Perhaps we can identify some reasonable notion of "work-safeness" and
work to make the user experience work-safe for all of our readers.
Our primary goal should be to make the encyclopedia a useful and
reliable resource, for as many people as possible, in as many
environments as possible. This includes making it reliably safe to
let one's children use the encyclopedia, to refer to articles for
illustration in the middle of a discussion or presentation, regardless
of audience, to browse the encyclopedia at work.
I am not sure how to address the first case above - providing a site
that parents would feel comfortable letting their 6-year-old browse.
But I think we can deal with the last two scenarios pretty well
without a great deal of work.
At each step along the way, we can assume that the reader is '''doing
his or her best''' to avoid looking up undesired pages or content.
Editors should avoid surprising users by showing them content they did
not expect, and do not want, to see on a particular subject. For
instance, we have {{spoiler}} messages. We should have the same kinds
of messages for potentially offensive content [somehow I thought we
did by now, but it seems this is not so.]
I've added a few templates ('obscenity', 'graphicviolence', and
'nonworksafe') to the end of the General templates page; please see
whether the text is appropriate, and add them to articles where
needed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/General
I think it is fair to assume that readers are doing all they can /not/
to come across content that they or their employers find
inappropriate. It is also polite to warn readers when they are about
to be shocked.
1. If the title of the article does *not* make it clear that it is
not worksafe, or about violent or obscene or nude subjects; or
2. If the content of one section, despite its relevance to the
article as a whole, is unusually graphic, or potentially
offensive/startling;
then a spoiler-type warning is probably appropriate.
On 4/13/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport(a)bluebottle.com> wrote:
Sean Barrett said:
For me, the largest part of the problem with the
Kate Winslet nude is
that it renders all of Wikipedia non-work-safe.
What does "work-safe" mean in this context? If it's only the pictures,
why do you browse wikipedia with image downloads turned on?
Images are a significant portion of the encyclopedia. No-one should
have to turn images off simple because of a few poorly-announced and
surprisingly-placed "non-work-safe" images.
--
+sj+