[WikiEN-l] Re: Avoiding offence without censorship

Mon Feb 14 00:10:47 UTC 2005

prelude: Irony might occur.

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 23:20:09 +0000, Christiaan Briggs wrote:

> Here're some technical ideas for dealing with potentially offensive 
> content:
> 
> - Tag "potentially offensive" content for downstream censorship.
> 
> - When someone creates an account on Wikipedia they can check a "hide 
> potentially offensive content from immediate view" option, which can be 
> overridden when reading an article.

I would do it the other way. Pages with aforementioned tag lead
to a warning-message that you have to confirm. To get it away
permanently you can register yourself and active
[ ] show me the filthy things without warning
Otherwise it might look like that you have to register to
Wikipedia to be "secure".

> - As Skyring suggested, a one-time cookie-based splash screen when 
> navigating to a page with "potentially offensive" content, for those 
> not logged in.

People might argue that you can be shocked by a second page
after being prepared for the first, so the warning should be
on every page tagged.

> - Print versions of Wikipedia could simply include or not include 
> "potentially offensive" content. If both were printed one would be for 
> the squeamish and one for everyone else.

You mean like the way all other encyclopaedias are published?

Regards, Lothar
-- 
Lothar Kimmeringer                E-Mail: spamfang at kimmeringer.de
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