Erik pointed out that one size doesn't fit all in terms of filtering content, even when talking about child-appropriate content. I won't debate that, nor his (kind of) tongue in cheek remark about putting advisories on the Christianity (and all other religion?) articles.
But here's where I think that argument falls down. The wikipedia is fortunately unlike almost every print encyclopedia in that one can (or will be able to, one day, we hope) find information on virtually anything. I would guess that, when people see "online, open content encyclopedia", they think in terms of information available in print encyclopedia - I imagine it this way, laugh if you like: "Hey mom, I found this really cool site!" "Really? What kind of site? (<subtext of normal parental concern>)" "It's an encyclopedia - look at this cool picture of an aardvark!" "Gee, honey, that *is* pretty cool! Useful, too!" And mom, seeing it's an educational tool, goes back to doing whatever, only to have her kid come up later and ask about the information in the Felching article (and by the way, that looks a lot like a dictionary entry to me), which might not be at all intelligible to a pre-teen, at least. I think one size does fit all when erring on the side of caution. In other contexts that same information might be seen as abusive towards the child.
Sorry - I don't want to sound like a prude or like I'm some right-wing fanatic. I just know that I live in a society that expects that, as a society, we protect our children from things they aren't equipped to handle - we try to refrain from swearing around them, we (except in the US, it seems) have a sex and violence watershed on TV, etc. If individual parents want to let their kids see R-rated films, or play super violent video games, they can (again, I think the US is actually more liberal about this). But that doesn't let the wikipedia off the hook from at least letting people know that there is information on the site that is not found in "normal" encyclopedias and is certainly not age-appropriate for young children.
By the way, is anybody referring to articles OTHER than the ones with explicit sexual (in any variety) details? I can see an argument for the nightly news not being appropriate for young kids, too, but at least parents have a good idea of what will be shown - I thought I did, till they showed a cop being murdered by somebody at a routine road stop.
Julie
In response to Julie,
There are encyclopedias geared especially for children.
An inclusive encyclopedia should not sugar-coat, but should lay facts bare.
And if they are unsavory, then so be it.
This is especially important for children: a LOT of well-meaning people lie to their children under the guise of protecting them. I would the W be a resource for said children to discover the truth, even if it is less than savory.
===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell http://www.christophermahan.com/
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I agree with Chris - somewhat. Without going into asserting that 'people who dont like this stuff - might not raise their children right' I think the disclaimer on the front page is silly - perhaps it should be in the bottom with the other disclaimer - etc. or as part of the intro - but generally, it looks like people are making too big a stink over something so... inane. It doesnt no make no sense none. People had the whole blaze attitude over AKFD, and noone here gave a shit - whats the big deal about this? Hypocrisy in policy - or does the assertion "you must not care about children" make people automatically bend over the nearest three-foot fence?
A vote would be in order - wouldnt it? And I agree wiht Koyannis - "They" dont censor the Bible just cause its got some incest in it - (Lots daughters, etc....) - http://www.apologeticspress.org/abdiscr/abdiscr27.html Or the lots of casual sex - (Use of prostitutes, yadda..)... http://www.postfun.com/pfp/fornication.html
:} -SM.
Genesis 38:8-10 "And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also."
This is not exactly the best analogy, b/c (correct me if I am wrong) people don't generally teach children these things. If they do read it to children, I doubt they know what it means.
-- Michael Becker
"They" dont censor the Bible just cause its got some incest in it - (Lots daughters, etc....) - http://www.apologeticspress.org/abdiscr/abdiscr27.html Or the lots of casual sex - (Use of prostitutes, yadda..)... http://www.postfun.com/pfp/fornication.html
:} -SM.
Genesis 38:8-10 "And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also."
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In addition, we aren't censoring by including a disclaimer. A vote has already ensued at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Content_advisory Someone suggested 3 choices, and we voted. That is how this ended up on the main page. Feel free to join the discussion.
-- Michael Becker
-----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-admin@wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin@wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Stevertigo Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 10.59 To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Filtering, etc.
I agree with Chris - somewhat. Without going into asserting that 'people who dont like this stuff - might not raise their children right' I think the disclaimer on the front page is silly - perhaps it should be in the bottom with the other disclaimer - etc. or as part of the intro - but generally, it looks like people are making too big a stink over something so... inane. It doesnt no make no sense none. People had the whole blaze attitude over AKFD, and noone here gave a shit - whats the big deal about this? Hypocrisy in policy - or does the assertion "you must not care about children" make people automatically bend over the nearest three-foot fence?
A vote would be in order - wouldnt it? And I agree wiht Koyannis - "They" dont censor the Bible just cause its got some incest in it - (Lots daughters, etc....) - http://www.apologeticspress.org/abdiscr/abdiscr27.html Or the lots of casual sex - (Use of prostitutes, yadda..)... http://www.postfun.com/pfp/fornication.html
:} -SM.
Genesis 38:8-10 "And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also."
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Michael Becker wrote:
A vote has already ensued at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Content_advisory Someone suggested 3 choices, and we voted. That is how this ended up on the main page. Feel free to join the discussion.
I had that discussion watched, but I never saw the vote. After all, it had only been discussed for 2 days! (Jun 5, Jun 6). In fact, I can't even find a vote on the talk page. I'm sure that even Erik would agree that such a vote is no good.
-- Toby
--- Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu wrote:
Michael Becker wrote:
A vote has already ensued at
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Content_advisory
Someone suggested 3 choices, and we voted. That is
how this ended up on
the main page. Feel free to join the discussion.
I had that discussion watched, but I never saw the vote. After all, it had only been discussed for 2 days! (Jun 5, Jun 6). In fact, I can't even find a vote on the talk page. I'm sure that even Erik would agree that such a vote is no good.
-- Toby
TC would probably further add that voting is not good :-)
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Toby-
Michael Becker wrote:
A vote has already ensued at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Content_advisory Someone suggested 3 choices, and we voted. That is how this ended up on the main page. Feel free to join the discussion.
I had that discussion watched, but I never saw the vote. After all, it had only been discussed for 2 days! (Jun 5, Jun 6). In fact, I can't even find a vote on the talk page. I'm sure that even Erik would agree that such a vote is no good.
Yes, even I agree. ;-)
Regards,
Erik
Christopher wrote:
In response to Julie,
There are encyclopedias geared especially for children.
An inclusive encyclopedia should not sugar-coat, but should lay facts bare.
And if they are unsavory, then so be it.
I don't think anyone is arguing for sugar-coating, particularly not Julie, who has been pretty clear that she's in agreement that the nature of the wiki process and the nature of what we're doing argues for inclusiveness in terms of what is entered.
This is especially important for children: a LOT of well-meaning people lie to their children under the guise of protecting them. I would the W be a resource for said children to discover the truth, even if it is less than savory.
Sure, and so toward that end, I think we need do no more than what google does -- make it a one-click easy thing to view the encyclopedia in this way or that. If parents want to *enforce* that their children take a certain view, they can do so in their own way, perhaps in the same way that they do with google or other big websites.
(I.e. parents can look over the shoulder, keep the computer in the family room, impose filtering software, whatever they want to do at home.)
Perhaps a more useful way of thinking about this issue, and I mentioned this earlier today too, is not in terms of a parent attempting to dictate what their children can see. Instead think of *me* and *my mom* sitting down to look at wikipedia together.
"Look, maw, I got my pitcher in the New Yark Times fer this here website." (That's what you're supposed to imagine the Alabama accent of someone named Jimbo must be like!)
"Lordy, son, look at this article about felching, oh my, that ain't right."
--Jimbo
Julie-
But here's where I think that argument falls down. The wikipedia is fortunately unlike almost every print encyclopedia in that one can (or will be able to, one day, we hope) find information on virtually anything. I would guess that, when people see "online, open content encyclopedia", they think in terms of information available in print encyclopedia - I imagine it this way, laugh if you like: "Hey mom, I found this really cool site!" "Really? What kind of site? (<subtext of normal parental concern>)" "It's an encyclopedia - look at this cool picture of an aardvark!" "Gee, honey, that *is* pretty cool! Useful, too!" And mom, seeing it's an educational tool, goes back to doing whatever, only to have her kid come up later and ask about the information in the Felching article (and by the way, that looks a lot like a dictionary entry to me), which might not be at all intelligible to a pre-teen, at least.
Dr. Merkwuerdigliebe says: "Congratulations, Mom, your son is uninhibited enough to ask about sexual subjects. That means he will probably have less problems than his peers when dealing with contraception and STD prevention in later life." I suspect that the kind of moms who would freak out when their children ask them about sexual subjects have already indoctrinated them quite well not to do so.
Of course, maybe in the future Mom can enable a filter to keep her children from being exposed to specific aspects of reality. But I would support this only when it is generic enough to allow other Moms to choose other aspects of reality, instead of simply assuming that sex==bad is the only parenting standard that matters. That would surely not be NPOV.
Regards,
Erik