Daniel Mayer wrote:
Well in order to be "acceptable" in at least
US public schools,
Wikipedia would have to dramatically censored. Sadly, state and
local school boards in the US have effectively censored the content
of textbooks by not accepting material that could possibly be
offensive to a very long list of lobby groups (both on the right and
left of the political spectrum).
I wonder if NPOV would be sufficient for the bulk of this requirement.
What I mean here is that our NPOV policy and wiki process tends to
make pretty sure that no material is offensive to a very long list of
wikipedians, from a wide variety of political and cultural
backgrounds.
Not everything in wikipedia is going to be considered by mainstream
parents as appropriate for children, that's for sure. Probably 99%
is, but I acknowledge that a large number of people do feel that
children should have even NPOV presentations of some information
withheld from them until they are older.
I heard a news story the other day that in California, textbooks
are now forbidden to mention Mount Rushmore. See:
http://www.wtvw.com/Global/story.asp?S=1288473
Wikipedia would obviously handle that topic differently. We would not
omit the existence of Mount Rushmore, but we would cite the names and
arguments of those who find it offensive.
A lot of the excessive political correctness that we read about in the
news is really just a lack of talent in expression. It's entirely
possible to talk about controversial things in a way that is not
itself controversial.
--Jimbo