At 12:52 AM 6/14/2003, you wrote:
Bullshit. I can accept that American schools may not
indoctrinate
a religion to their pupils. But that they may not even mention
religion is stupid. Saying "There are people who believe in divine
beings. Jews, Christians and Moslems believe in only one God while
Hindus believe in many Gods" is just facts. Schools shouldn't have
a problem with the neutral presentation of facts.
Well, as I recall, they don't. I went to public school in California, and
there was no ban on the mention of religion.
If an article isn't neutral, it has to be
refactored. But not
censored. What about the "free speech" principle so many of you
have defended? In an American's eye it is OK to say "No Jews
have been gased during WWII" but you may not say "There are
people believing in a divine being" ??
Well, you certainly can't say, in schools, that no Jews were gassed in
WWII. And since you can say /either/ in a general setting, and either would
be protected by freedom of speech, I'm not certain that your point here is
on target.
I have been working in some school projects as a
technical tutor,
and I learned that pupils should not be confronted with the Internet
without the supervision of a teacher. No matter how good your
content filter might be, pupils find a way to content not supposed
for youngsters.
Don't censor wikipedia. It's the responsibility of the teacher to
do so.
Regards,
JeLuF
I agree with you here. First of all, filtering and censoring just plain
doesn't work. People will always be able to get around them, usually
without much trouble. Second of all, I agree that it is the responsibility
of those concerned with what children might see to undertake the filtering
and censoring. As an encyclopedia for a wide audience (i.e., not just
children) we must allow parent/teachers/clergy to undertake whatever acts
that they see fit to "protect" their charges from the content on Wikipedia.
I also think that any attempt to block the Wikipedia (on the part of local
schools, for example) would only serve to help the project as the negative
publicity that would likely be generated would probably force the school to
unblock Wikipedia and garner us a good deal of free press in the process.
-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri(a)digitalgrapefruit.com
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
-Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321