Ray,
you seem to me to be essentially discussing the 'users' perspective on
wikipedia - whilst it's my view that the foundation, and the projects could
(and should) do more to allow things like descriptive image filtering for
users (I think it would drive participation in places like schools, and
librairies) I'm also interested in discussing the perspective of
'participant' in the project.
I think there are important duty of care issues for whomever is responsible
for children's involvement in projects like wikipedia, and I don't believe
the foundation, and projects, should simply pass the buck of responsibility
upstream to the parent. Encyclopedia's are rightly exciting and interesting
to children, and I think it's just reality that large numbers of
participants are minors (wiki's fun, right! :-) - we really should at least
talk about whether or not these participants are protected / treated /
advised appropriately.
for example, it would be my advice to a minor that it's inappropriate for
them to join this (not safe for work discussion) about whether or not to
include 'hardcore photos' in the oral sex article (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Oral_sex#Hardcore_photos )
There are important ethical issues here (maybe legal ones too, I don't know)
- I've tried to reach out to Volunteering Australia (
http://www.volunteeringaustralia.org/html/s01_home/home.asp ) who I hope may
be able to offer some advice about good practice in working with volunteer
kids etc. but I think this might be able to go much further much quicker on
a foundation level.
I'd like to see some concrete progress (a report, some ideas, anything
really!) related to ensuring appropriate and adequate measures are in place
to protect child participants in foundation projects. I've copied this
message Angela, who I hope I may persuade to raise this issue with the
advisory board, and also sj who may be able to raise the issue with the
board, or perhaps join this discussion to offer any ideas about handy next
steps. Regardless, I'll hop back on this list following a meeting with
Volunteering Australia, just in case they have any useful or interesting
advice :-)
cheers,
Peter,
PM.
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
Andrew Garrett wrote:
On 16/11/2009, at 1:04 AM, private musings
wrote:
> On Wikipedia Review, 'tarantino' pointed out that on WMF projects,
> self-identified minors (in this case User:Juliancolton) are involved
> in
> routine maintenance stuff around sexually explicit images reasonably
> describable as porn (one example is 'Masturbating Amy.jpg').
>
>
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=27358&st=0&p=204846&…
I think this is wrong on a number of levels - and I'd like to see
better
governance from the foundation in this area - I really feel that we
need to
talk about some child protection measures in some way - they're
overdue.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that it's somehow inappropriate
for minors to be viewing or working on images depicting human nudity
and sexuality. Cultural sensibilities on this matter are inconsistent,
irrational and entirely lacking in substance.
If it is truly inappropriate or harmful for children to be working on
such images, then those children should be supervised in their
internet access, or have gained the trust of their parents to use the
internet within whatever limits those parents (or, indeed, the minor)
believe is appropriate.
It is absolutely not the job of the Wikimedia Foundation, nor the
Wikimedia community, to supervise a child's internet access and/or
usage, and certainly not to make arbitrary rules regarding said usage
on the basis of a single culture's sensibilities on children and
sexuality, especially sensibilities as baseless and harmful as this one.
I agree that a common sense approach is warranted. In large measure
applying complex controls on child viewing is totally unrealistic. We
would begin with the problem of defining what is too young. In an other
topic, underage drinking, it is relatively far easier to define the
offending act but the age at which drinking is permitted still varies
widely from one jurisdiction to another. So what age is appropriate for
viewing such material? 12? 16? 18? 21? And even if we agree on an age,
except for the few self-identified individuals how are we to know what
someone's age really is? Those who are too young very quickly learn
that lying is a valuable skill founded upon necessity.
Not many years ago in a bible-belt suburb there was a very loud campaign
to block books that depicted same sex parents from a school library.
There was no question of those parents engaging in sexual activity in
the books, only a depiction that they could be loving and committed
parents just as much as opposite sex parents. The aim of the books was
to combat the development of homophobia among children of "normal"
parents. Yes, that is at the other extreme from the raunchy photos that
are most often complained about, but that merely illustrates the problem
of definition.
As is often stated WMF is an ISP, and not a publisher. The more it
seeks to control content, the more it acquires characteristics of a
publisher. Indeed as an ISP it must respond to specific legal demands
to remove certain material, but random complaints are not legal
demands. Perhaps at the same time those complainers should be asking
why murder is so much more socially acceptable on TV than consensual sex.
The responsibility of parents remains paramount ... even if some are
incapable of exercising that responsibility. It would also be
irresponsible if parents with the means to provide internet access
exercised control to the extent of raising internet illiterates
incapable of functioning in a wired world. What teachers and other
public institutions can do has severe limitations. The sad unavoidable
fact is that the seamier side of life exists. A parent does not protect
his child by pretending to him that such things don't happen. More is
accomplished by directing him toward a mature attitude.
Ec
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