Keeping kids safe from "adult" articles is a valid parent/teacher concern, and it may be very important in some cultures. And we should all recall the Florida teacher who lost her job when her kids accidentally got onto a pornsite in her classroom.
I've worked on the 1.0 project on en:wp. When we produce offline collections of the English Wikipedia articles (often for schools), on DVD or flash drive, space is often limited. Therefore we sometimes provide only a selection of articles rather than the full encyclopedia. We can screen out the pornstars and the extreme violence by not selecting articles tagged by certain WikiProjects. (We leave in basic informational articles such as those on human anatomy). However, this approach only works on Wikipedias that use WikiProject tags, such as en and fr.
Another issue is when obscene/racist phrases are inserted into otherwise clean articles by vandalism. That's one reason we did the offline project; we used a variation of the WikiTrust tool to select a clean version (RevIDs) of each article. Obviously these collections can't be used where kids are actively editing, but it has its place.
Using these two methods we were able to put together a pretty child-safe collection of WP articles - safer than many YouTube comments pages! Unfortunately, our code isn't working as well as it used to, and our coder isn't active at the moment, so we can't make a new collection....
Martin Martin A. Walker Department of Chemistry State University of New York at Potsdam +1 (315) 267-2271 walkerma@potsdam.edu
On 6/18/2014 4:21 AM, Gabriel Thullen wrote:
Like I said before, great job for both Israel and Serbia !
There is one very important issue that we (as WM Chapters) need to address, now that Wikipedia editing will be part of the official school curriculum. How do we answer teachers or parents raising concerns about the so-called "adult" material found on Wikipedia ? Some of it is downright porn, and we (as Chapters) have to be able to answer these concerns.
[[:fr:Catégorie:Position sexuelle]] = [[:en:Category:Sex positions]] = other interwikis or Commons: Category:Wiki-Sexuality Images
The Geneva education department has an Internet filter that blocks some of the articles on the English wiki, for example en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingering_(sexual_act) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingering_(sexual_act) is blocked, but does not filter the French wiki fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doigtage http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doigtage. Obviously, the web filter companies are US (aka English speaking), so they may or may not filter other language Wikipedia pages. What we absolutely should avoid is this type of web filtering, and certainly not such filtering done by separate countries.
Please note that I have always been opposed to censorship in general and opposed to censoring Wikimedia in particular. The issue has been raised a few times over the past few years, and I have always been able to provide adequate answers to the parents or school officials. But now that Wikipedia editing is a part of the official curriculum, these questions need a more "official" answer as well. Information should be freely available to all, even so-called "adult" information. As a school teacher using the web in class, I have to keep a watch on the web sites the students browse and discuss with them how to deal with inappropriate web sites that slip through the filters. I do the same when my students start surfing on sex-ed related Wikipedia articles...
I can just imagine the uproar in Israel when one or the other of the more conservative religious groups finds out the kind of articles young students are subjected to in class... I say that for Israel, but the same uproar will be possible in some of the Swiss Cantons when Wikipedia editing becomes an official part of their curriculum (each Canton has its own curriculum, some Cantons include religious education, some do not, and so on). We need, at the very least, a set of arguments we can use to defend Wikipedia. For the moment, nobody has said anything, probably because adults are usually not very curious. Our kids, on the other hand, tend to explore a lot more...
Anyway, that was some food for thought. I am looking forward to learning about how you will cope with that kind of issue, I know that the same problem might arise some day here in Switzerland.
Gabe
On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 2:48 PM, Vojtěch Dostál <vojtech.dostal@wikimedia.cz mailto:vojtech.dostal@wikimedia.cz> wrote:
Below is my Wednesday e-mail which was denied from the conversation because I sent it from an incorrect adress: --- Congratulations to Israel and Serbia! Now comes the tough job for you, though! You have to prove to the public & to the teachers that Wikipedia is actually worth having in the school curriculum. The worst scenario is teachers and parents going crazy about the latest government's invention. You should really make Wikipedia as beneficial to the students as possible, and you also need to prepare the community for an enormous workload! Not an easy job, but worth working for! Good luck both of you, and I will be looking forward to the first results. Vojtěch Dostál vice-chair Wikimedia Czech Republic 2014-06-11 8:52 GMT+02:00 Oona Castro <oonacastro@gmail.com <mailto:oonacastro@gmail.com>>: excellent news! congratulations! Did you guys see Israel is also to get Wikipedia included in the curriculum of public schools? Sorry for crossposting in case it has been shared here: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=18059 I'm really excited to hear and learn more about these initiatives, though I'm really concerned about our limitations in the Brazilian education system. Oona On 11 June 2014 03:42, Nurunnaby Chowdhury <nh@nhasive.com <mailto:nh@nhasive.com>> wrote: Wow..excellent news Mile! Congratulations.. -- Nurunnaby Chowdhury | @nhasive Sysop, Bengali Wikipedia | User: Nhasive Member, IEG, WMF Ambassador, OK Bangladesh Sent from my iPhone device On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 4:55 AM, Shani <shani.even@gmail.com <mailto:shani.even@gmail.com>> wrote: Great news, Mile! Looking forward to seeing you in London and hear some more, :-) Shani. On 11 Jun 2014 01:31, "Jens Best" <jens.best@wikimedia.de <mailto:jens.best@wikimedia.de>> wrote: That's really great news. Congratulations to all people involved in preparing and realizing this important success. best regards Jens Best -- Präsidium - Board of Trustees Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. web: http://www.wikimedia.de <http://www.wikimedia.de/> mail: jens.best <http://goog_17221883>@wikimedia.de <http://@wikimedia.de> Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985. 2014-06-10 23:13 GMT+02:00 Mile Kiš <milens@vikimedija.org <mailto:milens@vikimedija.org>>: Hello everyone! I am honored to inform you that several months of integrating Wikipedia into primary and secondary schools in Serbia has finally paid off! After the Ministry has prescribed that from September 2014 all students of the second year of secondary school curriculum */_must study wiki tools_/*, Institute for the Improvement of knowledge and education has included a course on Wikipedia in its catalog of programs of continuous professional development of teachers, professors and other school personnel. We got accreditation for two years. Not a lot applicants got accreditation. This course will start in December. first challenge we successfully crossed :) next will come. I started writing blog post about this and hope it will be ready on 20 June. If you have some questions I will be happy to answer you :) Mile Kiš Vikimedija Srbije - rs.wikimedia.org <http://rs.wikimedia.org> - 00381 (0)60 7 454 772 <tel:00381%20%280%2960%207%20454%20772> „Zamislite svet u kome svaka osoba ima slobodan pristup celokupnom ljudskom znanju. To je ono na čemu mi radimo.“ _______________________________________________ Education mailing list Education@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Education@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education _______________________________________________ Education mailing list Education@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Education@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education _______________________________________________ Education mailing list Education@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Education@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education _______________________________________________ Education mailing list Education@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Education@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education _______________________________________________ Education mailing list Education@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Education@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education _______________________________________________ Education mailing list Education@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Education@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
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