"Steve Bennett" wrote
Widely is not the same thing as seriously. Spam (the meat) sells well. Does anyone take it seriously?
WP is quoted by top-quality media sources. That's being taken seriously.
It absolutely will not do that. For several reasons.
(i) Once you start on a list of things that might offend someone, you never end, as this thread will no doubt demonstrate.
This is one of those arguments I really dislike. "If we try and improve things, people will want us to improve them even more, and it will never end!"
Well, you are leaping to the conclusion that a subtraction (to appease some group offended) is an improvement.
Look at it the other way. Don't label a page kid safe. Label it *not kid-safe*. Then if someone edits the pornographic article to remove all the porn, then no harm is done. We shouldn't (can't, really) make any guarantees that no kids will be shocked, but hopefully in time, people can draw their own conclusions about the level of risk.
More assumptions. I think parents are more likely to be 'shocked' than kids; especially those naive about what one can google for.
At the moment, the risk is high, because a user can easily stumble on [[autofellatio]] or whatever.
Not that high, clicking Random Page. High enough, if you look in the sexological categories.
If all those pages are tagged correctly, then the only risk is that someone sticks tubgirl on [[GWB]] for 2 minutes - a substantially lower risk.
'Only risk'; I think you forget how many sites WP links to. I think you forget that interwiki links may (within Wikipedia) take one to pages not subject to any scrutiny by us, the English Wikipedia.
We absolutely cannot take on ourselves parental/teacher style responsibility for the content of a live wiki. Or of all outgoing links. No way can one give 'protection of minors' warranties. I don't see this is going to change. We have this in common with the rest of the Web.
You're right. No warranties. But warnings, and the option to "opt out" with suitable software. Just like with every other site of which "a fairly large portion is pornographic". :)
A fairly small proportion of WP is 'explicit', and little is pornographic.