[Foundation-l] A possible solution for the image filter

[David Gerard]

On 22 September 2011 12:50, Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com> wrote:

> Teachers are wary of Wikipedia, and one of the reasons (justifiable or
> not) is that our content is too adult.  I recall hearing anecdotes of
> Wikipedia reading being blocked in some schools because of this.
> Having a "safe" version for schools could potentially address that,
> and I'd always assumed that this was one of the major underlying
> motivations.


The Schools Wikipedia does precisely this job and does it well. It's
enormously popular with teachers around the world.

Its main problem is that it is labour-intensive. It's a selection from
Wikipedia, so it's just like compiling a 15-volume encyclopedia.

Just as the anticipated audience for the filter is entirely anecdotal,
the underlying motivations are also entirely anecdotal. The one survey
has had ridiculously awful questions that were not reviewed by
*anyone* who would reasonably be expected to know how to design a
survey, even though such were readily available.

The two bits of solid data we do have indicate that de:wp will not
stand for such filtering. However, there have been no moves that I
know of to do similar comprehensive surveys on other projects. (Has
anyone tried on en:wp?)

I don't think anyone has been deliberately trying not to gather data,
but I think this would be a not unreasonable conclusion for an
outsider to reach looking at their actions.