On 3/28/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
WP is quoted by top-quality media sources. That's
being taken seriously.
That's called living dangerously :)
Well, you are leaping to the conclusion that a
subtraction (to appease some
group offended) is an improvement.
Yes, I am leaping to the conclusion that making Wikipedia an
attractive resource for teachers for use with kids is an improvement.
What would you call it?
More assumptions. I think parents are more likely to
be 'shocked' than
kids; especially those naive about what one can google for.
Yep. And what do parents do when they're shocked by something their
kid saw on Wikipedia? Anything pleasant, useful, or beneficial to the
Wikipedia project?
Not that high, clicking Random Page. High enough, if
you look in the
sexological categories.
Even higher if you type "sex" into the search box, which most kids
probably at some time or another. I agree with your point about the
random page though (Britannica was way off the mark with "large
proportion").
'Only risk'; I think you forget how many sites
WP links to. I think you
forget that interwiki links may (within Wikipedia) take one to pages not
subject to any scrutiny by us, the English Wikipedia.
That's a lower risk, to me. I think it's significantly less likely
that a person would stumble onto a pornographic site by clicking
interwiki links. Hell, the chances of your "average" English speaker
clicking on an interwiki link at all are fairly remote, let alone one
that took them from a "safe" page to an "unsafe" one.
You're
right. No warranties. But warnings, and the option to "opt out"
with suitable software. Just like with every other site of which "a
fairly large portion is pornographic". :)
A fairly small proportion of WP is 'explicit', and little is pornographic.
I know that, and you know that. "They" don't though.
Steve