At 12:52 AM 6/14/2003, you wrote:
Bullshit. I can accept that American schools may not indoctrinate a religion to their pupils. But that they may not even mention religion is stupid. Saying "There are people who believe in divine beings. Jews, Christians and Moslems believe in only one God while Hindus believe in many Gods" is just facts. Schools shouldn't have a problem with the neutral presentation of facts.
Well, as I recall, they don't. I went to public school in California, and there was no ban on the mention of religion.
If an article isn't neutral, it has to be refactored. But not censored. What about the "free speech" principle so many of you have defended? In an American's eye it is OK to say "No Jews have been gased during WWII" but you may not say "There are people believing in a divine being" ??
Well, you certainly can't say, in schools, that no Jews were gassed in WWII. And since you can say /either/ in a general setting, and either would be protected by freedom of speech, I'm not certain that your point here is on target.
I have been working in some school projects as a technical tutor, and I learned that pupils should not be confronted with the Internet without the supervision of a teacher. No matter how good your content filter might be, pupils find a way to content not supposed for youngsters.
Don't censor wikipedia. It's the responsibility of the teacher to do so.
Regards,
JeLuF
I agree with you here. First of all, filtering and censoring just plain doesn't work. People will always be able to get around them, usually without much trouble. Second of all, I agree that it is the responsibility of those concerned with what children might see to undertake the filtering and censoring. As an encyclopedia for a wide audience (i.e., not just children) we must allow parent/teachers/clergy to undertake whatever acts that they see fit to "protect" their charges from the content on Wikipedia.
I also think that any attempt to block the Wikipedia (on the part of local schools, for example) would only serve to help the project as the negative publicity that would likely be generated would probably force the school to unblock Wikipedia and garner us a good deal of free press in the process.
----- Dante Alighieri dalighieri@digitalgrapefruit.com
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of great moral crisis." -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321