Jimmy-
My essential point is that our refusal to have standards is not a valid tool in the fight against censorship. Rather it plays directly into the hands of those who argue that censorship is necessary.
This is a very weak argument. Those who want censorship will argue that it is necessary with or without a Wikipedia article called "List of unusual sex practices". If they want a poster child for censorship, picking on an open encyclopedia project is not likely to work very well.
I have said that Wikipedia is important, and that it is true: It is important the moment it becomes censored entirely by someone, because of all the clearly useful and educational information that is there. But before this happens, Wikipedia is just one of millions of websites, very small parts of which contain small amounts of possibly offensive content within an encyclopedic framework.
Arguing that because of these small amounts of offensive information in an open encyclopedia, "we need filters NOW!" is not the kind of argument that works well in a filtering debate. You could pick many, many other sites and many, many other equivalent examples for that, from Blogspot to Livejournal, from Slashdot to Everything2, from Google ("SafeSearch" notwithstanding) to Yahoo. Let's take a look at a random news.yahoo.com story. In the comment section we find on the first page:
---- 336892 Re: Jews killed Jesus. Jesus who? 336891 Re: Wilbur05488 dilemma,,,seeker 336890 Re: Jews killed Jesus. 336889 Re: Why Arabs want Israel. 336888 Re: US jews HAVE NO LOYALTY TO AMERICA!! 336887 Re: Cretins, jealous of Jewish achieveme 336886 Re: Jews killed Juses. 336885 Re: If Hillary were President.. 336884 Re: US jews HAVE NO LOYALTY TO AMERICA!! 336883 Cretins sure sound like Arabs/Muslims 336882 Re: LET THE KILL EACH OTHER 336881 Look at this Sentence 336880 Re: Jews killed Juses. 336879 Re: LET THE KILL EACH OTHER ... ----
Our unusual sex practice articles pale in comparison to these crude and vulgar discussions. And you don't even want to know what is on groups.yahoo.com and the like. Yet even Yahoo! or Google are not used as examples in the filtering debate. That's not because they offer primitive "family filters", it's because you don't make the case for filtering by using subtle arguments. The people who are intelligent enough to understand them are probably against filtering in the first place.
Here are the likely scenarios. For simplicity's sake I'll leave out the implementation cost of filtering in each scenario, even though it is there:
1) We implement a working filter. Schools and libraries install blacklist filters regardless because of rotten.com et al. But we're not part of the filters.
WE WIN: pupils can access parts of Wikipedia WE LOSE: we have effectively endorsed the filtering of explicit content, other interactive sites will be expected to do the same or get blacklisted.
2) We implement a working filter. Schools and libraries install keyword filters for URLs and pages, and exempt Wikipedia from this filter:
WE WIN: control over what gets filtered WE LOSE: see 1)
3) We implement a working filter. Schools and libraries install keyword filters for URLs and pages, with no exceptions on URLs.
WE WIN: - WE LOSE: see 1)
4) We implement a filter that filters too much and is used repressively. Schools and libraries wholeheartedly endorse it.
WE WIN: - WE LOSE: Wikipedia sets an example for hard control and is cited as such. Others are asked to follow our model. Legitimate content is hidden from minors.
5) We implement a filter that filters too little. Schools and libraries call for additional measures.
WE WIN: - WE LOSE: -
6) We implement no filter at all. Schools and libraries install keyword filters for URLs and pages, with no exceptions on URLs.
WE WIN: - WE LOSE: -
7) We implement no filter at all. Schools and libraries blacklist Wikipedia.org because of pussy pictures.
WE WIN: opportunity to promote open access, highlight the dangers of filtering, publicity WE LOSE: access by minors
In all of the above scenarios, minors lose access to some pages. We have little to gain in that area. I personally doubt that we lose reputation because of a lack of filtering. Both scenario 6) and 7) are not particularly dangerous to us. Therefore I think that not implementing any kind of "family filter" is a reasonable choice.
Regards,
Erik