[Wikipedia-l] Censorship and bowdlerization

Wed Nov 13 22:08:16 UTC 2002

elian wrote:
> 
> "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> writes:
> 
> > Someday, we plan to make the Wikipedia available on CD-ROM for schools
> > and libraries that don't have T-1 lines (or the patience to tolerate the
> > "lag" problem). It would be very useful to allow a parent or educator to
> > filter out a few articles such as [[****-piercing]] or [[fisting]] or
> > whatever.
> 
> Wikipedia is open content, the wikipedia software is open source. Any
> Library, university, school or whatever institution which wants a
> filtering system can develop one for itself.

Very true.  They can also create an appropriate
fork if they desire to retain full interactive access
for their students with the medium.

A sifter-L (absent the P'hd requirements and stacked by
any bias the controlling authorities choose to institutionalize)
type activity could initialize their fork project and then 
occasionally augment as desirable from the base Wikipedia material.

> 
> I consider filtering or censuring articles on Wikipedia itself a blatant
> violation of its NPOV-policy.

How so?  Are we to provide a mandatory reading list and track
what users read to assure that they receive fully balanced
doses of human knowledge in accordance with our mythical
and unclearly defined NPOV policy?

This would clearly be silly.  Sort of like failed liberal
education requirements which require engineers to study
literature but which allow mathmatically (perhaps even
arithmetically?) illiterate P'hd "scholars" to teach 
engineering students literature.

Our ideal (according to the NPOV as I understand
its intent) is to provide as closely as possible 
all applicable information or knowledge summarized as
neutrally or objectively as possible.

Allowing the reader to move away from our default full
view to a self (or guardian) selected filtered view is
far different from applying an externally (user frame
of reference) imposed censorship filter regardless of 
the filtering criteria or purpose.

> 
> Besides, entries about sexual "perversions" are found in "normal"
> encyclopedias as well, the parents in question would in logical
> consequence have to deny their children access to britannica, too.

Not necessarily.  Access via paper is by index and
organization.   In principle it should not be hard to
rip out offending sections with an exacto knife.

Note that I do not insist on imposing this method on you,
merely that it is possible for me to use prior to handing 
the paper to minors for whom I am temporarily responsible. 

In practice, I suspect parents with extreme concerns will
simply purchase or provide access to a children's encyclopedia 
with published standards that look appropriate, by 
their standards.   

How is this different
from allowing a parent to set a filtering mechanism 
within their children's account at Wikipedia?

If the child resets the filter criteria without parental permission
inappropriately (or appropriately), that is between them,
their guardian authority, and any involved societal authorities.

> 
> I have no other encyclopedia to check at the moment, but I am almost sure
> to find more dangerous and misleading information in it than in wikipedia,
> where the articles in these areas were written by well informed
> and responsible practitioners.

This is a manifestation of incompleteness of Wikipedia
more than any existing merit.   Eventually some knowledgeable
engineers (or crackpots or "terrorists") will show up and explain 
in detail how to build ballistic missiles, truck bombs, etc. 
out of common household materials or materials and energy found
in any cubic mile of earth with surface access to atmosphere
and sunlight.  

Much of this is not explicitly available 
in existing paper encyclopedias due to lack of space and editorial 
selection. Online Wikipedia has no immediate space constraints and 
the person who feels lack of knowledge is not the best way to 
constrain societal behavior and choices may show up anytime.

Of course others may routinely delete the detailed information if
they feel it is too dangerous or explicitly simple but a window 
of availability will occur occasionally no matter how rigorously
we apply the community consensus to removing inappropriate
material (notice at the moment we have no way to ratify guidelines
regarding "inappropriate" or uniformly apply them, so let the
edit wars begin!).

Does this mean the NPOV is violated if a meta tag is inserted
to allow parents to filter out detailed specific information
and blueprints on bomb building?

I do not think so.  Information does not get any more neutral
or unbiased than hard engineering data and plans.  The bomb
design either works or it does not.  The universe will let
us know when a garage or building blows up accidentally, a stump 
is removed, or the police find a failed pipe bomb at the site 
of a mass murder suicide)  The Wikipedia site has no way to 
determine a priori whether the bomb information is going to 
be used well or poorly by our standards.  It may be very
appropriate to give responsible guardians the ability to
slow down juvenile access to materials which a mature farmer 
needs to improve his productivity or society. 

Notice I am not concerned with adults.  This may change if
the U.S. successfully convicts U.S. citizens for attending
Al Quaeda training camps.  I doubt that members
of TINC, or Wikipedians at large, wish to be stuck in a cell with 
me for assisting preadolescent or puberty striken "terrorists" in 
learning how to spray offensive graffiti on the Pentagon any more 
than I wish to be stuck there with them for complicity in learning 
how this could be done or assisting others with learning how this 
could be done.  If we are successful then it is merely a matter
of time until some criminal fingers us (Wikipedia) for providing
information he needed to attempt to commit a crime.

Extreme example:
"I learned that a bar of steel can be rubbed on concrete
to create a sharp edge at Wikipedia.  Whereupon I used it
to assault a homeland security officer who wished to search
me.  I say this now freely and voluntarily to the juvenile
court so that my murder conviction can be reduced to 2 weeks
public service and I can be remanded into the custody of
my clearly capable parent/guardian of 12 years and parole
office of 4 years."

More extreme example:
"The jury finds you guilty of accessing information at
Wikipedia, the same site that the Pentagon taggers used
to learn how to assault the Pentagon."

The server currently resides in the U.S. so,
it is clearly in our best interest to put a meta tag 
system in place to allow parents to filter out tagging technology 
and methods in the D.C. area before the Pentagon gets tagged.
Our defense becomes the technology was available to the parent
or irresponsible adult to avoid the tainting information which
was allegedly responsible for their crime spree.

I contend that the NPOV attempts to state only that we write in 
such a way as to not villify the chemical composition used in
attempts to assassinate Hitler or 
to glorify the design of the atomic bombs used to incinerate 
Japanese non-combatants.  It does not (nor intended?) to 
address whether parents (or Wikipedia) have a responsibility
to keep plans for pipe bombs out of the hands of minors until
(in the judgement of the guardian) the juvenile has adequate
judgement to determine when to make a pipe bomb and throw or
plant it and when to not even think about it.

Clearly Wikipedia currently assumes to a great extent that
adult users are responsible for how they use the information
they attain at Wikipedia, not the Wikipedia site or the 
providers of the information.

If our target audience does not include minors then
we should acknowledge that and post a warning that this
is an adult only site.   Then someone else can establish
the kiddypedia sifter list and everyone will be happier.

If children are in our target audience then I think the
maturity meta approach has a lot of merit from a functional
requirements standpoint.

The capability might be useful to other sites using the
GPL'd software and FDL'd data even if
Wikipedia chooses not to use it.   

For example: A site
setup to deal with potentially hazardous engineering projects
and information might require users to attain a certain
trusted certification prior to providing access to dangerous
data (in the hands of the ill informed, overly optimistic,
or careless) regarding chemical propellants or explosives so useful
in some farming/space flight applications.  No sense letting
interested novices blow themselves up through sheer incompetence.

Regards,
Mike Irwin