John Tex wrote
Censorship is a scare word that does not accurately describe the internal debate over images. If hte government tells us not to print something, that is censorship. If we decide not to print somethin because of our own editorial standards, that is not censorship.
But it could be described as self-censorship - depending on what 'editorial standards' we are talking about.
If we want Wikipedia to be taken seriously, and to be used as widely as possible, then we need to hold ourselves to decent editorial standards.
It is taken seriously. It is used so widely that the servers are constantly groaning.
That might mean taking some very small steps such as putting some content behind a spoiler-like warning. This way, people know that reading the text of articles will be school/work-safe, and they can make an informed decision to view the images so-tagged.
It absolutely will not do that. For several reasons.
(i) Once you start on a list of things that might offend someone, you never end, as this thread will no doubt demonstrate. (ii) The article could be edited in the next five minutes, to become not-schoolwork-safe.
The only way to do the suggested kid-safe thing is a fork or a distro on CD-ROM (say) that has been checked for obvious no-nos.
We absolutely cannot take on ourselves parental/teacher style responsibility for the content of a live wiki. Or of all outgoing links. No way can one give 'protection of minors' warranties. I don't see this is going to change. We have this in common with the rest of the Web.
Charles.