don't be sad, Liam :-) - it's not all doom 'n gloom! I think Wikipedia has great utility within the education system - and I think we can get out there and wave the flag for it. Parents and teaches will be well aware of the availability of explicit imagery of all types all over the internet, and how they manage children's access to it is of course their concern, and responsibility.
Right now, my feeling is that there's just a bit of a missing layer of controls / policies / practice in how Wikimedia handles some material - which means on balance I couldn't in good faith recommend to a School Librarian that they allow full access to the projects from their computers... or to put it another way - if we visit a school advocating high levels of active engagement in the project, we should understand that the Principle might be upset, or get complaints from upset parents that things like; http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Erotic come under our 'banner' - not safe for work, nothing hugely offensive, but available through Wikimedia pages, and likely to be the sort of thing schools would like to avoid? Ultimately, the decision rests with the communities of the projects (and the legal counsel at the WMF of course) as to how content is managed, and with the schools and individual institutions as to how they manage / recommend access etc. all I'm really saying is we need to be open, and a bit understanding that Wikimedia contains reasonably large quantities of pictures generally considered unsuitable for minors. cheers, Peter PM. 2008/12/9 Liam Wyatt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > >> My answer right now to the question 'should wikipedia be available in >> schools' is 'no' - I'd be interested to hear yours. >> Peter >> PM. >> >> > I find this profoundly saddening. Today is filled with bad news from all > directions - all the worse for those directions being from places where you > didn't think bad news would come from. If someone such as yourself, who is > intimately aware of the promise and possibilities of Wiki*edia (as well as > its pitfalls), does not believe that it - an educational project - should be > used in our educational facilities then why do we even bother? > > - Liam > > -- > Email - [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Phone - +61 (0)434 056 914 > Skype - Wittylama > Wikipedia - [[User:Witty lama]] > _______________________________________________ > Wikimediaau-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l > >
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