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