[Foundation-l] Pedophilia and the Non discrimination policy

[George Herbert]

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 9:25 PM, David Levy <lifeisunfair at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > The "hand in hand with children" wording seems to conflate physical
>> > space with cyberspace.
>
>> How about "collaborating with children"?
>
> That's accurate, but I'm not quibbling over terminology.  As I
> explained to George, my point is that some measures commonly taken in
> physical space are ineffective in cyberspace.

Wikipedia's strong culture of pseudonymity and anonymity makes
protecting anyone, or detecting anyone, a nearly lost cause if they
have any clue and sense of privacy.  Unlike real life, we can't make
guarantees with anything approaching a straight face.

However - there's a difference between being unable to effectively
screen people by real world standards, and not having a policy of
acting when we do detect something.  One is acknowledging cultural and
technical reality - because of who and where we are, we couldn't
possibly do better than random luck at finding these people.  The
other is disregarding any responsibility as a site and community to
protect our younger members and our community from harm, if we find
out via whatever means.

Witch hunts looking for people don't seem helpful or productive to me.
 But if they out themselves somewhere else and are noticed here, then
we're aware and on notice.  The question is, entirely, what do we do
then.

Do we owe the underaged users a duty to protect them from known threats?

Do we owe the project as a whole a duty to protect it from disgrace by
association?


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com