[WikiEN-l] Re: Suggestions for a work-safe encyclopedia

Thu Apr 14 16:29:03 UTC 2005

Stan Shebs wrote:

> It's not so much whether people know how to operate the web 
> browser, it's that it makes referring to WP an unduly risky 
> activity. For instance, suppose I'm in the office of a 
> less-clueful boss, and am trying to get the boss to 
> understand a detail, and I know WP has a good explanation; 
> it's not going to help my case if I have to ask the boss to 
> turn off image display before I have him/her bring up a WP page.
> 
> This is another variant on the child-safe debate, and maybe
> the filtering needs to be done by a downstream organization 
> (who could make a nice bit of money from a subscription 
> service I bet), but if WP gets a reputation as risky to look 
> at, and companies feel compelled to forbid its use at work, 
> that's going to cut us off from a large population of 
> professionals that we would really like to have 
> participating, and during the day, not just nights and weekends.

Rampant inclusionism, in the name of "categories are one step down the
slippery slope of pandering to the lowest common denominator", is
pushing Wikipedia to a fork.

One, for creating articles.

Two, for "work-safe" *viewing* of the articles.

Once again, it's the clamor of the "in your face, get used to it"
minority trying to hijack the project. They're insisting that viewers
NOT BE ALLOWED to choose what they get: it's all or nothing. Filtering,
categorization, version-marking, "sifter" - it's all the same to them:
restriction on their "right" to be as offensive as they dare.

Note that no one is saying to include child porn. Somehow the "editorial
decision" to leave out the worst type of exploitative images never gets
slapped down as censorship. But, oh, try to hide a pecker or a teat, and
all hell breaks loose.

Well, I for one am not going to debate this forever. My friend's
proposal was approved, and I'm going to spend the next 2.5 years or so
helping him package Wikipedia articles for a print/DVD edition. And as
editor in chief, he won't be handicapped by endless debates on how sexy
to make the article base. Because his sponsor's boss believes that women
shouldn't even expose their belly buttons! (Don't worry, the anatomy
articles will have a very medical-looking image of a human navel tucked
away somewhere :-)

"Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish!"

Uncle Ed