[WikiEN-l] Filtering, etc.

[Erik Moeller]

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