[Wikipedia-l] What the front page of the wikipedia needs is a warning for children

Thu Nov 14 22:41:14 UTC 2002

Erik Moeller wrote:

>>Or rather, for their parents... while sex information etc seems to have
>>a home in the wikipedia, parents might not be thrilled at the idea of
>>Junior reading up on anal penetration, cock rings, and other 'adult'
>>concepts. I know I wouldn't if it was my kids... some things are just
>>not for juvenile eyes, if only because too much information leads to
>>very awkward questions.
>>
>I strongly object against this. This implies that the concept of obscenity
>is generally shared, which it isn't. If you get your obscenity warning label,
>I want my "religious content" warning label. And someone else may want a
>warning label that Wikipedia may be offensive to people having suffered from
>certain traumas. And maybe the creationists and anti-abortionists want one, too.
>
>Wikipedia is an *encyclopedia*.  That implies certain things. If you don't
>want your children to learn, don't allow them to read -- that is your right as
>a parent. But not everyone wants children to be kept ignorant of sexual
>matters (or the ideas that lead to such indoctrination to be perpetuated
>uncritically).
>
I can agree that if we give the parents the opportunity to block 
sexually explicit material, they should also have the opportunity to 
block religiously material, as well as other categories.  Some may even 
want to block mathematically explicit material. In regards to my son I 
would keep the filters off, but I know from my involvement in 
educational politics that my view on this represents a minority of 
parents.  To a large measure the issue is about the rights of parents to 
decide what their own children will be able to see.  Parents already 
feel powerless about the decisions they make for children in the face of 
the homogenizing tendencies of educational systems.  Why should we 
further erode that right by arrogating to ourselves the decision of what 
should be accessible for their children?

What I am advocating is a scheme to identify articles that "could" fall 
into a blockable category.  Of course there will be categorization 
errors over just how bad some paricular article really is, but if we 
recognize varying degrees of unacceptability the articles will 
eventually get to the right place..

Eclecticology