As regards that Macbeth story, I think sheer common sense applies as to what an
encyclopedia should have. I'm certainly not against an article on wombs.
Arno
----- Original Message -----
From: dpbsmith(a)verizon.net
To: wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia can never be fully "safe" and also open...
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 16:44:02 -0500
Even if there were total agreement among Wikipedians proper
content, so long as Wikipedia is open to "zero-threshold" editing,
it will always contain a certain among of material that does not
belong. The equilibrium between the rate at which such material is
inserted and the rate at which it is removed guarantees this.
Even if we had a consensus so clear that "obscenity" could be a
valid speedy candidate, removal would still not be _instantaneous._
As things stand, questionable articles will remain visible for at
least five days--and the very existence of the VfD discussions
makes it easy for anyone who wishes to attack Wikipedia to find
them.
No matter what technical mechanism we put into place, tagging an
article as offensive likely to be considered debatable and require
several days to ascertain consensus before the tagging becomes
stable.
This doesn't affect the broad questions we've been discussing, but
it does mean that Wikipedia will _always_ be vulnerable to those
who wish to attack it for containing offensive material. The only
way to change this would be to subject every article to _prior_
review before release into the main namespace.
I think it's pointless to discuss making Wikipedia "safe for
classrooms." Any teacher who lets his or students access Wikipedia
will always be taking some risk with their career. The risk is
small, and that a prudent teacher in the right circumstances might
deem it acceptable, but it will always be there. The risk of a
student running across one of these pages _by accident_ is very
small, but in the fifties my little friends and I were certainly
getting _our_ giggles looking up "rape" and "carnal" and
"vagina"
in the dictionary, and discoveries are quickly shared.
In George Orwell's novel, _A Clergyman's Daughter_, a schoolteacher
inadvisedly presents "Macbeth" to her students. They reach the
words "Macduff was from his mother's womb/Untimely ripp'd," and a
student asks the fatal question, "Please, Miss, what does that
mean." She explains "haltingly and incompletely--but she did
explain," and the following evening she is confronted by angry
parents who feel "it is a disgrace that schoolbooks can be printed
with such words in them; I'm sure if any of us had known that
Shakespeare had that kind of stuff, we'd have put our foot down at
the start.... If I had my way, no child--at any rate, no
girl--would know anything about the Facts of Life till she was
twenty-one."
Fast forward to Holden Caulfield's tombstone, and Wikipedia.
--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at
http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
--
_______________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages