This isn't "censorship" or "blocking" of images. If you read the text and look at the mockup, this is an opt-in feature to keep a person from accidentally viewing controversial content when simply clicking around on Wikipedia. There's a "show content" button right where the photo would normally be! Nothing is being kept from anybody. Say you're on break at work and you run across a word you don't know. If you type that word into Wikipedia and it ends up being some sort of genital mutilation or something, you could have a disgusting, inappropriate, NSFW image splayed across your screen. The controversy has been overplayed, and the Slashdot story is borderline inaccurate.

What I love about this is not just the "history of a history" idea (though the hobbyist journalist in me likes that), but the fact that, really, anyone can do this with a Wikipedia XML dump and not-too-difficult XML Transforms. I'd love to know the process this guy went through, even if it's not all that complicated (or maybe it is).

Is it just me or does Slashdot just alternate between Apple-adoring fawning pseudo press releases and over-the-top reactionary anti-Apple flame bait? Apple is a company that makes some great tech products, some not-so-great, but does so with class. How many "reactions" to itty-bitty iTunes update minutia really need to make the front page? Can we get back to tech news & nerdy discussion now? You know, "stuff that matters?"

Spammers already can lock the legitimate user out by changing their passwords. There are multiple business models for spammers/scammers; some that benefit from locking real users out, and others that don't. This is another tool--which will remain unfortunately underutilized, I'm sure--for combating the latter case.