User:Martinultima/Content controlling the wiki

Please note that this page is not an official Wikipedia policy and the Wikimedia Foundation is not involved in the ongoing debate which this article is about.

There is an ongoing argument over content control on Wikipedia. It seems to have started with a template I created a while ago for something or other, located here, and has been the subject of great debate for quite a while. Personally I really can't stand writing long and boring stuff like this but it had to be done and here it is.

The Problem
Obviously when I first coded I was going for something fast and easy to remember, not exactly the most NPOV thing. It seems to have further worsened by the way the template was taken from a simple, one-line informational thing to a huge ugly red box which just draws way too much attention to the alert and makes it look like outright censorship, something which I am strongly opposed to.

The Solution
I've given this quite a bit of consideration. The original idea was really not to have a big ugly "you can't do this" warning, but rather just a brief informational thing like this:


 * Strong sexual content may follow.

Or this:


 * Strong violent content may follow.

The general idea would be that it would be similar to the rating system employed by television broadcasters, movie companies, or video games, with a few differences:


 * 1) The content would not be rated for specific audiences, but rather based on specific content, thus allowing the reader to decide for him-/herself whether or not it is a good idea to view it.
 * 2) No enforcement – if the reader takes offense, it's his-/her own fault.

In other words, it would not be outright censorship, where access is unconditionally blocked or otherwise made undesirable, but rather a simple way of allowing the reader to choose whether or not to view the content.

Design of the message
As shown above, my idea would be to have a simple message in small, italic text which would provide the information, but not get in the way or intrude on the reader's freedom to read what he/she desires. It would not be indented but rather at the same level as the regular body text (the indentation is shown here only to differentiate from regular text because we need it to stand out for the examples given). The current template is absolutely unforgivable – a giant red box is not going to get us anywhere.

To warn or not to warn?
Some topics seem to be more controversial than others. Personally I feel that at least strongly violent, profane, or sexual content should be labeled in a clear but non-interfering way, and that some other categories such as criminal content may need to be marked as well.

Definitely on the list of things not to get involved in, however:
 * Religious debates – we don't want the Atlanta textbook stickers all over again.
 * Political issues – they stand out enough as is, and too much controversy.
 * Controversial or ongoing events – censorship, and there's already better ways of handling that on the wiki.

Ideally we could set up a method to allow everyone to vote on what should and should not be labeled, and what the best way of doing so would be so that it would not detract from the page, but would still be visible for those who needed it. Again, this is not an attempt at censorship, just a way of providing a gentle reminder.

Alternatively, rather than have a template system simply add a hidden label such as an HTML comment or a special category to certain articles, and then add functionality to the MediaWiki software allowing individual users to toggle which types of messages should and should not be displayed.

Orwell's worst nightmare
This is a highly controversial topic and I would like to stress this again: I don't want censorship and I don't want the Great Firewall of China thing going on.  Big Brother is not going to watch, and we want to make sure of that.

What we do not want to see is a message like this:

You cannot access this page.

This page contains information which we have deemed inappropriate for minors and therefore is not available for access.

I've seen enough of that at school and know for a fact that it's just about the stupidest thing you can ever do.

Also, I don't want to see something like:

CONTENT WARNING: Information on this page may not be appropriate for all audiences.

Again, it's too much like censorship, and that's not what we're going for. Like I said, all I want is a small warning to remind me if I've accidentally clicked something I don't want to see, or to let me know that there's content which may not be appropriate for all ages.

One more request
I would appreciate it if something could be done about certain images such as all the positions for sexual intercourse, the screenshots of Hot Coffee, how to apply a condom, etc. Rather than having them shown where anyone with a modem and a Web browser can see, maybe have a link like they do for shock sites, such as:


 * [Screenshot of "Hot Coffee" mod] (warning, pornographic images)

Because I really don't want to see that stuff just floating around.

multima 04:01, 24 October 2005 (UTC)