See you if come back Julie - WP has lost a good number of concientious objectors over the last twelve months - notably Isis, who had some sorta GNU copyleft issue .... Weve lost other professionals as well, - largely due (I think) to the realization that academics should find non-academic hobbies.
Anyway - for you to characterize everyone that disagrees with you - as strawmen, Thatcherite, Ayn Rand-types, is kinda low. We simply raise the flag that adding protections under the waving flag of protectionism (similar to the war on terror issue) then that itself smells like a SLIPPERY SLOPE argument -- and some of us "radical libertarians" must be quick to raise the issue.
I cant speak for anyone else - but personally the flag that raises with me is implementation - how would such protocols be implemented, and would they be in the spirit of the WP true purpose? Does WP have a "true purpose" is it written down? If not - why?
It was only a natural consequence - that the issue be boiled down to its essence - apologies if the debate covers unintended ground.
Happy Trails, Steven MacGrieves
The initial question/suggestion was to place a visible advisory that the wikipedia contains information that some people might find objectionable. From there, there were many straw men raised about the POV-ness of "objectionable". Me, I agree that lots of stuff might be objectionable (-- and so what?), but that there are certain (mostly) sexually explicit articles that your average surfer might not expect to find, and that even a fairly conscientious parent (or child, in Jimmy's case) might miss when glancing over the site for age-appropriateness (or even some kind of family-imposed moral or religious code -- unless KQ, Erik, et al. mean to suggest that parents should not be allowed any say in when they want their children intentionally exposed to certain information -- religious, political, sexual, whatever, by religious, atheist, or just plain struggling-through-something-far-too-easy-to-screw-up-and-don't-need-inp ut-from-strangers parents, that is).
The entire conversation has been not-very-subtly changed to be one over filters and wikipedia-imposed censorship. It's one that I consider to be total bullshit, by the way -- well-calculated deviation that blurs any dealing with any type of deeper social responsibility. Some of you have managed to prove that Thatcherism is not dead (you know, the nice lady who said "there is no such thing as 'society'"?). Nor is the ridiculous world of Ayn Rand, where one can pretend that one's actions have no wider consequences than those other people allow them to have. How utterly depressing that so many people who consider it important to write very good articles that raise awareness of the global interconnections of scientific, political, and religious issues (among others) refuse to accept that their own actions (or refusal to act) might also have widespread effects.
How very sad that the very people
who consistently argue for NPOV try to use it as some kind of shield of non-censorship, thus forcing their own POV on others. Please don't say you aren't -- there have been all too many "religion and prudery damage kids, and they'd learn this stuff anyway, so it might as well be right" arguments to deny it. What is more NPOV than to say clearly on the main page that the wikipedia respects the fact that people operate under many different value systems, and that there may be information on the site that could be objectionable?
Oh -- and BTW, if we stuck to "wikipedia is not a dictionary", most of the articles that make a lot of wikipedians squeamish would be deleted anyway -- my guess is that no one wants to be seen as less than open-minded. Felching is certainly a dictionary-type definition.
And also -- DW is dangerous in any form. I'm almost positive he was also Triton, and Jacques Delson. The time he takes from other people's efforts is hardly worth any contributions. HJ also made some very good contributions.