A proposal has been made to tag content in Wikipedia. This page is designed to gather risks related to this. Please put risk mitigation strategies at the bottom of the page.
- if material is tagged it proves that it has been examined and so someone beyond the original uploader may become liable for the material.
- tags may be identified in the data stream from wikipedia. From these, users who are viewing specific kinds of material may be automatically identified.
- a censorship system may come under control of a person other than the reader. For example, an ISP might ban images of christianity or a parent might stop their child from learning about evolution.
- tags may be used by a law enforcement agency to prove that people knowingly downloaded illegal images. For example, if a person has a preference to view images of naked bodies turned off, then decides to turn it on
- a database of tag settings stored somewhere presents a valuable target of data about the preferences of a particular user. This is true whether it is stored on the users computer or wikipedia directly.
- a tag system represents a promise. If the tags are incorrect then an image may presented which breaks that promise. In some cases this might involve legal liability or at the very least offense
- a tag system represents a valuable target for vandals.
- a tag system may be used for censorship, by, for example misclassifying material as "offensive" when it is merely politically difficult.
Mitigation Strategies edit
Design Aims edit
Make it very difficult to associate preferences with a particular person.