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