- don't be ashamed to ask questions.

If you make a good-faith effort to read about and understand Toby, and you still have questions, nobody will think you a fool for asking. If you comment without reading, or without thinking, you will remove all doubt.

300px|left • Warriors: Try to understand that yours is not the only viewpoint. I don't know how to explain this. None of the gods (and I respect them all) have the power to anoint you sole arbiter of what is and is not good. Your right to control what people see begins and ends with what you see; perhaps, with what your children see.

Toby is equally disliked by those who oppose and those who support censorship. The former object because Toby performs any service at all, to anybody; the latter object because Toby does not force his services on everybody.

Is nobody here sane enough to see that these views are (a) mutually hostile and incompatible; (b) both so widespread that neither side will ever gain absolute victory over the other; and (c) both bigoted, narrow-minded, and destructive of personal liberty?

In a free society, nobody gets to impose his tastes on others. Wikipedia is a public service; we must take into account a range of personal tastes.

• Detractors: Before you comment, please think about what you are about to say. Are you contributing, or are you just making noise and venting your anger?

300px|right This is a wiki. I notice few editors are shy to put obnoxious tags all over Toby. Why not direct those energies more wisely, and improve Toby instead? Do not say "Toby cannot be improved." That's just silly -- everything can be improved except perfection. Is Toby perfect? If you don't think so, then think of a way to make Toby better. That's why you are here -- I hope.

On the other hand, if you, personally, cannot think of a way to improve Toby, then why not face up to the reality that Toby may just be as good as it's likely to get? At some point, we need to do something; and nothing we do will make everybody happy.

Wikipedia is not a bubble universe, isolated from all external pressures and reality. We have to live in the world as we find it, with maturity and honesty. Part of that means accepting reasonable solutions to other people's problems.

Right now, Toby is the only proposal we have for potentially contentious content management. Toby is distinct from all other prior proposals in three important respects:

1. Toby does not label any content in any way. None of the terms tried previously for content labeling, such as "Adult", "Foo-safe", "Erotic", "K-12", "Objectionable", etc. are used here. Nobody says why content is watched by Toby, so an entire arena of debate simply does not exist.

2. Toby's watchlist is invisible. Toby does not tag content in any way. Neither markup nor display for non-Toby users is affected. The entire database Corpus -- Autofellatio to Bush -- is exactly as it has always been. No duplicate pages are created.

3. Toby is not there for you unless you ask. Users who browse to Wikipedia by any means see the exact same Project as always; nothing is censored at any time. Toby simply gives users a choice -- a purely personal choice -- to ask Toby not to display items to these users that are on Toby's watchlist. Any user can enter or leave the Toby-system at any time; nothing is locked, forced, or demanded.

Thus, I restore the {{proposed}} tag to the proposal. Please leave it there. This is the proposal on the table, and it's darn good, too. If you have a better idea, let us know about it.

— Xiong熊talk* 09:11, 2005 September 11 (UTC)

We are reading your proposals, and we are expressing our opinions about them, and we know that Wikipedia has over 20,000 editors, but only a few of those are active in Wikipedian policy and would rather spend more time editing. Forty is a plentiful amount of users commenting, in fact, it's much more than usual, and you are supposed to trust the people commenting to be representative of the community, and from what I've seen in IRC, they are.

Toby is naturally NPOV and it goes against our foundations to provide any means of censorship, voluntary or not. To have Toby anywhere on the page of a non-Toby user is ludicrous, though fortunately, this seems to have been dropped. As for your icon, Wikipedia is not child friendly in the manner you suggest and we do not dumb ourselves down to the point where we have to represent each option with a cartoon icon. Your other idea, Simple Toby, to disable alll images, would be best put up as a separate policy as it is so different from your first.

We do not compromise our founding values for money because when you compromise those values, you do not get what you started with. Toothpaste 09:36, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Xiong, this is silly. Whether intended or not, your action gives the appearance that you're mad that your policy was soundly rejected (which it most certainly was) and are looking for excuses to continue talking about it. You know it is ridiculous to suggest that every one of Wikipedia's active users (or even any particular quantity of them) must comment on a proposal; in fact, 41 is an unusually high number compared to other such proposals. In any case, as long as you're insisting, let me register my complete disagreement with every facet of this policy, particularly its juvenile appellation. I'm afraid your long-winded comments (all of which say the same things) aren't doing much to convince anyone. — Dan | Talk 15:08, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Right, can I change my AfD vote from weak Keep to Delete with extreme prejudice? It says 'rejected' for a reason, what do you think that reason is? (Before you start: don't bother, it's a rhetorical question!) --IByte 23:07, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Your comments demonstrate that (a) you have not read the proposal, (b) you do not understand it, or (c) you have read and you do understand, but you just don't care -- you're looking to score points with your buddies, maybe. Attacks on Toby that demonstrate a lack of intellectual honesty are invalid.

Content management is not going to go away. You cannot wave it away, shout it away, or turn your back on it and hope it disappears. You must recognize that other people do not agree with you! We need to make a reasonable accomodation with them. This discussion needs to stay open until either the proposal has been refined sufficiently so as to gain consensus for implementation, or until something better comes along. Do you have a better idea?

If you still maintain that you have read and understood Toby, then tell me why you continue to raise up the straw man of NPOV? Toby has no agenda. Different versions of Toby offer different views of Wikipedia (only to those who choose to participate) but all are carefully defined so as to exclude all bias. That's a fact, and if you continue to raise up the straw man, then your comments are destructive, not constructive to the Project as a whole.

If you still maintain that you have read and understood Toby, then tell me why you continue to raise up the straw man of censorship? Toby censors nothing. You can continue to enjoy softcore porn and -- for that matter -- any other content you like, just as it is, just as it has always been. The only difference is that we will now offer Wikipedia in a form acceptable to a wider audience. If you continue to raise up the straw man, then you are only being malicious and ingenuous.

You really need to say why this is a Bad Thing. Otherwise, I think you should move on, because you're not helping. — Xiong熊talk* 23:37, 2005 September 12 (UTC)

This proposal has been soundly rejected, it has garnered little support from the wikipedia community and this is not because people haven't read it, it's because people have read it, do not like it and do not want it. I think you should move on, Toby is over. (On other topics, I hope you don't find my use of bold patronising or annoying.) -- Joolz 23:45, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree that Toby has little support so far. Maybe that is because so many people are shouting him down. I agree that most Wikipedians do not want Toby -- but then, I don't want Toby either!

Does anybody here understand that I'm the fellow who nominated Image:Autofellatio_2.jpg for Featured Picture? That I was one of the editors who contacted the source, begging for a freer license? That I created Image:Autofree.png and displayed it on my user page for months before it was finally censored? Damn it, I want that button back on my page! And making Toby available to other users is the only way I'm gonna get it.

Then why don't you do like SPUI, and make a "censored" and "uncensored" user page yourself? SPUI's uncensored page has plenty of stuff that I would consider less worksafe (and more "offensive") than Autofree. ~~ N (t/c) 21:37, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't want Toby. You don't want Toby. Most of us don't want Toby. But then, the whole dern point of Toby is that if you don't want Toby, you don't have to have him. You tell Toby to go away once and that's it -- forever -- unless, all the gods forbid, you ask him to come back.

Nor does Toby "watch out" for you unless you ask for that service. Every reader who blunders onto Wikipedia sees the same naked, gory, uncensored site. If it ticks you off to have even the link to Toby available, click it once, tell Toby "Go away forever" and that's the last you see. On the other hand, those who really want Toby -- who fight and fight and fight endlessly for some sort of content management -- can use Toby just as much as they please.

If I thought I needed Toby, myself, I wouldn't participate in Wikipedia at all -- I'd be over editing Wikinfo, the fork where nasty stuff is forbidden -- and NPOV is not enforced. But I just want my damn autofellatio button back on my user page. — Xiong熊talk* 21:25, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I've stayed out of all this discussion so far, but my observation is that the more you keep agitating for this defeated proposal, and insist that its opponents (who, by your own admission, range all across the political spectrum) are "destructive" and "don't understand", and claim that the opponents have the burden of proof against your proposal instead of you having the burden because you're the one trying to change the status quo -- the more others will turn against your proposal. Maybe it's time you quit while you're behind. *Dan* 23:50, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure I was right about that; it seems all the opponents are rabid anti-censorshipists -- which ought not to bother me much, since I'm firmly in that camp. But I was forced to acknowledge -- after the third IfD of the notorious image -- that some bone must be thrown to the opposition. Nobody in this project is further to the left than I am on this point; nobody else dared nominate the notorious image -- in good faith -- and urge it be put on Main Page. If I can see the other side, however far from my view as it is, then surely any rational editor on the left can see it, too.

Dern tooting right opponents have the burden of proof -- I've put up an extremely robust solution, answered all objections, and got little back except biased rants that disregard all the facts and set up the same tired straw men to knock down over and over again. Show me why it won't work for you -- show me how it will mess with your day -- show me how it will wreck the Project -- and then, perhaps, you'll actually be discussing Toby, and not merely wandering in and peeing in the corner. The ball is in your court. — Xiong熊talk* 21:25, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Where do you get off calling the arguments of people who disagree with you "invalid"? Where do you get off saying we must hold some position? I think Toby is worth a try (although it probably won't work), but I disagree that it's as huge an issue as you're saying. ~~ N (t/c) 23:58, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh, you can agree with me and still speak nonsense. You can disagree intelligently. But you really should try to understand that you cannot seriously walk into a room where folks are debating whether to send out for Chinese or Italian for lunch, and shout: "You must send out for Chinese, because the Moon is made of green cheese!" Yes, you've objected; yes, you've objected loudly. Perhaps you've even got a bunch of buddies with you, all chanting "green-cheese-green-cheese". But this does not a discussion make.

You do not need to hold an opinion about Toby. You can go your merry way without forming or expressing one. You can stay, watch the debate unfold with an open mind, and see if you are led to an opinion -- or not. You can even stand on a table and shout "I am Napoleon!" But please don't ask me, or anybody else, to take that comment as constructive to the debate, or as carrying any weight.

Why won't Toby work? Do you mean Simple Toby, Original Toby, Custom Toby? Do you think all are utterly impractical? How do you define "work"? Will Toby only work if every single editor says Toby works? 65%? Will Toby work if donations double in the first month of implementation? Will Toby work if Autofellatio is never again nominated for deletion? Will Toby work if you surf at work with Toby watching and you don't get fired? Will Toby work if Parents Magazine writes us up?

The entire virtue of Toby is that Toby is foolproof and unbreakable. Toby doesn't try to do very much, so there is very little to go wrong. Toby doesn't modify the Corpus, so there is little overhead. Toby's watchlist is invisible, so there is nothing to scrutinize and get angry about. Toby doesn't do anything at all for non-Toby users; we are simply unaware of the entire mechanism, and continue blithely editing and viewing and fighting about the proper use of the emdash. Toby never says, "This is bad, so I won't show it to you"; so nobody can get angry because their pet country, language, politician, toy, school, mammal, or mammalian appendage has been Tobyed. Sooner or later, everything will have been Tobyed at least once, and for those of us weirdos who dip in and out of the Toby-state (because, even though we don't want Toby to watch, we want to see what he's watching for others) Toby will be nothing but a big joke. "Hey, look. Toby's watching Image:Automobile! Ha Ha Ha!" That Tobying will last about five minutes and then we can all go back to work.

I don't expect Toby to "work", and certainly not to do any heavy lifting. My minimum goal is to get Simple Toby up and get Autofree inlined again on my user page -- and then, right or wrong, good or bad, the fourth time Autofellatio comes up on IfD, take my thumb out of my mouth, say Hurts you? Turn on Toby if you don't want to see it, stick my thumb back in my mouth and go back to doing something more useful for this project than wrangling with the prudes. Thank you! — Xiong熊talk* 21:25, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Toby is an ingenious idea, but it is nevertheless flawed. The most basic thing we have to know is that Wikipedia is not censored for minors. If accepted as official policy, things could be different. — Stevey7788 (talk) 03:42, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Please read the proposal before commenting. Toby censors nothing for nobody. Thank You. — Xiong熊talk* 21:25, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thoughts

Well, I've been watching all this unfold and see essentially that the main problem is that the opposition to Toby is due to most feeling that it is a censorship, a violation of NPOV and generally not in keeping with this Wiki. My stance is thus...I am not in favor of tagging images or articles except for deletion purposes...and even that I have only done a few times, leaving it up to others for the most part. I've surfed through thousands of articles in Wikipedia and come across only a few "objectionable" images or subject matter, but that is my perspective. Toby offers a manner in which we can possibly help to promote this Wiki to be "safe" for schools and the workplace, as well as for those that simply want a web based reference source that isn't cluttered with, well, inappropriate and unencyclopedic items. I would support the implementation of a Toby-ish type of screening if it were to be implemented. However, I would prefer a MUCH more strict screening beyond anything Toby offers because without such parameters, there is no way Wikipedia is going to become much more than it sometimes is now...a political warzone peppered with some smut, some preposterousness and a lot of arrogance. At times, Wikipedia has no more credibilty than a blog or a tabloid and that is a damn shame for people that put great efforts into truly trying to make it a lot more than that. Jimbo Wales stated, essentially, that we don't have pornography on the main page of Wikipedia due to editorial taste amd judgement...but what good is the book if all that meets this criteria is the cover? Maybe Toby isn't the answer, but it certainly is a step towards improving our credibility.--MONGO 11:51, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I think there have been a number of objections that it is unworkable, which it is, see my comments under the Comments section above, for instance. -- Joolz 13:40, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. I understand you think Toby does not go far enough. I'm sure you understand that many think Toby goes too far. This may just be the only possible compromise, and hard enough to win acceptance as it is. You may find that Original Toby fits your needs better than Simple Toby -- please note that there are three distinct versions under discussion. Simple Toby does not do all that Original does; Simple just masks image display. Simple Toby may be the easier, faster implementation, that's all. — Xiong熊talk* 22:07, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] I'm out, here's the deal

Given the fact that you keep insisting your ideas are the best thing since sliced bread, even though nearly everyone who discussed them with you disagreed, these discussions are not worth my rise in blood pressure. So here's what I'm going to do: we 'agree to disagree' and I will make no further comments on this from now on. If I'm right, your proposals will continue to be soundly rejected by the community, with or without my involvement. If I'm wrong, your proposals will make it, and once again my individual acceptance or rejection won't make much of a difference. This statement also applies to The Wiki Way and Zap. Have a nice chat with the rest of the Wikipedia community. --IByte 15:06, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

That is certainly one of the wisest comments I've read on this page, or even on the much wiser uncensored talk page. Surely, if little Toby poses a real threat to this Community, you can rely on a few of the other 19,999 active editors to discover the danger, explain it clearly, and man the barricades against the Toby Invasion. Meanwhile, you can take a well-deserved rest. Thank You! — Xiong熊talk* 22:29, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Army of One

Maybe it's simply the case that the overwhelming majority of editors don't see any value in some silly cartoon... what, exactly is Toby, a robot or a funny-animal? that attempts to nag you about what images your mom doesn't think you should be seeing, or something like that. Maybe they're "ill-informed" or "stupid" or whatever insults you want to throw, but that's what their opinion is, and it's certainly not going to change it to go in and unilaterally reopen the proposal every time it's marked as defeated. *Dan T.* 22:55, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

The overwhelming majority of editors have not spoken at all. Toby is a robot -- more correctly, an anthromorphic tool. Toby does not nag anybody; if you read the proposal, you'll have a better idea of what Toby is and does. The proposal will remain open as long as I draw breath, or until Somebody has the gray matter to actually erect some plausible objections and the Community has taken the opportunity to comment. — Xiong熊talk* 22:36, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mad scientist

copied from uncensored page

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)

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) 23:03, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

You can simply hide everything with CSS (display: none or other tricks) and remove the rule from within the script after you made the changes you wanted to the page. --cesarb 01:43, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

All right, Xiong, now you can write it! ~~ N (t/c) 23:23, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I've started writing this. You can see it at my personal site. Comments wanted.

[edit] meatball:VotingIsEvil

Toby was never a policy proposal, and I'm sorry I ever restored the proposed tag. I didn't put it there in the first place; Nickptar aka N did that. I was wrong to put it back -- indeed, I should have removed the proposed tag as soon as I saw it. To be completely honest, I simply wasn't paying attention; I was too busy explaining Toby over and over again.

I concede that Toby is not a proposed policy! Never was! Don't bother to vote; YOU WIN. Toby is a concept for a tool, and does not require or even suggest that any editor do, or refrain from doing, anything. Indeed, the Toby concept has matured and grown through so many stages that it no longer looks as if developer attention will be sought. Toby is not policy, not a proposed policy, and certainly not a failed policy. Toby is in a completely different category from any of these.

All meatball:VotingIsEvil, and it is especially evil and wrong to play with a "poll" here! For one thing, the poll concerns something that will not affect anyone who does not wish to participate; that is like 100 people standing out on my front lawn holding a vote to decide what Joe Blow will be permitted to eat for lunch. For another, the poll is rigged, since it's been instigated by detractors, all standing around waiting to throw in their black balls. For a third, it's pretty clear that none of the detractors have a clear idea what they are voting on, nor are they able to express any clear, honest, factual objection.

Stop crapping on what you don't understand. Stop hoping the entire world is going to do as you like. Let others do as they will, right up to the point where they start crapping on your shoes. You may think we're crapping in our pants, but that's our right.

At this point, congratulations! You have polluted Toby with all of the nasty, evil contention he offers to avert. This page has become worthless and you can all amuse yourself, dancing on the corpse.

But this is not going to affect Toby at all. Toby will be built and released to the public anyway and there is not a damn thing anybody can do to screw that up. You can vote yourself blue in the face, but you will wake up some morning and Toby will be there -- not for you, so if you have any sense, you won't really care -- Toby will be there for those who want Toby only -- which has always been the point!

But then, if you could live with that, you wouldn't be crapping all over this page, would you? So I guess I will just have to entertain myself with the thought that when Toby is finally released, he will really annoy you all -- and there will not be one single thing you can do about it.

Have a nice day! — Xiong熊talk* 07:10, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I recommend reading the bottom of the section titled 'From User talk:Redwolf24#Wikipedia:Toby'. Thanks, Redwolf24 (talk) 22:34, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Straw poll (yes polls are evil, but still)

This poll is to determine consensus, I have no opinion on Toby, (though I used to) and so when I protected it I was not out of line. There was some small edit war that would not end any time soon over {{proposed}} and {{rejected}}. IMO the consensus was to reject vs. Xiong who thinks its still proposed. I guess we're also trying to save Xiong from work thats amazingly unneccisary as I can't think of too many people who would want Toby. So anyways let's take a poll...

[edit] Rejected

1. Redwolf24 (talk) 00:09, 17 September 2005 (UTC) Just because I haven't seen many people supporting it. Though this seems a bit of a Catch 22.
2. ~~ N (t/c) 00:44, 17 September 2005 (UTC) Obviously. But I'm sure Xiong will declare this poll invalid because so few people voted, and so on ad infinitum.
3. --Carnildo 03:27, 17 September 2005 (UTC) Kind of pointless, though, since it'll take at least 50,000 signatures rejecting it to convince Xiong.
4. Toothpaste 05:30, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
5. Zach (Sound Off) 05:31, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
6. Phroziac ^(talk) 05:33, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
7. Alphax ^τεχ 05:35, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
8. AlexR 11:49, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
9. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 11:53, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
10. Thryduulf 17:20, 17 September 2005 (UTC) and I hope Xiong doesn't treat this poll like user:Iasson treated any poll that looked like it wasn't going his way.
11. WikiFanatic^{Talk Contribs 18:50, 18 Sep 2005 (CDT)}
12. *Dan T.* 02:00, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
13. FOo 07:13, 20 September 2005 (UTC) Stick a fork in it, it's done.
14. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 19:10, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed

[edit] Poll removal

I'm putting this poll back up. Polls are allowed to be used as a last resort, and aside from that, this particular one only states what has already been said. This is what "but still" refers to. Almost everyone here feels that the community rejects this particular proposal. I call it a proposal, for lack of a better term in compliance with you, because it would change an element of how Wikipedia works. People express consensus over how, or if, those elements should be implemented. If anyone supported Toby, they would have seen that the majority here does not support Toby and would have had even more reason to speak up. The people that express consensus over a proposal are supposed to be representative of the community as a whole. If you do not speak up, it can be assumed that you do not care, or, things seem to be going your way enough in the conensensus that you feel not the need to express your opinion. If you do not speak up, you have no voice. Currently only three people have supported Toby that I have seen. Only one seems to think that consensus from the community is not against it, or else wants it to be implemented regardless of consensus. With Toby, you seem completely against consensus, and, following that, ironically, the wiki way. Feel free to come to #wikipedia on the freenode server if you want a more live discussion. Toothpaste 09:54, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] From [[User talk:Redwolf24#Wikipedia:Toby]]

Please lift the protection:

1. The {{rejected}} tag is inappropriate, since castle-jumpers are monopolizing the discussion and excluding serious debate. This is a proposal, and a credible one, and obviously is going to take much more time to work itself into something useful to the Community. Nothing is gained by branding it as rejected, since unlike policy proposals, this is a design proposal -- it does not call for any editor action, cannot be cited to support or attack any editor's action. Toby does not attempt to set guidelines for editor's behavior; therefore there is no need to label the proposal in order to discourage editors from relying upon it. The only value of the tag is to attempt to strangle debate.

The tag should be removed and replaced with {{proposed}}, as before; or left untagged, as I wrote it; or tagged appropriately as an engine design feature request. In any case, intelligent discussion should be fostered, not suppressed.

2. There has been considerable debate, but the proposal itself has not been edited. I prefer to allow other editors to implement changes directly, but as they have not done so, I intend shortly to rewrite the proposal itself to take note of its greatly expanded scope. The page in question -- as written -- is less a proposal of any kind, and more the type of text I intend for Help:Toby -- at some distant future time.

At this point, there are actually three distinct variations of Toby under discussion:

• Simple Toby;
• Original Toby; and
• Custom Toby

any of which can be implemented as:

• Engine Toby; or
• Aftermarket Toby

This makes a total of six different approaches to a potentially questionable content display management solution. The proposal does need to be rewritten from scratch to reflect this.

3. I will not belabor the fact that you and I have a personal feud going on -- nor do I wish to open that here. But this means it is inappropriate for you to take action in this matter. Having done so, I urge you either to step out of this conflict of interest, or do right. — Xiong熊talk* 22:59, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

You make a powerful argument, and I agree with a lot of it. But that doesn't matter, consensus has ruled against you. There's a slow edit war between you (who is minding 3RR) and several others. I think at one time Nickptar was for Toby, but he seems against it now. Now, let me tell you the truth: I thought Zap was one of the stupidest things I've seen, but I don't mind Toby anymore. I know that it doesn't apply to anyone cept those who want it. But I think the reason so many are against this is that they can't think of anyone who would even use Toby. I have no opinion on Toby nowadays, and I protected it from a neutral view. If you get a conensus of some sort, I'll be watching its talk page. Redwolf24 (talk) 23:47, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

No, consensus has not spoken at all on Toby; consensus does not equal a lot of loud, ignorant shouting. Read over the talk carefully and you will see that early on there were a few legitimate comments; but the great bulk of it has been ranting from extremists who consistently ride their biases and misconstrue facet after facet of the concept. This is not consensus formation -- not in any way. Not one single word from these ranters has gone toward discussion of the real Toby at all; let alone exploring or including other viewpoints.

Since you understand that Toby does not affect those who do not choose to participate, then perhaps you will recognize that grounds for objection are even slimmer than they might be in discussion of some other proposal that affects all. Toby-bashers are screwing with the right of free choice of those who want or need Toby's help. They simply have no right to be heard at all, without showing how their rights or our core principles are infringed. It is absurd for them to claim consensus.

No, you have not protected Toby "from a neutral view" -- you have locked it in the deprecated state, thus taking sides with the rabble. Worse, you have condemned it to death, since now improvement is forbidden. Far from neutral, your action is as biased as anything could be! Your statement of intent is irrelevant; you're doing damage. Better to delete the whole thing -- page, talk, demo, and all the rest -- and I'll just start over.

Mentioning Zap in this context is indirect attack ad hominum. It does not matter if I have been wise or foolish in any of my many other efforts. Toby is the subject here. Either be a neutral trustee, or discard that pose and be a partisan combatant.

I dislike long-winded debate; I dislike angry contention; I dislike heavy-handed authority; and I dislike most of all escalation of conflict from one court to a higher one. Please do the right thing now, and save us all the unpleasant stink of this fight. — Xiong熊talk* 00:17, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

From what I have seen, I haven't seen too many Toby supporters. And locking the page as is is the protected policy, I'm just trying to stop an edit war, really. If you wanna work on improving Toby, copy the source to a subpage of your own and edit it, and the result will be added when its unprotected. There's a straw poll being taken on toby's talk page. Redwolf24 (talk) 00:29, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Straw polls are bullshit. The outcome is rigged, since there's already a well-packed group of detractors standing around waiting to vote. You should not even permit that.

I say your actions are wrong. You're acting out a personal grudge against me that has nothing to do directly with Toby. I've stayed firmly within 3RR; I've justified my edits soundly. You want to lock the page "as is"? Then lock it the way it is when it's right, not when some juvenile penis-wavers have fucked it. "When it's unprotected" doesn't mean too much to me, since there is no time specified -- you failed to document the protection in the first place.

It does not matter how many users are totally opposed to Toby, because they are automatically not affected. Therefore, they have nothing to say. I grant that this is a new situation, but there it is. What I put in my coffee is none of his or her business. Is that clear? I've already spent far too much time explaining over and over again to people who can't be bothered to understand. If you do understand, then you have even less grounds than most, and they have essentially none. — Xiong熊talk* 06:43, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Here was my intention of the poll: if one person, just one respectable editor, who's not you, thinks its proposed, I would change the tag to state as such. If we had just one person willing to use Toby, I would not mind. However, you are alone. You are the lone wolf posting {{proposed}} vs. the many posting {{rejected}}. I know about Toby and I know that it doesn't affect those who don't want it. But no one wants it! So find a respectable editor willing to use Toby, and we will make Toby {{Proposed}}. And sorry for taking so long to respond, my power was out. Redwolf24 (talk) 22:28, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

P.S. please respond here, at Toby talk rather than my talk page. Redwolf24 (talk) 22:30, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I guess I got some more stuff to say. No, Xiong, I have no beef with you. I had one, over Zap, but now I have nothing against you. Allow me to reiterate... I myself don't care about the majority of the poll, I care about one person, who isn't you, and who is a respectable editor, to say they want Toby. Otherwise, you're wasting your time making something no one wants!. I doubt the devs would implement it for more than one reason. Now, go find someone who has a use for toby, and the page will be unprotected, and the {{rejected}} template will be removed. Look through this very talk page for an editor who says they thought Toby could be useful, leave a message at their talk page, and watch them save Toby. Do your work for that one person. Actually, I think Stevey7788 (who is an editor I happen to like) expressed some interest in this. Have him vote on it, really, just one person. Redwolf24 (talk) 22:40, 20 September 2005 (UTC)