Wikiversity talk:Child protection policy

Pedophiles
Clearly this section, and this policy in general, is a reaction to some of what has gone on recently on Commons which has resulted in Ottava Rima being indefinitely blocked there. It is my understanding from a quick look at some of the discussions on Commons that there is some kind of WMF level policy on paedophiles. Can anyone assist in clarifying what if any WMF policy on this issue there is? Adambro 16:34, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment by Sue Gardner, WMF Executive Director. Tyciol was a registered member here, many other WMF projects, and other places. There is multiple bits of evidence revealed that he was an admitted pedophile and an advocate for pedophilia. There are others that have existed in the past but never has there been such disregard for the safety of children as demonstrated on Commons. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:51, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I updated the section with some language from to ensure consistency. Ottava Rima (talk)  16:57, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Gardner writes, "zero tolerance for pedophilia and pedophilia advocacy is just common sense". In other words, it's an assumption that needn't be backed up with facts or logic, because the argumentum ad lapidem will suffice. Leucosticte (discuss • contribs) 19:58, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Files
I don't like the requirement to get permission before using certain files. If anything the requirements should be the same as is suppose to be the case with the use of fair use files. That is files need to be directly relevant to the topic being discussed, and can only be used if its absence would greatly decrease the educational value and completeness of the work. -- dark lama  17:18, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Permission for identified "private" individuals is required by websites under US law. However, WMF doesn't necessarily follow it based on (what I've been told) counsel stating that we are exempt as a charity organization. However, schools and other institutions do follow the rules, which is why there are parental permission forms and the rest. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:23, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is the Commons policy on the matter, but it was done under the assumption that we have exemptions as a charity and does not consider the potential harm to minors, especially without parental permission (as a minor lacks the legal ability to sign over permission of their image). Remember, these websites are be allowed both non-commercially and commercially, and many parents may be upset that their child's image is used commercially without their permission. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:31, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I mean the requirement that files depicting nudity or sexually explicit files require permission from Wikiversity administrators. -- dark lama  18:41, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, we are an educational environment and it is illegal for those under 18 in the US to view such material. So, if we are going to have the pages, the Colloquium (not admin) discusses if the material is appropriate. "Art" is also to be discussed at the Colloquium, as the term describes both Michaelangelo and 19th-century cartoons of people having graphic sex. Obviously, one is allowed in schools and the other is not. Once verified by the community as acceptable, a warning will be put at the top to ensure that those who are not allowed to view the material in their community are warned. This is a measure to allow us to be unblocked by school protection programs such as Lightspeed. We are currently blacklisted by many of these programs for our connection to large amounts of porn found throughout the WMF site. This policy would be a way to justify asking for us to be removed from their blacklists. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * We are also for university level courses, where such depictions can happen. Just as the proposal is requiring children get permission from their parents before posting their own picture and the like, children should also be expected to gain their parent's or guardian's permission before registering and/or viewing any page on Wikiversity. -- dark lama  19:07, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I think part of what we should remember here is that the vast majority of contributors will understand and respect that controversial material should only be used in certain limited circumstances. We should trust contributors to be able to make these decisions themselves and not require formal approval, it just sounds overly bureaucratic. Of course where people disagree those decisions can be discussed but the problem in my view is not really good faith contributors who will on the whole do the right thing, it is vandals inserting inappropriate images. Requiring approval isn't going to do anything to address that problem. Adambro 19:04, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with Adambro too. -- dark lama  19:07, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The language is to verify to those like Lightspeed that we have measures to protect students from material that is deemed inappropriate. Right now, we are blocked in many schools because we are blacklisted as part of a WMF blacklisting based on the pornographic content at Wikipedia, Commons, etc. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:22, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * On the suggestion that Wikiversity is blocked in many schools, how do you know? I ask because we need to be able to judge how effective any measures we put into place are. Knowing whether schools accept these measures and unblock the site will allow us to assess their effectiveness and improve them as necessary. Adambro 21:33, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Word of mouth. I've had a project dating back 3 months now about monitoring the ramifications of WMF's pornography on our relationship with schools. The Lightspeed website discusses the rating. Here is their website. I was in brief email contact with them but, in my experience, they aren't too communicable. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:09, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Apparently they updated our status from R to G, which is nice. I guess that explains why they stopped responding to me (i.e. I guess they figured the matter was settled for now). They were the ones I bothered with. There are others that have blocked and there are programs like "Fortress" that allow schools to do their own blocking. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:12, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

If they are already satisfied this seems like overkill, not that I agree with deciding policy based on what filters thinks of Wikiversity. -- dark lama  23:09, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

This policy on files appears to be an attempt by Ottava to have a more restrictive policy than is present at Commons. Unless you prevent use of Commons as a repository for Wikiversity, the intent at least is moot. Adrignola 14:07, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes I agree that Ottava does appear to want Wikiversity to be more restrictive than Commons, which I disagree with doing and I see no benefit to doing either. Filtering software can be used for anything and can filter things that a person would not of filtered. While having only some of Wikiversity's contents filtered would be better than being completely filtered, I don't agree with going out of the way to get on or off some list. Wikiversity should not be influenced of swayed by the standards of other organizations.
 * I propose that the section on "Sexually explicit or enticing material" be removed entirely. -- dark lama  14:26, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Most of the users I have talked to on Skype or IRC support the prevention of any pornographic material being used here, whether uploaded or merely linked. It is also against US law to allow access to such material to those under 18. It is a necessary component to defining a proper use of an educational environment. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:29, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Off wiki discussions aren't exactly trusted by some people, and at a minimal decisions made off wiki are often considered to hold no weight on wiki. Oh and your still referring to pornography when I am not. Some people consider nude artwork to be pornography and some people do not. Illustrations depicting genitalia even though they may be educational may be considered pornographic by some people and not by others. What pornography is and isn't varies from person to person which is another reason not to have such vague requirements. -- dark lama  16:17, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Commons only allows CC-BY-2.0 or GFDL images. Many images released here are released as part of class room activities with many teachers having the images taken as part of the class. Many images are not licensed to the same standards of the above but in a manner that relies on fair use or other principles, and many images are deleted by user request. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:27, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Commons accepts a wider range of licences than that but I think the point is that, since I've not seen any suggestion that we stop accepting fair use, we will always potentially have files upload locally which may raise concerns. There is of course also an enormous number of images on Commons which could potentially be used. This means that whatever happens we are realistically going to need some policy on handling file uploads and the use of files. There are some child protection considerations here but I would note that the first sentence of the current "Files" section deals with images of any individuals, not just minors. We should probably consider moving that to a more general image usage policy. Adambro 14:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I see files uploaded by everyone as being able to affect minors, but I would have no problem if a more generic statement is made at a file policy and a more targeted statement is made here. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:25, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm simply being pragmatic. You can go ahead and have a policy for files that can be uploaded locally, such as fair use files.  But for files that are under a license that Commons accepts, the bureaucratic requirements in the Files section will be ignored.  People will upload the files to Commons and link to them here and bypass it all.  Only a small subset of files depicting individuals or their voices will be fair use and thus subject to Wikiversity policy.  As for files being deleted by user request, any of the 7,000 files here under a compatible license can be uploaded to Commons and the deletion will be significantly more difficult, especially if they are then used at another project.  Just something to keep in mind. Adrignola 15:56, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Links to here can be deleted, so we still have some control over what content is used and how it can be used. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:25, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Apparently so. A user added a picture legitimately hosted on Commons to the policy page and it was removed for not having permission from the person depicted.    Let's boil down what this policy would be: censorship on Wikiversity for the protection of minors. One would think the lessons of people censoring content objectionable to those at Wikipedia at Wikiversity would have been learned.  Also, looking into the background of the indef block of Ottava on Commons makes me believe there's a conflict of interest going on here. Adrignola 21:41, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I did indeed remove the image for two reasons. Firstly, I didn't seem a particularly appropriate image for a policy in my view but also, its removal did illustrate what enforcement of this policy would look like. That isn't to say I agree with it entirely but I do think it isn't really appropriate for us to be using illustrations like this, particularly not in these circumstances. An image of kid apparently being beaten up by another kid is likely to be upsetting to some of those directly involved and their parents. I think it would be insensitive for a website like Wikiversity to casually use such an image to decorate a policy and that is all it was, decoration, it served no real useful purpose. You are right I feel to draw attention to some of the background here in relation to Ottava, who was responsible for initially drafting this, and I did mention this in my first comment on this page. Rightly or wrongly, Ottava has been blocked indefinitely as a result of edits on Commons relating to this subject. My impression is that Ottava holds some strong views on this issue and so it is right that we carefully review what is being proposed to ensure it is proportionate. This policy should provide reassurance that we treat the issue of child protection seriously. It shouldn't scare people away by giving the impression that Wikiversity has a large problem. I think we're heading in the right direction now but there remains a long way to go I feel. Adambro 22:06, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

In a nutshell...
This policy is currently summarised by the statement: "Information that could potentially cause harm to minors is strictly forbidden to ensure that Wikiversity is an educational environment that is welcoming to schools of all types."

I'm not sure this is an accurate description of the current draft nor would it describe a policy that I could ever agree with. We shouldn't simply forbid "information that could potentially cause harm to minors". I think that is far too broad and could relate to a lot of otherwise legitimate topics. Yes, as an educational website, minors are clearly a key target audience but it isn't the only target audience. I think they key is ensuring that potentially harmful information, whatever that actually means, is limited and only presented here where appropriate.

Whilst I've expressed my dislike of the idea of adding disclaimers to particular pages, I do note that concerns have been raised about this site being blocked by educational institutions. It would be useful I think to discuss a bit about whether we can go some way to dealing with that problem by marking content. The main question I think is how do these content filtering systems differentiate between content? Could adding a particular template help with this? Adambro 19:56, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think legitimate topics can harm minors. Even if there is a fringe one or two people who do, they would not have the ability to claim that over everyone else. If you have a better summary of the child protection policy, please feel free to rework it. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:24, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * By the way, having a warning about the material at the top is a standard system that would allow us to be in compliance. It is simple and easy. The filters don't differentiate between content. They simply make it so you can't access a website completely. Ottava Rima (talk)
 * So there is a specific warning that we can place at the top of a page that will allow standard content filters to recognize the page as "forbidden content"? That is something we should have a guideline or policy on immediately, with policy about adding or removing such warnings. Some pages, indeed, might only be accessible through transclusion of a page that has the warning, the warning page could be full protected. This might not be hard to develop and enforce. --Abd 21:42, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * A "warning" namespace might cover this.... --Abd 21:44, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I wasn't referring to that, but I have heard word that there could be such a thing. It would be easier to ask for one through the WMF. I was referring only to putting a warning notice at the top of the page as a banner saying "Explicit content not recommended for audiences under ___ age". If others have other suggestions about ways we could deal with it, that would help. We just need -some- way to deal with it so we don't have to have a 100% ban of all material that could be deemed associated with "sexual" content. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:06, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I think Wikiversity would be better off with some notice than requiring administrator permission to host content, which IMO could just as easily discourage Universities from wanting to use Wikiversity and contribute to Wikiversity. -- dark lama  23:12, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * My discussion with professors has led me to believe that less porn is the only way to get more professors, not the other way around. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:23, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I never said porn or for the matter anything about there needing to be more or less of anything. What fields are the professors in that you've been talking to? I think talking with a wider verity of Professors in more fields might yield different impressions of what is needed. Different professors will have different needs. Art, Sexology, Biology, Criminology, Medical, etc. Don't get me wrong though, there is probably hundreds of images if not more than that depicting similar things and any given Professor might only need a few for their educational purposes. OTOH what file best conveys what someone is trying to teach will likely vary from Professor to Professor, and limiting their options and requiring permission to use a file isn't likely to be helpful or benefit them in the long run. I think the problem is that the amount seems excessive when seen together. Someone teaching a class knows more about what they need than us, who are we to stand in their way? Personally I think if the mediawiki software kept track of the last time a file was used anywhere that would make getting rid of unused file easier, than there would be less need to speculate on whether any particular file is likely to ever be used. -- dark lama  00:06, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I've talked to those in Literature, Politics, History, and Philosophy directly about the above. And "sexology" isn't an honestly acknowledged subject and is only chosen by a few trendy universities. Universities are against porn in general because most people realize that such things are not academic and done solely to titillate. It is embarrassing to our reputation and not something appropriate for Wikiversity. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:19, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Lost performative
This proposed policy states, "Identified minors will be prohibited from adding such files, from editing material related to such files, and from other actions that are prohibited under US and Florida law." So, we are to have a list of "identified minors"? Where do we get this information? Self-supplied? How is this to be enforced? What if a minor, doing Recent Changes Patrol, sees and reverts an edit involving sexually explicit material. Do we block the minor? What does "prohibited" mean, in practice?

I think we should first identify what reasonable and realizable goals we'd like to see a child protection policy accomplish. An open web site probably can't protect children from all hazards. A "pedophile" may be able to email a child user. Do we disallow email access for identified minors?

And would this have any beneficial effect at all? Are we going to require proof of age to register? Who is going to monitor and administer all this? --Abd 21:38, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It would be those we know who are minors. We don't have to know their age, but we can delete images when information comes out that they are under age. Prohibited means that we do not tolerate them editing such material and we make it known that there would be a problem. I do not think this will result in blocks, as there shouldn't be that much material to even begin with. It is mostly something to say that we are willing to comply with the law. Email access is not something we can really disallow, but we can warn children about the possible problems that could result from open email access and encourage them to notify about any problematic emails sent to them. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:04, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I think Wikiversity would be better off with some parental disclaimer. I think parents should take responsibility and decide what their kids can and cannot do, whether or not their kids can participate at Wikiversity, to decide what material they consider to be age appropriate for their kids, what their kids can and cannot share about themselves. -- dark lama  23:17, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Parents are not able to violate the law and provide pornographic material to those under 18. So, it isn't just about what parents say or do. Ottava Rima (talk)

COPPA and collection of information, rule
COPPA rules

Other commenters were concerned that including public postings in the definition of collects or collection would confer liability on operators of general audience (i.e., non-child-directed) chat sites for unsolicited postings by children.\17\ The Commission believes that these concerns are legitimate, and therefore the Rule now provides that such sites would only be liable if they (1) have actual knowledge that postings are being made by a child under 13, and (2) when they have such knowledge, fail to delete any personal information before it is made public, and also to delete it from their records.

So, if we collect information about the ages of our contributors, we create a massive administrative burden, it seems to me. I would suggest that we consult with Foundation counsel about this before we dive into our own solutions. We could be creating a monster. We can, however, certainly have a process that sets up standard warnings for content that should not be provided to children. We also can decide not to host such content. But, here, COPPA is concerned about information provided by children and the removal of it. Simply registering an account with an email address and email access provided would be "dangerous" for children. And we really have no way to prevent it or detect it. What does the Foundation want us to do? They are the ones at legal risk. As to risk to children, we may be straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.... There is no substitute for parental involvement with children.... --Abd 21:57, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * We wont be collecting information of these users on Wikiversity. However, I personally had to have oversighted three middle schoolers posting up their full names and locations on their user pages before. Applyng for COPPA would be 1. what the WMF has already for registering names (i.e. there is a link to parental stuff) and 2. deleting any personal information from these individuals. The second part would also be part of protecting them in general, as minors don't realize the implication of putting their personal information out on the internet. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:01, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Abd. Policy is no substitute for parental involvement with their children. I think providing a clear warning to parents is the only realistic thing that Wikiversity can do. -- dark lama  23:23, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That is basically what we would be doing besides removing identifying information for those under 13. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:21, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree, that isn't what the current proposal is doing. -- dark lama  14:28, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * "Additionally, personally identifying information (name, age, location, and email) from children under 13 will be immediately removed and hidden from view." Ottava Rima (talk) 14:47, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There is more to the current proposal than that, and there is no attempt to warn parents. -- dark lama  16:20, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The "warning parents" is part of the current registration. I don't really see anything that is different than what we have had already in practice since I started in mid 2008. I was involved in at least 5 oversights of this material. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:22, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The COPPA rules about obtaining parental permission doesn't apply to Wikimedia projects. Registration is not required for the use of our websites, and the current interpretation of COPPA is that this restriction applies to sites that require registration and vested participation in what could be a harmful environment.  Where COPPA does apply is, as Ottava Rima mentioned, self-disclosure of personal information by a minor under 13.  This is what we current suppress globally by the policy on meta.  Someone simply revealing that they are 12 without any other information that can confirm this identity does not mean that the user cannot contribute without permission or cannot participate at all.  The purpose of COPPA as it relates to use is to mitigate the users disclosing too much information about themselves.  Keegan 19:15, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Broaden scope of protection, be advisory
Child protection is about more than privacy and security from abuse (focus being sexual abuse). The practicalities of ensuring age and expecting permission from parents or guardians seem rather unrealistic. Perhaps we could write more in an advisory tone. We should add a section with advice to exercise caution, and seek parental advice before attempting activities described in some wikiversity pages. Some activities may expose children to physical and mental risk.. etc. I think widening the scope, and writing in advisory tones of protection would make this policy better. Leighblackall 05:06, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia separates their policy that deals with blocks from the page that is advice for parents. We can have two different pages, and the advice page doesn't need to be a "policy". Ottava Rima (talk) 05:22, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I find Wikipedia's separation makes it harder to understand their community standards and expectations. I think advice for parents should be part of any page about child protection. -- dark lama  14:31, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It isn't good to mix blocking standards with general philosophy or warning. Plus, a page dealing with blocks needs to be policy. A warning to parents does not, nor does it even need consensus. Why not just call the warning to parents "Child protection" or something similar and link that to the registration or the welcome template? Ottava Rima (talk) 14:45, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Mergers
The "Personal Information" and "Files" sections should be merged with Privacy policy as they relate to privacy more than they do with protection. The "Bullying" section is strongly related to being civil and is something that should apply to anyone not just children. -- dark lama  18:12, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Policies are allowed to overlap. The Privacy policy should have all material about privacy there. The Child protection policy should have all material about child protection. Overlap is fine, just as there is overlap with civility policies, blocking policies, deletion policies, etc. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:21, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Policy overlaps can lead to inconsistencies that make following policy that much more difficult for people to do. I've incorporated the content of the Files section into the Privacy policy proposal for people to see. The content was broad enough to apply to anyone, not just children. The privacy policy proposal also has a personal information section now, as well as a section for young contributors. I think the only part of the personal information section from the child protection policy proposal that should be kept is the part about requiring permission from parents to register. I think the requirement to have permission from parents to register can be included in the General section somehow. -- dark lama  00:19, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Legal Ramification?
Seems throughout this discussion Ottava has been referring to legal issues/concerns. Ottava has also mentioned that WMF's legal counsel has stated that Wikiversity and the other projects are exempt from the very concerns brought up by Ottava. I think there could be legal ramifications or repercussion from making this proposal a policy that could be avoided by respecting what WMF's legal counsel has stated, rather than assuming to know better than WMF's legal counsel which could be seen as wikilawyering. -- dark lama  19:31, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

"machine readable notice"
The current draft of the policy suggests that we mark "resources which are not appropriate for children" with a "machine readable notice". I assume "machine readable notice" means a template of some kind but I before making this policy we need to discuss what such a notice would look like. Another consideration is what would we have to do to "allow child protection software to detect and filter such works" as the policy currently says? Is there some industry standard? I'm somewhat uneasy by this whole concept of marking "resources which are not appropriate for children" though. What definition of content inappropriate for children would we be working to? Are there some widely accepted guidelines or relevent US laws to provide a definition we could agree to adopt? Adambro 20:37, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This describes a few options for self labelling of content which could be worth investigating further if we did decide to start trying to mark content as not appropriate for children. Adambro 20:54, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I'll read up on this, and try and share some concrete ideas soonish... cheers, Privatemusings 01:31, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

policy
being a bold wiki chap, I marked this as policy, because I believe it should be so. I'd be very happy indeed if improvements were made, and I'd been really really happy if the tag is only removed by an editor who sincerely believes there is something deficient in the written policy, not solely on 'procedural' grounds, which seem to me to be avoidable hurdles. A note here indicating a change which would encourage a dissenting editor to support the policy would also be wonderful :-) Privatemusings 01:31, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I did undo it for procedural reasons. As for a possible deficient in the written policy, I was the one that proposed the bullying section be merged into the civility policy. Anyone can be bullied, not just children. Everyone should be protected from bullying. -- dark lama  01:55, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * yes indeedy on the last point - but I think there are still benefits to having a 'bullying' bit here - it seems to me likely to be something that external organisations like schools / clubs etc. look for specifically when assessing whether or not to allow their charges to engage in a project - a little redundancy therefore doesn't hurt us at all, and certainly does help :-)
 * on the 'policy' or not front, perhaps to help keep momentum we could note that barring objections, this will be ratified policy in something like 2 weeks? (do you have any further objections, or do you feel that something should change materially prior to this becoming policy?) - cheers, Privatemusings 06:42, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that redundancy has its place and has a functional purpose. I'm concerned by policy redundancy mainly because over time policies can change and changes aren't necessarily reflected consistently throughout, leading to conflicting requirements, this can be seen a lot with Wikipedia's policies for example. Arguably consensus elsewhere to change a policy should be enough reason to update other policies where redundancy exists, but experience suggests that isn't always agreed to, even though it makes sense to do so. I think people benefit from consistent policies, so redundancy would be less of an issue for me if there was some way to ensure that this would never become a problem for Wikiversity.
 * I have mixed views personally on how best to decide when a proposal should be a policy, but Wikimedia projects have a tradition of requiring discussion with a clear show of support or opposition to a proposal with a proposal only becoming a policy if most people share the common view that the proposal should be a policy. I'm not sure if any other method is considered an acceptable way for proposals to become a policy, or if Wikimedia projects are free to come up with other ways. I'm not sure who could be asked to find that out, maybe Sj would know. I'd be fine with adopting this policy without discussion when people start following it on their own and most people don't object when its followed, if that were a possible option. -- dark lama  13:12, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Discriminatory language
Child molestation is a crime in most western countries. Pedophilia is not. A law abiding pedophile would be hard to identify and probably shouldn’t be blocked. For example, breast feeding is pleasurable for most mothers. Should mothers who breast feed be blocked? What about an Afghan soldier who mentors a post pubescent boy? Should he be blocked simply because such relationships typically violate western child protection laws? --KBlott 03:48, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Someone who advocates pedophilic ideology are banned from teaching or being in positions of power around children in most Western Countries. In many, they are also put into mental institutions. Sue Gardner has stated that banning pedophiles is "commonsense" and this community agrees. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:43, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Many of us are victims of child molesters. Most often the perpetrator is a family member.  Such child rape leaves an indelible scar on the victim’s psyche.  This scar persists for life and is visible to anyone with feelings.  I understand that it is hard for you to acknowledge that not all pedophiles are criminals.   People should not be blocked from editing simply because they are mentally ill.  On the contrary, a chemically castrated pedophile should be welcomed to edit.  That way his actions can be carefully monitored by police.--KBlott 02:51, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The police don't monitor activities here, and are more than a tad unlikely to do so. We can't tell if someone is chemically castrated or not, if they continue to be, and whether or not the drugs are effective. Given that, the current approach seems to be the best course, as it only applies to those advocating paedophilia or identified as paedophiles. I'd add that, per Ottava Rima, this aspect has community support across the projects.
 * Personally, I don't see this as assuming that all paedophiles are criminals, just that in this environment the community has felt that banning identified paedophiles is the best way to protect children here - and given the nature and scope of the project, I can't see a better alternative, either. - Bilby 12:49, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "Someone who advocates pedophilic ideology are banned from teaching or being in positions of power around children in most Western Countries." Do you have a citation for that? Bilby, I realize you may be simply the messenger here, but I don't see how banning identified pedophiles would protect children, since it would do nothing about the unidentified pedophiles. A person who wished to prey upon children would be likely to refrain from identifying himself as a pedophile, since that could draw scrutiny toward his interactions.


 * But at any rate, Wikimedia projects are not the typical places where people interested in those kinds of relationships or interactions would tend to seek out partners. There's not as much privacy, for one thing (unless people go to email), and the sites are not geared toward sexuality, so attempts to strike up relationships would be off-topic and therefore frowned upon even in the absence of this sort of policy.


 * It may be true that several Wikimedia projects have adopted or considered some kind of child protection policy with similar wording as this one, but that doesn't mean that it's wise to do so here. Wikiversity has special concerns with respect to academic freedom. Harris Mirkin, chairman of the political science department at the University of Missouri's Kansas City campus, wrote an essay that would have gotten him banned by the Wikipedia ArbCom pursuant to that project's policy of indefinitely blocking editors who engage off-wiki pedophile advocacy. Of course, some legislators argued, "Legitimizing molestation doesn't fall under academic freedom." But as Sheldon E. Steinbach, general counsel of the American Council on Education, commented, "The appropriate place to debate the legitimacy of a professor's thought is in the marketplace of ideas. Today's heresy often becomes tomorrow's orthodoxy."


 * Lenore Skenazy's Free Range Kids devotes several pages to the topic of internet predators, noting that according to research by David Finkelhor, the kids who attract sexual remarks, comments, or overtures online tend to be kids who are going to sexually oriented sites, and are appearing online in a sexualized persona, using sexy names or decorating their network sites with suggestive stuff. According to Finkelhor, most of the remarks received by kids "were the Internet equivalent of wolf whistles", including annoying but basically nonthreatening questions like "What's your bra size?" and "Are you a virgin?" Two-thirds of the youths who received these commments reported that they were not upset by them, and almost all of them handled the solicitations "easily and effectively" (e.g. by ignoring the question or telling the sender off). Also, a year-long study by Internet Safety Technical Task Force found that the people trolling for underage sex are usually not dirty old men, but people of roughly the same age as the people they're soliciting.


 * See also the Wikipedia article on the topic (which was pretty informative before it was butchered by [redacted by Abd (discuss • contribs) 13:41, 23 March 2014 (UTC) ]. Leucosticte (discuss • contribs) 19:53, 22 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The proposal is not policy, it's a suggested policy, and is poorly written in certain ways.
 * Discussion of "child protection" seems to rapidly become discussion of "pedophilia," in spite of active pedophilia likely being low in frequency as to what is actually harming children. I find it offensive that Leucosticte describes Mirkin as if the late Mirkin's work was "pedophile advocacy." Mirkin made a pointm published academically, about social hysteria on the topic, something many have noted. The hysteria does not protect children, but possibly harms them. I don't see that anyone is working on making this page policy; if so, we'd need to fix the language, it was not soberly written.
 * There is apparently an overall WMF policy that is unwritten, it's been called a "zero-tolerance," but what exactly it is that is not tolerated is not clear. The Wikipedia policy, Child protection, has as lede:
 * Editors who attempt to use Wikipedia to pursue or facilitate inappropriate adult–child relationships, who advocate inappropriate adult–child relationships on- or off-wiki (e.g. by expressing the view that inappropriate relationships are not harmful to children), or who identify themselves as pedophiles, will be blocked indefinitely.


 * Discussion of this typically conflates "pedophilia" with child molestation. Pedophilia can be considered a sexual orientation, thus the policy conflicts with other policies prohibiting discrimination for sexual orientation. "Inappropriate adult-child relationships" is not defined. There is an obvious meaning: "whatever we think is inappropriate."
 * It is not simply "illegal relationships," which vary with jurisdiction; further, there is academic study on the topic which contradicts common wisdom. So what does Wikipedia follow? If you guessed "common wisdom," you'd likely be right.
 * There is little or no disagreement on the Wikipedia community prohibiting the use of Wikipedia to solicit sexual relationships with minors, and acting to protect minors. However, beyond that, as to banning for off-wiki advocacy, there is a lot of disagreement, and the matter was essentially decided by WMF fiat. Who decides what is "inappropriate"? The answer is, for Wikipedia, the Arbitration Committee, and allegations must be private, not public. And yes, this makes a lot of people uncomfortable, but, then, "anything to protect the children!" I.e, the hysteria that Mirkin covered.
 * It is not our place to criticize the Wikipedia policy. Discussing the actions of individual editors on Wikipedia is well-known to cause disruption here. The attached page is a proposed policy here. I suggest we let sleeping dogs lie, and I will be requesting revision deletion for the outing, so I'm redacting it here. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 13:41, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I didn't say Mirkin's essay was pedophile advocacy. I said that it would have gotten him banned by the ArbCom pursuant to enwiki's policy against pedophile advocacy. This is because of how broadly "pedophile advocacy" is construed on enwiki, especially since there is little or no effective community oversight of those decisions, given the secretive nature of those ArbCom proceedings. People can vote the ArbCom members out, but it's hard for them to make informed decisions with regard to that, if they don't have the facts available to them. To find those facts, they would have to take the initiative to search around off-wiki (since it's forbidden to discuss those matters on-wiki); few voters will make the effort or know where to look if they do make the effort. See transparency.


 * The experience of enwiki with a similar policy is relevant to the decision of whether to adopt this policy at Wikiversity. If it's caused a lot of problems there, then perhaps it would cause similar problems here. Wikiversity, fortunately, has no ArbCom, so the damage inflicted by such a policy would probably be limited relative to what we've seen happen at enwiki with the great purges (documented at the since-deleted Ham & Eggs page, archive available here.


 * There seems to be growing consensus that pedophilia may be a sexual orientation, based on such characteristics as age of onset, correlations with sexual and romantic behavior, and stability over time; see wiktionary:Talk:pedophilia. What would be the implication of that? Society has often been willing to discriminate against some sexual orientations (e.g. homosexuality) while condoning others (e.g. heterosexuality). So this is nothing new.


 * Part of the justification has always been the alleged harm that people with these orientations could cause to children (in the case of gays, the adopted children of gay couples). Tom O'Carroll writes, "Nowadays, children are in a remarkably analogous position to that of the white women who used to be 'protected' by lynch mobs of Ku Klux Klansmen in the American South. The dominant white male culture of the old South in the slavery era held that women, like today's children, were not sexual beings; they were pure."


 * We've seen this type of persecution happen over and over again, with different groups as the targets; and we know what kinds of epithets used to be hurled at those who were allies of blacks and gays. It's the same way with teleiophilic/orthosexual allies of pedosexuals. After this, it will probably be some other group. This is the pattern that Mirkin identified.


 * It's interesting that these proposals have always been called "child protection" policies (although the original proposals by MZMcBride over at enwiki and meta were called "Pedophilia"). Wikis tend not to be all that great for social networking, compared to other social media. It seems like a red herring to suggest that kids are likely to meet up with pedophiles in the wikisphere; I've never heard of any recorded instance of it happening.


 * I agree with the revisiondeleting, if that was indeed outing of a user who didn't want his identity revealed publicly. That possibility hadn't occurred to me. Leucosticte (discuss • contribs) 14:50, 23 March 2014 (UTC)


 * This gets way too complicated, way too quickly. Leucosticte, you know what happens with discussions where "pedophilia" is involved. It is possible to study the topic, and WMF policy and its history, but it would have to be done with rigorous adherence to ethical guidelines and neutrality policy.
 * If it is "criticism" of Wikipedia or Wikipedia editors, it will attract very unwelcome attention. Indeed, Jimbo lost his Founder tools as a (partial) consequence of using them here, to deal with Wikipedia criticism. (And the other major cause was his unilateral deletion of "porn" on Commons, so this is actually related.) Nobody is pushing this policy here. Arguing against it is inviting argument for it to appear. Wikiversity is not prepared to handle this, my opinion. Don't push it.
 * If you wish to do anything related to this topic here, ask on my Talk, and I'll point you to some precedents where work on a hot topic was allowed. I recommend you revert your last contribution to this proposed policy page, and you may blank my response, and drop it. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 15:26, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
 * "it would have to be done with rigorous adherence to ethical guidelines and neutrality policy." That's fine. Rejecting these kinds of child protection policies actually furthers the goal of adhering to a neutrality policy. The essay that resulted in the block from meta specifically criticized Wikipedia for carving out an exception to its NPOV policy.


 * "Nobody is pushing this policy here." Then why does the page say it's a proposed policy, rather than a rejected policy? If no one is around who would push for it, then there shouldn't be an objection to closing it as rejected. If there is no such objection, then I will do exactly that. Of course, anyone would be free to revert, if they wished to reopen discussion.


 * "Arguing against it is inviting argument for it to appear." So in other words, you're looking for security through obscurity. That's not very reliable. At any rate, people can just refrain to participate in conversations they don't deem useful. If that is their choice, then the threads will go dormant and eventually be archived, with no harm done. It happens all the time. Leucosticte (discuss • contribs) 23:09, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

"Virtuous pedophiles"
Abd writes, "This gets way too complicated, way too quickly." Perhaps it's best to split the topic up into its separate parts, and debate each individually. For example, suppose someone were to write on his off-wiki blog, "I'm a pedophile, though not of my own choosing. When I became a teenager, I discovered I was primarily attracted to children, although I wished then, and wish now, that I weren't. I believe that sexual relations between adults and children are harmful to children, and therefore I would never engage in such behavior. However, given that almost a quarter of the U.S. population is under 18, it would be inconvenient to avoid minors altogether. In fact, like many non-pedophiles, I also have non-sexual interests in teaching, parenting, etc. children."

Should such a person be barred from interacting with children via the wiki? The proposed policy states, "Wikiversity has a zero tolerance policy regarding pedophiles. Anyone condoning pedophilia or identified as a pedophile will be blocked indefinitely." Thus, if the off-wiki blog post were to be linked to a Wikiversity user, then he could be blocked indefinitely. Should that be the case?

A friend of mine, a supporter of Virtuous Pedophiles and self-described "Asexual Androgynous American Entrepreneur in their 20s", writes, "Heh... I'll be interested to hear what they say to that. I personally think censorship in all forms should be banned and I get easily frustrated in general about society's view of sexual attraction to children. Regardless of whether or not it's an orientation or an illness.... We should probably stop locking up our sick people and throwing away the key. If it's an orientation, that shows a problem with society. I would argue, again, children are being too sheltered, have too few rights (well, no rights, really), and sex is wrongly taboo. Also, if the kid's online, kid better be ready to handle being online. Guess I can't edit articles though for thinking this way. I was hoping to get with an eight-year-old by rewriting the article on the Australian Aboriginal Astronomy Project. I know that's the hot thing with kids these days." Leucosticte (discuss • contribs) 23:19, 23 March 2014 (UTC)