[Foundation-l] Wikipedia is not the Karma Sutra, was Re: commons and freely licensed sexual imagery

[Robert Rohde]

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 7:13 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/5/14 Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net>:
>> I suggest that Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not include Wikipedia is not a
>> manual of sexual practices. It could be phrased Wikipedia is not the
>> Karma Sutra.
>
> What about pictures of Muhammad? Descriptions of Chinese human rights
> violations? Articles about evolution? etc. etc. etc.
>
> The reason that Wikipedia is not censored is because we cannot censor
> one thing and maintain neutrality without censoring everything else
> that might offend somebody and we would end up without anything left.

Though technically challenging, I've long believed that the best
answer is to develop some system similar to Categories that could be
used to flag content that is potentially objectionable on various
grounds and then provide the tools to create filtered streams that
remove that content.

I'd especially like to be able to offer schools a feed that filters
out the adult content.  Obviously any system that depends on editors
to maintain the flags would be imperfect and subject to various
issues, but I do think making a good faith effort to provide
culturally sensitive variants of Wikipedia would be very useful from a
public relations standpoint and allow Wikipedia to reach audiences
that might otherwise be excluded.

-Robert Rohde