On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 05:18:07PM +0100, geni wrote:
Attempting to
reduce Wikipedia to some kind of lowest common denominator
of inoffensiveness is just as absurd on the grounds of "being work-safe"
as it is on the grounds of "being child-safe". It is an impossible
goal; but attempting to pursue it can cause untold harm to the project
in the form of chilling effects, irreconcilable disputes, and biased
coverage.
Evidence?
It's been rehashed here time and again. The evidence of the massive
conflicts over [[Clitoris]] and other articles should make it clear that
giving people more stuff to fight over is NOT a recipe for a peaceful
Wikipedia.
Hell, Wikipedia contributors manage to have flamewars over whether an
article should have an {{NPOV}} dispute tag on it. If we can have a
dispute over *whether a dispute exists* then I don't think we can be
trusted to label articles _obscene_ or not -- that's just an invitation
for worse conflicts.
What's more, these conflicts are basically POV in nature. People have
fundamentally different opinions about what is appropriate for children,
or for office workers for that matter. Inviting people to fuss over
whether a given article should be tagged "child-safe" or "work-safe"
is
just not a very good idea for the civility and advancement of the
project.
Chilling effects are a known problem with any restriction on expression.
Because people do not want to run afoul of the restriction, they self-
censor expression that comes close to the boundary. On Wikipedia, this
would mean that people would tend to avoid contributing particular
material to articles because they didn't want the article to be
recategorized as "not child-safe" -- even though the added material
might be highly informative and useful. Our purpose here is to produce
an informative encyclopedia -- and since a "child-safe" attitude
endangers that goal by dint of chilling effects, "child-safety" is not a
compatible goal to seek.
Wikipedia
doesn't need censorious categorization. We are getting on
_just fine_ without it. Speculations of the sort, "If we don't put up
some kind of censorship, we could get sued!" are the "Niger yellowcake"
of this discussion -- a nonexistent threat that is being pounded on to
justify a preexisting agenda.
Evidence? Are you a lawer? Are you giving your formal legal opion?
Of course not. But we shouldn't be taking actions "because Wikipedia
could get sued" without advice from the Foundation's lawyers for that
very reason -- it isn't our job; we're likely to have it wrong; and we
may even expose the project to *more* risk thereby.
Uninformed speculation about legal matters leads to all kinds of moronic
conclusions. Just take a look at some of the nonsensical speculation
about open-source software licensing out there. My point is that we
should *NOT* be basing our actions on speculations of risks that have
simply not been demonstrated.
--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger(a)whoi.edu>