[WikiEN-l] Dangers to Children

[John Lee]

Fred Bauder wrote:

> 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

BAOU is a coalition of trolls. Having said that, I think [[WP:NOT]] 
censored for the protection of minors covers this sufficiently.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])