If someone wants to make Conservative Wikipedia or Kid-Friendly Wikipedia or Tiananmen Square-Free Wikipedia, they're free to. They can even sell it. Contributors made that deal long ago with the open license of the sites.
Wikimedia's goal is to provide free educational content to the world. The world is then free to make its own filters ("personal bubbles") or even impose them on others (in the workplace, at school, at public libraries), but not with Wikimedia's help or harm. Wikimedia should remain neutral in the matter. The content is available and it is possible to fork and/or filter with technology today. (And, in fact, some places undoubtedly already filter particular Wikipedia titles, ineffective as some of these approaches surely are.) Leave the issue to third parties / a free market. If there's really demand for School-Friendly Wikipedia, someone will make it. But it's not Wikimedia's place to say who should and shouldn't have access to the sum of all human knowledge and what particular pieces of it constitute (graphic violence, pornography, etc.).
MZMcBride
MZMcBride wrote:
If someone wants to make Conservative Wikipedia or Kid-Friendly Wikipedia or Tiananmen Square-Free Wikipedia, they're free to. They can even sell it. Contributors made that deal long ago with the open license of the sites.
Wikimedia's goal is to provide free educational content to the world. The world is then free to make its own filters ("personal bubbles") or even impose them on others (in the workplace, at school, at public libraries), but not with Wikimedia's help or harm. Wikimedia should remain neutral in the matter. The content is available and it is possible to fork and/or filter with technology today. (And, in fact, some places undoubtedly already filter particular Wikipedia titles, ineffective as some of these approaches surely are.) Leave the issue to third parties / a free market. If there's really demand for School-Friendly Wikipedia, someone will make it. But it's not Wikimedia's place to say who should and shouldn't have access to the sum of all human knowledge and what particular pieces of it constitute (graphic violence, pornography, etc.).
MZMcBride
Don't [http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Simple] and [http://schools-wikipedia.org/ Schools Wikipedia] fulfil that goal? Perhaps I've missed the point you are making, but also, perhaps, WMF should make it clear that alternatives exist, and this is not a case of censorship, rather than targetting an approriate readership.
On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 5:28 AM, Phil Nash phnash@blueyonder.co.uk wrote:
MZMcBride wrote:
If someone wants to make Conservative Wikipedia or Kid-Friendly Wikipedia or Tiananmen Square-Free Wikipedia, they're free to. They can even sell it. Contributors made that deal long ago with the open license of the sites.
Wikimedia's goal is to provide free educational content to the world. The world is then free to make its own filters ("personal bubbles") or even impose them on others (in the workplace, at school, at public libraries), but not with Wikimedia's help or harm. Wikimedia should remain neutral in the matter. The content is available and it is possible to fork and/or filter with technology today. (And, in fact, some places undoubtedly already filter particular Wikipedia titles, ineffective as some of these approaches surely are.) Leave the issue to third parties / a free market. If there's really demand for School-Friendly Wikipedia, someone will make it. But it's not Wikimedia's place to say who should and shouldn't have access to the sum of all human knowledge and what particular pieces of it constitute (graphic violence, pornography, etc.).
MZMcBride
Don't [http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Simple] and [http://schools-wikipedia.org/ Schools Wikipedia] fulfil that goal? Perhaps I've missed the point you are making, but also, perhaps, WMF should make it clear that alternatives exist, and this is not a case of censorship, rather than targetting an approriate readership.
They are different, simple wiki is a different content project and schools-wikipedia is a sanitized, hand-picked, individually collected version from past dumps for schools, as in a not up-to-date version (2008/9). MZ is referring to bubbles- certain governments, corporations, schools etc. can make to protect their own standards and effectively live in bubbles themselves, without any involvement from Wikimedia.
I absolutely agree that Wikimedia should remain neutral in this matter. The sum of all human knowledge can not and should not, be sanitized or censored for anyone. If there is a clear need for it, someone will fill it until then it is our responsibility to remain completely open, unbiased and neutral.
Theo
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