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

[Ray Saintonge]

Axel Boldt wrote:

>>>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 that would be very unfortunate, I think.
>>
>There's one question we haven't investigated yet: would our filtering
>really lower the likelihood that schools will eventually block us
>completely? 
>
Of course not.  But never underestimate the will of the zealots to try. 
 A year or so ago the Supreme Court of Canada ruled to allow three books 
depicting homosexual families to be used in the schools.  Just yesterday 
the same suburban Vancouver school board again voted to ban the same 
three books on the grounds that the spelling and grammar in them were 
not up to standards.  They never stop trying.  We can't hope to convince 
all school districts to not block us.  On the other hand, the gratuitous 
publicity always helps our cause.  We only have to insist that they 
spell the name correctly.

>I doubt that we could ever create a system that even comes close to 
>preventing school kids from getting the Wikipedia content they want. 
>At one point, a school administrator will find objectionable content in
>Wikipedia, will investigate the filtering option with the various
>categories, and will realize that kids can still get to the
>objectionable pages, e.g. by typing in the direct URL. Then our whole
>domain will be blocked.
>
Yup!  And the greater the fuss by the administrator, the more the kids 
will be encouraged to hack their way to the site.  Nevertheless, many 
won't even bother with the school computers when they have more 
sophisticated equipment at home.

Ec