[Foundation-l] Adult and Illegal content on Wikimedia projects

Thu Apr 6 15:06:47 UTC 2006

--- Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net>
wrote:

> Gavin Chait wrote:
> 
> >I think you will continue to have a problem with
> contentious content if the
> >only means of controlling it is the NPOV. 
> Encouragement to genocide can be
> >presented very dispassionately.
> >
> >It may be against the spirit of Wikimedia but the
> only way to control this
> >is to have some declared rules about where you
> stand.  Perhaps you should
> >consider the idea of a general constitution or bill
> of rights.  An
> >instruction book on "How to launch a hostile
> leveraged buyout" could be
> >offensive to people with ambivalent attitudes to
> capitalism.  An instruction
> >book on "How to send anthrax by mail" will offend
> others.  Clearly, though,
> >if you wish to be entirely neutral you have to host
> all this information.
> >As soon as you start to judge and select what
> content is allowed and what
> >isn't, you are choosing sides.
> >
> >If you choose sides, make it quite clear where the
> line is and don't let
> >anyone cross.
> >
> >And you have to decide.
> >
> >
> >
> >--
> >Gavin Chait
> >  
> >
> I was trying to point out that even putting a
> disclaimer at the top of a 
> page suggesting that "the activity is illegal and it
> is only a 
> description of the activity for academic research"
> is not sufficient for 
> content like this to remain on a Wikimedia project.
> 
> And to point out the two examples you gave, "How to
> launch a hostile 
> leveraged buyout", while perhaps distasteful to some
> individuals would 
> not necessarily have to explain how to avoid getting
> caught by security 
> regulators, although suggesting that certain kinds
> of activity while 
> performing a leveraged buyout might be considered
> illegal and you should 
> avoid doing that might be reasonable to include in a
> book like this.
> 
> On the other hand, I don't know any legal means to
> send Anthrax by mail 
> or by any common courrier system except for pure
> reserach by clinical 
> laboratories.  A discussion on how to manufacture
> anthrax by extracting 
> a new strain of it from dirt in your backyard is a
> discussion that I 
> would personally not like to see on a Wikimedia
> project.  Or at least it 
> should be restricted in some way.  This isn't really
> about having a 
> neutral point of view, because all you are doing is
> describing how the 
> process works, and it is not an advocacy about what
> to do the Anthrax 
> once you have a couple of plastic milk jugs full of
> the biological agent 
> in concentrated form.
> 
> We simply can't have content that has to go through
> the Jimbo test every 
> time something questionable comes up.  This is where
> Jimbo looks at it 
> and says it shouldn't be there, so it fails the
> Jimbo test.  He is a 
> nice guy and all, but Jimbo doesn't have the time to
> review everything 
> like this, nor am I expecting him to do it either.
> 
> And as I pointed out on the Staff Lounge, a book
> about teaching high 
> school physics or an organic chemistry textbook is
> really what Wikibook 
> is primarily about.  If you havn't been to Wikibooks
> for some time, come 
> in and take a look at what is being done.  Some
> incredible content is 
> being developed, and books about controvercial
> topics really are just 
> the fringe of Wikibooks as well.  The huge worry
> here is if having books 
> like "How Anthrax is made" might detract from more
> serious textbook 
> efforts and drive potential contributors away.  Of
> if we are trying to 
> get the Wikijunior Solar System book put into an
> elementary school, they 
> will reject it because of the fact that Wikibooks
> also permits these 
> fringe books as well.
> 
> As an administrator with the ability to delete this
> content, I feel 
> compelled to not just follow my gut instinct on
> removing this content 
> but to also get a concensus from the community
> before it is removed. 
>  And the community concensus is to keep the content,
> or at least there 
> is no huge cry to remove it and often some very
> vocal contributors who 
> insist that the content should remain.  So I go away
> and leave the 
> content alone even if perhaps it doesn't feel right
> to keep it.
> 
> -- 
> Robert Scott Horning
> 
> 
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> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> 

The way I see it Wikibooks has formed a community
consensus about the format of the content (i.e.
Wikibooks presents information in a instructional
format).  However I do not think the community has has
ever decided on the type of content itself.  Right now
the content can be described as an indiscriminate
collection of information (within the aforementioned
format).  My suggestion would be to try and come to a
consensus about the inclusion guidelines.  It seems to
me, that Wikibooks has many exclusion guidelines on
content and only inclusion guidelines on format.  If
the community could reach consensus on the content to
include, then you could require each module to have
some sort of "mission statement" (i.e. Cookbook
provides instruction on the preparation of food for
human consumption).  Then you can weed out the mission
statements that fall outside the scope of the agreed
upon inclution guidelines, and enforce that the
material adhere to the mission statements that are
acceptable.  

I realize this is much easier said then done.  The
English Wikisource is currently working through some
of the same issues with what we want to include, and
it is diffuclt to codify these things.  However I
think most people in the community will agree they do
not want Wikibooks to be an indiscriminate collection
of information.  If they do want to be that, tell them
Wikisource has some source code we will be sending
their way ;)

Birgitte SB

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