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

Fri Apr 7 14:43:49 UTC 2006

Birgitte Arco wrote:

>
>Perhaps another way to approach this is with
>requirements on verifiablity.  If Wikibooks poclicy
>would limit itself to information that is verifiable
>by reputable sources (of course that would need to be
>defined)and not just randomly found on the internet
>that would cut out alot of this material.  I also
>think that policy would have very little collteral
>damage on the information you do want, although I am
>not familar enough with the scope of Wikibooks to be
>sure of that.  
>
>Birgitte SB
>
>  
>
While this does raise the bar somewhat at making content on projects 
overall to be better (and verifiability ought to be a common standard on 
all Wikimedia projects), it still doesn't get away from the issue that 
some kinds of content should not be on Wikibooks because of the nature 
of the content.  A book called "How to fly airplanes into buildings" can 
be verified with factual information, including engineering reports and 
news articles from the effects of damage to both the Empire State 
Building and the World Trade Center in New York City.  That doesn't mean 
that such a book should be on Wikibooks.

As I hinted to earlier, my main issue is if content on Wikibooks would 
damage the greater mission of the project, which is to provide 
educational textbooks for schools.  I'm not prepared to make a blanket 
statement that only textbooks which can be used in a classroom are the 
only thing allowed on Wikibooks, however, even if that seems like the 
only realistic solution.  There are some editor/users on Wikibooks that 
have this opinion and school of thought, and are very strict in the 
interpretation.  The big problem with a policy of this nature is that it 
is very subjective and difficult to pin down, as well as something that 
shifts over time due to changes in the user community.

A hard textbooks-only view would also remove things like biographies, 
how-to books, video game guides, and annotated texts, and potentially 
other content as well that has tradtionally been on Wikibooks for some 
time.  And yes, there is movement to remove some of these things because 
they are not textbooks in a strict sense.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning