Jimmy-
Erik Moeller wrote:
> Once again, do what? Filter Wikipedia entirely? Do you really think
> they can get away with that? And if they just want to filter the
> respective pages, what do we care?
...
After a lot of thought, I don't think that's
right. If Wikipedia
contains content that should be filtered, then the proponents of
filtering can use us as an example of why filters are a Good Thing.
I still don't follow your argument. Do you, or do you not think that the
proponents of filtering could plausibly argue that all of Wikipedia, all
130,000 articles, need to be filtered in libraries because we have some
articles about "highly unusual sex practices"?
If the proponents of filtering manage to come up with a filtering solution
that only filters the articles they find so offensive, something which I
doubt given the nature of Wikipedia, then all the better for them -- less
work for us. And if they don't, we can say that they
1) ask us to do the impossible (a lot of purely technical objections
against filtering have already been raised)
2) violate the First Amendment by hiding 129,500 perfectly valid articles
from pupils because of 500 ones which they consider objectionable.
Oh, and by the way -- the Yahoo! message boards contain a lot more
objectionable and offensive material than Wikipedia.
Regards,
Erik