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Wikipedia talk:Content disclaimer/Archive 1

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I haven't followed a discussion supposedely happening in mailing-list, but I just want to say I agree with this idea. We already have a spoiler warning. Why not content advisory? -- Taku

There was a long discussion about this issue over at the Shock site article. See Talk:Shock site/Archive. Kingturtle 02:55 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

  • This is not the same issue. This is suggested for probably just the front page. Just a general advisory so parents, who pay attention to their kids, can tell easyily if they want to let their kids use it. MB 03:21 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)
    • The issue is similar. I had placed an advisory atop shock site and a debate ensued. Kingturtle 03:30 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The warning needs a link to a page giving more details, which would briefly discuss (with pointers to more information):

  • The Wikipedia is an open-content encyclopedia.
  • Amongst the thousands of articles in the Wikipedia, there are articles on many politically and socially controversial topics, discussing them frankly. Some examples include pornography, drugs, abortion, creationism, Holocaust revisionism. Like all Wikipedia articles, we discuss these from the perspective attempting to inform the reader about them. The articles cover material and opinions on these issues that some readers may find unsuitable for their children.
  • We have a strict neutral point of view policy. The Wikpedia does not take moral stances on issues, merely reports facts, including facts about opinions on issues.
  • The Wikipedia may occasionally use language that parents may consider unsuitable for children, either in the context of quoting others or in discussing that language. For instance, the article on the B-52 Stratofortress mentions the explicit derivation of the acronym "BUFF", and the Wikipedia has an article on the word "nigger" that discusses its origins and the offense most people now take at its use.
  • The wikipedia may contain some images of body parts or violence for encyclopedic purposes. Images will not be placed in the Wikipedia for any other purpose.
  • The Wikipedia is a work in progress, and contains many omissions and errors. Children may need guidance in the use of the Wikipedia as a source of information. --Robert Merkel 04:37 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I cannot find any justified reason, that Wikipedia will self-censor or self-rate for some bizzare "content advisory ranking" (whatever cultural or religious assumpsions underly this scheme). Good articles are informative, usually written with the purpose of educating; It's like saying that school sexology programs may need to be censored by parents because they openly discuss issues related to human sexual behavior. There are plenty of computer programs designed specifically for this task, like NetNanny and many others, these will block the user from reading the article about anal sex and similar articles that contain such "dangerous" words.

As for other articles on controversial subjects such as abortion, I cannot see what's the problem with these! Make a google search, I guarantee that what a child will find on other sites will be 10x more uninformative, 10x more biased and 10x more "uneducational". This paranoia must stop! If you think an article needs more work to be suitable for a child (Ignoring the fact that the plain language used on wikipedia may be very hard or impossible to comprehend by a young person), work, edit, improve it, instead of ranting and creating such arbitrary and bizzar "content advisory schemes" like this.

The only cases I see a warning is needed, is when linking to an external site that contains material which is seen as offensive by some pepole, or a photograph that portrays the human body in a way that can be considered offensive. But warnings in these cases already exist! see, for example clitoris, or goatse.cx.

-- Rotem Dan 08:17 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I agree. Anyone who does not want their child to get encyclopedic, neutral information on certain subjects, would probably not let their child get on any part of the internet unguarded anyway. Andre Engels 08:24 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Very true. Wikipedia certainly handles such content far more responsibly than it is handled on most of the rest of the internet. [...] It's good to at least inform people that Wikipedia does *not* self-censor, and that questionable topics are discussed frankly. -- Wapcaplet 12:37 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I've stuck a stub beginning of a content advisory up. It's mostly based on Robert Merkel's bullet points above, but could use some tidying up. [...] -- Wapcaplet 15:05 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)


Regarding the bullet points on the content advisory: I am thinking that the points we need to make particularly clearly are:

  • potentially offensive language. We might use profanity or other "offensive" language, in context
  • potentially offensive imagery. Some images may be obscene or too graphical
  • potentially offensive subject matter. Some articles might discuss subject matter that some may object to (like Holocaust revisionism, Creationism, etc.)
  • Due to our NPOV policy, we do not decide for you which articles might be offensive in one of these ways.

Any others I missed? -- Wapcaplet 15:55 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

If it is actually going to put in, I think the article title is problematic: "advisory" means a "recommendation regarding a decision or course of conduct" (M-W dictionary), which means the writer of the article has taken a stand and recommends something based on it (even though they are listed generally as possible causes of offense) thus it's a POV title.

A more neutral name would be "Wikipedia:Content Disclaimer" with a more formal, NPOV and logically valid statements like:

  • Wikipedia contains material and discusses opinions that are controversial in many places and societies, such as abortion, Holocaust revisionism or drugs.
  • Wikipedia openly and informatively describes subjects related to human sexual behavior. Some of them are considered offensive, or conflict with religious beliefs.
  • In the context of articles, Wikipedia contains, or directs to, photography that portrayals the human body in a way that may be considered offensive by some.

....

Of course, this is just an example, I wrote it fast so rewording is needed.. (and expansion, of course)

Notice I didn't use the word potentially, profanity, or obscene, because that would have been taking a stand on the subject.

-- Rotem Dan 16:37 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I agree with that title. Wikipedia:Content Disclaimer better encapsulates our intentions with this. I've been attempting to NPOV-ize the language in the disclaimer, too (by simply stating "we have articles on subjects such as..."). Obviously it still needs some work. -- Wapcaplet 16:49 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The phrase "that are likely to content all audiences" in the first sentence is cumbersome to read. Could someone rephase it? MB 20:42 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The article says:

"Please note that Wikipedia has a strict neutral point of view policy, and does not take moral stances on any issue. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia simply reports the facts, including facts about opinions. Consequently, the editors of Wikipedia do not take responsibility for deciding or indicating which articles might be considered inappropriate. In short, we do not decide for you which articles might be considered offensive, as such decisions would violate our policy of neutral point of view. "

Which means that users (that make the editorship of wikipedia) are not encourged to rank individual articles in terms of being morally appropriate or in inapropriate.

Now the article contradicts itself, and suggests that a note can (or even should) be put if the person thinks an article is morally objectionable:

The following content disclaimer can be inserted into articles (mostly for the main page).

"Attention: Children may require parental supervision while using Wikipedia. See our content disclaimer for more information.

Code:

Attention: [[Child]]ren may require [[parental supervision]] while using [[Wikipedia:About|Wikipedia]]. See our [[Wikipedia:Content disclaimer|content disclaimer]] for more information.

"

For the article to sound anywhere near conclusive, either the first paragraph I mentioned goes, or the second one. (or they are heavily edited)-- Rotem Dan 21:22 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Young people may need guidance in the use of the Wikipedia as a source of information.

This comes out as horribly biased. Ok, so young people may need some guidance in using wikipedia. So may some old people. You'd think it would be fine to just say that wikipedia contains content which may be offensive to some, and not try explaining to people exactly what they should do about that. As stated above, anyone who believes their children need parental supervision will already be providing it, and endorsing it is not consistent with the values of wikipedia.

I put this part in because younger children have a tendancy to take anything they read "in the encyclopedia" (or anywhere else) as the whole story. Maybe it's unnecessary, I'm not sure. --Robert Merkel 23:29 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

That's not a tendency specific to children or general among youth. I don't see any need to single them out, if all you are trying to say is that gullible people should be cautious.

I have been hacking chunks out of the disclaimer. It seemed to be getting too ponderous and indefinite. I'm thinking maybe a plain, straightforward statement would be better, so I'm removing some of the links to "example" articles and generally just making it more like "This is how it is. Deal with it." -- Wapcaplet 01:20 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I will note again that this article is blatantly contradictive: first it says: "Please note that Wikipedia has a strict neutral point of view policy, and does not take moral stances on any issue." which conclusively means that users (who make the editorship of wikipedia) are not encouraged to rate articles according to some moral value system. And then it suggest the exact, blatant opposite: "The following content disclaimer can be inserted into articles" which suggested that users are encouraged to rate articles according to some moral value system. What's so complicated in understanding this contradiction? As far as I'm concerned, this article is meaningless right now. You cannot say something and then claim the exact opposite. Aside from the hypocritical connotation, it also looks very silly. -- Rotem Dan 09:54 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The consensus I am seeing is that the code for the disclaimer at the bottom is unwanted and counter to our purpose. I strongly agree, so I've removed the whole bit. Any objections?

Also, in response to the comment that we do not need a disclaimer: there is something to be said for that. Others have pointed out that no other encyclopedia or dictionary has a content disclaimer on it. (though, some of the dictionaries, at least, that I have seen *do* self-censor to some degree.) I don't see what it can hurt to at least have the disclaimer. We should make it clear to the reader that we do not self-censor, as some other informational texts may do. A simple link from the main page (or, come to that, even from the FAQ or some other side-page about Wikipedia) doesn't waste much space. -- Wapcaplet 11:18 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Where we say "Wikipedia makes no efforts to censor or limit access to such material." should we add "except as required by the laws of the State of California": just to make clear that not all content is permissible? The Anome 11:32 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't understand... IANAL, so maybe I phrased that poorly. What content is not permissible? -- Wapcaplet 11:35 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Pornography. Paedophilic content. Copyrighted content. Content that incites people to break certain laws. Trade secrets. Government secrets. Defamatory content. Content posted in breach of non-disclosure agreements, or other contractual agreements. Content that would be useful to terrorists. I'm not an expert on Californian law, so details may vary... Martin 11:42 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Ah... well, a lot of those (depending on your definition) are permissible here, though. Some of the articles on sexual behavior could be classified as pornographic or pedophilic. Explosive material might be useful to terrorists. And it's a pretty subjective question whether something incites people to break laws. But the other stuff I can understand would be prohibited. (by the way, how do we enforce that? How do we know that all the material posted on Microsoft, say, is free of trade secrets or breach of NDAs?) -- Wapcaplet 11:49 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I think the principle used in practice is that if Microsoft asked for something to be removed then Wikipedia would remove it. It might be put back later if there was a lot of evidence that it was allowd after all. -- Chris Q 11:59 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Also, isn't Wikipedia available in many places where a lot of our content *would* be considered illegal? -- Wapcaplet
Almost certainly, but since Wikipedia is based in California this is only an issue for the people reading it and in some countries possibly their ISPs -- Chris Q 11:59 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Alright, that makes sense. Boy, I am definitely not a lawyer. Perhaps someone with a better notion of California law should take a look at the disclaimer. -- Wapcaplet 12:10 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I think we shouldn't worry about censoring our content at all. If need be, we can move the hardware to some contry (or other place) where it would be legal. I know of a old oil rig, off the coast of Great Britain, that is declared it's own country, for the specific purpose of hosting objectionable websites. My point is, we shouldn't worry about censoring our content. MB 14:42 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
You mean sealand?
Yeah, sorry, it's a fortress. MB 15:59 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

godsdmmit, people! This is not about offensiveness -- or at least, not as far as Viking's vandalism and the commentary that followed were concerned. No, things should not be censored, except by being edited for NPOV. That's policy. But what I CANNOT understand is the idea that people here are so fucking relativistic that they want to claim that telling people there might be stuff on the site that is inappropriate for younger (or even older) children is in any way the same as saying there are offensive articles.

Whether people find things offensive should not be the issue. Whether we as wikipedians and as members of a global community have a responsibility towards that community *is*.

Yes, kids will look up "naughty" words in an encyclopedia. The difference here is that,unlike with print sources that give boring anatomical info, a search for vagina (for example) will take you to articles on "felching," etc. IMO, and I am very certain that any number of child psychological studies will back this, that type of explicit information on sexual practice is not appropriate for pre-teens and most adolescents.

There is also the chance that, since we are an encyclopedia, parents won't see the need to filter or monitor as carefully as they should.

I am not now, nor have I ever suggested that we tell people what they should or shouldn't see.

I just don't see the problem in letting people know that there is information here not generally found in print sources, and that parents may want to monitor use of the site for age-appropriateness. It's just the socially responsible thing to do. OH -- and I'd be interested to know how many of the people who object have kids or teach them. JHK

Letting people know the content here is uncensored and may be offensive to or inappropriate for some seems responsible and neutral enough. Suggesting monitoring site use is slightly different and somewhat less neutral, while not providing any additional value, since depending on your point of view it's either an obvious or an objectionable solution. I don't have kids, and I don't pretend I know which is the case, but there are people who think both ways, so I hope you'll consider this a reasonable distinction.

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