266457 - Inappropriate content in the Firefox Crew Pick list

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Amnesty should not be in the list of picks in firefox.

1. It is blocked in China and we are encouraging users to go there.

2. I'm not sure we should be using Firefox to make a political statement.

Comment 1

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Being more specific.

There is a number of content besides Amnesty that is problematic.
boing boing has some images and content on it that could be questionable.
homestarrunner has some questionable stuff as well.

For the record, I'm not a politically correct guy by any stretch of the
imagination. But we need to think about these things.

Comment 2

[Jesse Ruderman]

One of Firefox 1.0PR's negative reviews on download.com is based entirely on the
default bookmarks including boingboing.

Comment 3

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

from download.com

"loaded with stong political bias"
firefox crew picks link you this garbage. Eminem's anti-Bush anthem leaked
online Updated: An audio excerpt from Eminem's new anti-Bush song ""Mosh"" can
be downloaded here, from The Regular. Quoth the caucasian rap superstar in a
Rolling Stone interview, ""Bush is definitely not my homie."" Link An anonymous
reader points us to two links for listening to Eminem's ""Mosh"" in its
entirety. Real Audio Link, ASX link. BoingBoing reader David Stein sends a
transcript of the song's lyrics: Link

Comment 4

[Ali Ebrahim]

Fwiw, I'm located in China right now, and can help test out what works and what
doesn't. I agree with the general principle that default bookmarks.html has to
be neutral.

Having said that, if someone wants, they can make a hippieextensions.xpi or
something. ;)

Comment 5

[Piotr Szymanski]

I dont see how China breaking human rights should be an argument for removing  
amnesty international bookmark.  
  
Also if amnesty international (and fighting for human rights) has become  
politically discussable and not obvious (which is what you imply by saying it  
is a political statetment) then i'd say it is right for firefox to contain  
such a statement.  

Comment 6

[Andrew Pattison]

Is the "Firefox Crew Picks" list going to be in version 1.0? I'm not sure it is
appropriate myself. It reminds me a bit of the description of cookies being
"delicious delicacies" - I'm sure whoever wrote it thought it was a Good Idea,
but it does look slightly un-professional to me. I would prefer to see some sort
of collection of sites with mass appeal, e.g. internet news, google, etc rather
than a list of sites that the Firefox guys thought were "cool".

Just my tuppence worth, FWIW.

Comment 7

[Ali Ebrahim]

Okay, let's not have a discussion on China's human rights issues. This isn't the
right forum for that. Everyone has their own feelings on it, and discussing them
on Bugzilla is just a recepie for a flamewar.

The point of removing Amnesty from the default bookmarks.html is not to
implicitly legitimise the human rights position of any single nation or group of
nations, but rather to ensure that the Firefox release remains politics-free.
This is important, IMO.

I don't believe that Michael Kaply was singling out Amnesty per se, but just
using it as an example of a non-neutral site in the default bookmarks.html.

Comment 8

[Mike Shaver (:shaver -- probably not reading bugmail closely)]

The Mozilla Foundation needs, IMO, to be very careful about what content we
endorse by default linking.  The Firefox default bookmarks list is not an
appropriate place for political or social commentary, even if support for those
positions is unanimous in the Firefox development community.

Comment 9

[Robert Accettura [:raccettura]]

Attachment: Patch Proposal

I think this patch should address this, and any future problem ;-)

Comment 10

[chris hofmann]

thinking the way to deal with this is to yank the crew list or to turn it into
an rss feed so we can control the content after the bits ship.  we have little
control over any of these sites being around and set things up for maintainence
headaches.

Comment 11

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Attachment: patch

remove crew picks folder, add central link, update start page link, etc.

Comment 12

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

fixed. 

Comment 13

[Benoit]

The l10n policy on http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/l10n-policy.html
says:
> The default bookmarks and personal toolbar items should use the same folder 
> structure as the default bookmarks and personal toolbar of the en-US version. 
> The contents of each folder may be modified. The folder title for the 
> "recommended links" folder ("Firefox Crew Picks" for the en-US edition) should 
> be modified to reflect the new authorship (eg "Mozilla Germany Recommends" or 
> similar, chosen by the L10n team).

There is no such folder anymore. Should we drop entirely our recommended links
as well? If it is the case, please add the late-l10n keyword and advertise this
change on n.p.m.l10n.

Comment 14

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

Firefox Crew's Picklist has been removed from the default bookmarks (tested
w/new profile, 2004110309-0.11 linux fc2).

Comment 15

[Omar]

I would like to see the crew picks list restored with the political content
removed.  Sites like Bartleby, Blogger, Craig's List, The Onion, Wired News,
etc. are Internet phenomena and good sites often overlooked by the browsing
public but not necessarily political in nautre.  I'm an experienced Internet
user and the Crew Picks opened my eyes to what's really out there on the Net
that I had forgotten about, and it was all put in one place.  I think this could
have been a chance to make Firefox a successor to the time when Netscape told us
"What's Cool" back in the day.  But oh well.

Comment 16

[Robert Accettura [:raccettura]]

I think this is a done deal.

Though I'm still a little upset ben rejected my patch ;-)

Comment 17

[Omar]

I think we missed the boat on this one.  The new My Yahoo! page includes a Boing
Boing reference by default, and allows people to add craigslist content directly
on the page.  The adoption of a mainstream site like Yahoo! of this content
shows that leaving it in the default installation of Firefox should not have
been a problem and only beneficial to the reputation of the browser.  i.e.
Firefox is not only a good browser, but one that comes with useful links.