[WikiEN-l] Dangers to Children

[Fred Bauder]

How much truth is there to this:

The Parents for the Online Safety of Children (POSC) organization is  
worried about parents letting their children into a website that is a  
known gathering for pedophiles. Any pedophile can easily obtain a  
child's IP address and use it to locate the child's place of  
residence outside of the internet. Pedophiles may also solicit  
children for sex or attempt to contact them through using WikiPedia  
as a medium, or even find out their e-mail address or instant  
messenger screen name.

Since WikiPedia allows pedophiles to edit WikiPedia pages and view  
the IP addresses of children freely, we recommend that you use  
filtering software to block WikiPedia from access in your household  
or school.

The internet is already a dangerous lurking ground for pedophiles;  
statistics show that about 1 in 5 children are solicited for sex  
online, and with the growth of the unregulated WikiPedia, that number  
can only skyrocket.

Since WikiPedia refuses to address the issue of pedophiles within its  
ranks and the allowance of random editing to pages, we can only  
recommend parents to withhold access to WikiPedia.org for the time  
being.

Excerpts from http://news.baou.com/main.php? 
action=recent&msg_recent=&rid=20679

What can we practically do that would reduce any real risk? (I  
exclude fighting among ourselves in a destructive way)

Fred