[WikiEN-l] Suggestions for a work-safe encyclopedia

Sat Apr 16 11:54:52 UTC 2005

On 4/15/05, Andrew Cranwell <andrew.cranwell at student.adelaide.edu.au> wrote:

> the information" falls into the same category - you can't object to
> something if you don't know what it is. It's like goatse - highly
> offensive, but unless you know what it is, you can't avoid it.

This is why anything which might reasonably be considered offensive to
a significant portion of our readership should be prefaced by a modest
warning.  Note that traditional paper encyclopedias are careful not to
have *any* images or text that could be considered deeply offensive;
this is the definition of dealing "tastefully" with a difficult
subject.

We can offer more choices than that; we can offer less tasteful and
more explicit descriptions of things; but we should not force them on
unsuspecting readers.

SJ