Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedians for encyclopedic merit/offensive material rating system

It appears very difficult to draw the line between academic study of pornography without appearing to advocate propaganda for the industry. The articles should remain as neutral as possible, especially on a medium where the average individual or company can add propaganda at will to the articles, especially via related links sections.

Since the growth of Wikipedia popularity recently, we see more and more complaints by various users who find that the content of many articles promote agendas rather than provide academic information only, or that the articles are of an offensive nature, which must be avoided.

If wikipedia has to be considered a serious encyclopedia, its academic position should remain clear and obvious. This is not an easy task.

The idea about adding pornographic pictures, for instance, might or might not be a good idea at current time; but it would definitely be acceptable if there was a proper rating system with defaults set at the highest censor level.

Since this is a world wide project, which is accessible from anywhere on the planet, by people of varying backgrounds and countries, it is imperative that a proper system be worked on. Saying that rating all type of content which is known to be controversial or morally offending to some is an incentive to restrict liberty is false, considering that any type of material could be documented properly and consequently rated. It becomes up to the user to decide which content is appropriate for viewing. Restricting the possible censor categories to an already in use system for the video industry in a particular country would seem inappropriate, unless the audience was expected to only consist of people of that same region, and that only that particular type of content was available. One cannot advertize and preach a certain view of the world expressed in a particular country to the world, and this is even true among several generations of the same people of the same background. Thus, a censor system would need to properly be implemented and to allow to block many type of offending content.

The following is only a suggestion (Request For Comments), of things to consider. An international commity could enhance and or rework the system, and define the appropriate censor levels for each category. This also implies that every article would need to be rated in every chosen area for which restrictions are possible. Although partially off-topic on this article, it is recommended for people who find such a proposal reasonable to possibly move this into its own article and link it as appropriate, contact mediawiki developers as required, etc.

Obviously, for each category the default would be to censor at the highest level. To avoid the need for users to register in order to modify their preferences, a permanent HTTP cookie could also be used and stored on the client-side to remember the user settings without clobbering the server's storage area.

This means that articles, as well as every linked object such as media content should independently be rated in each category.

The required software technology to achieve such a system is trivial to write, there is nothing challenging about it. Remains to see if wikipedia aims to reach, and keep, a world wide audience, and to eventually adapt itself to this growing public environment to cope against being banned by certain groups.

Another aspect would be weither to keep all settings at the topmost censor level depending on certain types of User-Agent, i.e. it might be desirable to allow search engines to index content which would normally be censored by other HTTP clients for which no settings were saved yet.

This section's text is posted as-is, and released in the public domain.


 * Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:20, 13 August 2005 (UTC)


 * "If wikipedia has to be considered a serious encyclopedia, its academic position should remain clear and obvious." is a fallacy. Wikipedia is already considered a serious encyclopedia. See for instance Wikipedia as an academic source and Press coverage. Note that the Brittanica doesn't add age-requirement-tags to its pages either. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 08:49, August 25, 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah, comeon. Britannica doesn't have pictures of men sucking their own organs either...they don't need a disclaimer. Wikipedia is not considered a citable reference base by the vast majority of universities...doesn't that bother you...it sure bugs the hell out of me.--MONGO 09:11, August 25, 2005 (UTC)


 * It's not rare that I get laughed at when citing a link to a Wikipedia article which I believe holds relevant information for a topic at hand. Its academic objectivity reputation does not seem to properly be established yet to me either.  Contributing from time to time to various computer technical articles myself, I'm convinced that this doesn't have to do with the lack of excellent information we can find on Wikipedia, however. --66.11.179.30 07:44, 26 August 2005 (UTC)


 * As long as the content is user-editable, WP will not reach universal reference status. It doesn't matter that the majority of articles are well-researched and accurate, there will always remain a fraction that won't. C'est la vie. --193.166.11.251 09:38, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

But Brittanica does have an editorial policy I quote- "Every site included in Britannica has been examined by a Britannica.com editor or contributor on the basis of certain editorial criteria.We do not include in Britannica explicitly pornographic or violent sites, although some of the sites do address controversial or mature themes and include adult language." http://corporate.britannica.com/mature.html

I reckon that there should be a criteria for what is completely unacceptable. Eg. pedophilic pictures, incitement to violence etc etc. For the rest of the more borderline entries, Informed Consent would be a good principle to follow. Iffy material should be provided as a link only, with a description of the material, and dialogue box asking for confirmation that the user wants to proceed. whaddya think? :D AlwaysNever 11:34, 16 February 2006 (UTC)