[WikiEN-l] Re: Nude Kate Winslet Picture

Mon Apr 18 07:02:03 UTC 2005

Karl Krueger wrote:

>What's wrong with censorware tagging?  Where to start?  Here's the
>biggie:  tagging is incompatible with Wikipedia's existing commitments.
>
>No system of tags is compatible with Wikipedia's commitment to
>neutrality.  The dimensions, biases, and extremes of any system of tags
>are created from a particular non-neutral point of view.  Wikipedia is
>categorically forbidden from taking on such a point of view as its own.

Well, actually, there is a system that *would* work while maintaining 
Wikipedia's commitment to neutrality: an *external* tagging system.

Imagine a separate website with a domain name of, say, "ob.noxio.us." 
Like del.icio.us, it would be a tagging system that lets anyone post 
their own bookmarks, with keywords. The difference would be that 
whereas del.icio.us tags web pages that have content they LIKE, 
ob.noxio.us would tag pages with content they DISLIKE. This would 
create a sort of censorware folksonomy. It would then be a fairly 
simple matter to design a system that filters content on pages (not 
just on Wikipedia but on the entire web), according to whatever 
categories they choose: nipples, images of excrement, the face of 
Bill O'Reilly, whatever.

If people are really concerned about the content on Wikipedia, I 
think they should devote their energies to developing an external 
solution along these lines. After all, the problem they're describing 
isn't just a problem with Wikipedia. If you're worried about your 
boss getting mad when your web browser displays nudity, Wiipedia 
isn't the only (or even the most likely) place where this is likely 
to happen. A web-wide solution would be more appropriate to the scope 
of this problem, and it would allow Wikipedia to continue doing what 
it does best without worrying about yet another layer of 
administration and contention.

--Sheldon Rampton