[WikiEN-l] Just to throw this out there...

[Toby Bartels]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>"mature content" will definitely cause problems.
>>You imply in the rest of what you write (not only in this post)
>>«what some would consider to be appropriate only for the mature»,
>>but not only does "mature content" not say this literally,
>>but also (as somebody else pointed out) that's extremely broad,
>>and includes [[Christianity]].  So it won't be of much use.

>Well, I don't agree.  The standards for what we mean by mature content
>can be spelled out in sufficient detail and in an NPOV way so that
>controversy is minimized.

If you spell it out in such a way that it includes explicity sexual content
but not explicit religious content, then how is this NPOV,
given an earlier poster (Ec?) that considers the latter harmful to kids.
(And if Ec is joking, I have a friend that seriously believes that
about Christianity in particular.)

>But I'm not invested in that particular phrase.  Perhaps we could use
>'explicit sexual content' to distinguish it from 'sexuality'.

If «explicit sexual content» is what you meant all along by "mature content",
then let's say "explicit sexual content".

>>If I were writing the Wikipedia code, I wouldn't spend my time
>>on writing support for these flags; that's better done (if at all)
>>by another project that operates on top of Wikipedia

>But this is important for Wikipedia the website, not just for
>others.

Is it?  If we have an Edupedia website built on a Sifter model,
then schools can block Wikipedia as long as they don't block Edupedia.
And the Sifter model allows readers of Edupedia to edit Wikipedia
(potentially seemlessly).

>Some people in this debate have taken a very POV position, i.e. that
>wikipedia should shove this stuff down people's throats, and if
>they're too prudish to deal with it, too bad ha ha.  I don't agree.

Although Stevertigo's rhetoric can go (IMO) over the top,
I don't think that anybody actually advocates this position.
We should put explicit material on pages with titles
like [[Felching]], [[Nigger]], and [[Transubstantiation]] (^_^),
but what else would you expect on such a page?
As with any article, the first sentence
should briefly provide a general context,
so even if you go in not knowing what "felching" means,
you see "'''Felching''' is a [[sexual practice]] in which ...",
and you're warned -- nothing is shoved down your throat.
([[Felching]] actually doesn't begin that way right now,
so let me fix it right up ....)


-- Toby