Worldbook Encyclopedia Censorship Topics

[ken_sylvania]

Yes, that's him. I'd say he has done a tremendous amount of work, pouring through basically all of the articles that might contain photos, diagrams, or text info that a conservative parent would not want to have available to a child. (It is, of course, a parent's rightful place to be able to do this. I remember the remarks I heard from other HS kids, looking at their biology books. And they were also passed around to younger students. It's the nature of the beast - lust.)

Definitely one of many business opportunities to serve the portions of the plain community that don't want to use the Internet.

The fact that he is able to sell this when his customer base could legally share it among themselves for free speaks well for his customer base - that they are willing to pay for value received even when they might no strictly need to. Something good to keep in mind next time someone cracks a joke about stingy Amish or Mennonites.

[Josh]

Yes, that's him. I'd say he has done a tremendous amount of work, pouring through basically all of the articles that might contain photos, diagrams, or text info that a conservative parent would not want to have available to a child. (It is, of course, a parent's rightful place to be able to do this. I remember the remarks I heard from other HS kids, looking at their biology books. And they were also passed around to younger students. It's the nature of the beast - lust.)

Definitely one of many business opportunities to serve the portions of the plain community that don't want to use the Internet.

The fact that he is able to sell this when his customer base could legally share it among themselves for free speaks well for his customer base - that they are willing to pay for value received even when they might no strictly need to. Something good to keep in mind next time someone cracks a joke about stingy Amish or Mennonites.

Well, assuming they even know they can copy it.

[Neto]

Definitely one of many business opportunities to serve the portions of the plain community that don't want to use the Internet.

The fact that he is able to sell this when his customer base could legally share it among themselves for free speaks well for his customer base - that they are willing to pay for value received even when they might no strictly need to. Something good to keep in mind next time someone cracks a joke about stingy Amish or Mennonites.

Well, assuming they even know they can copy it.

On a regular (un-locked) computer it would not be difficult at all, and his licenses ARE intended as single-user. It all comes on an external HDD (maybe SSD now; originally it all fit on a moderate size flash drive), but can be copied directly onto the main system drive. His configuration doesn't require any special settings or configuration changes, but on a locked-down system like what I have been building, additional work-arounds are required which involve system administrative access. (The users on these systems do not have Admin access. That is part of the guidelines in all of the Amish districts and Mennonite congregations for whom I do work.)

(I have been cooperating with Samuel on this since 2017 or so - not sure right off. He continues to expand the content over the years. It DOES contain a remarkable amount of information, and I personally would not hesitate to say that it is well worth the cost involved.)

[Szdfan]

Yes, that's him. I'd say he has done a tremendous amount of work, pouring through basically all of the articles that might contain photos, diagrams, or text info that a conservative parent would not want to have available to a child. (It is, of course, a parent's rightful place to be able to do this. I remember the remarks I heard from other HS kids, looking at their biology books. And they were also passed around to younger students. It's the nature of the beast - lust.)

English Wikipedia has 6,812,260 articles. That's a lot to go through. Does he take out the pages or put in a blank page? Does he go through and take out the links to these pages?

[Ken]

Yes, that's him. I'd say he has done a tremendous amount of work, pouring through basically all of the articles that might contain photos, diagrams, or text info that a conservative parent would not want to have available to a child. (It is, of course, a parent's rightful place to be able to do this. I remember the remarks I heard from other HS kids, looking at their biology books. And they were also passed around to younger students. It's the nature of the beast - lust.)

English Wikipedia has 6,812,260 articles. That's a lot to go through. Does he take out the pages or put in a blank page? Does he go through and take out the links to these pages?

It depends on what one is censoring. One could just do global word-searches for profane language and the like.

Once once starts going down the road of censoring ideas it gets more difficult because where do you stop? If you censor topics like the Big Bang, Geological Age of the Earth and Evolution that is Herculean task because those topics will not only have their own independent pages, but will be referenced in tens of thousands of other pages on other science topics.

And if you censor science topics that are inconsistent with a conservative Anabaptist theology, what about religious topics? Do you censor out pages on Catholicism since that is heresy? Mormonism? Buddhism?

Where does it end?

[Neto]

Yes, that's him. I'd say he has done a tremendous amount of work, pouring through basically all of the articles that might contain photos, diagrams, or text info that a conservative parent would not want to have available to a child. (It is, of course, a parent's rightful place to be able to do this. I remember the remarks I heard from other HS kids, looking at their biology books. And they were also passed around to younger students. It's the nature of the beast - lust.)

English Wikipedia has 6,812,260 articles. That's a lot to go through. Does he take out the pages or put in a blank page? Does he go through and take out the links to these pages?

I don't know for sure, but I think he takes those things out. His main focus is, I think, things of a deviant s3xual nature, and in the children's edition, information that is not age appropriate. Basically it is not really 'censorship", but rather aiming for an appropriate mix of information for the different groups I named before: Children, Teachers, & Adults. I think there are different access paths in both the teacher's and parents' editions, that allow a child to access only information that they should be seeing. He has OKed it for me to keep a copy myself, but I haven't used it a great deal.

[Josh]

Yes, that's him. I'd say he has done a tremendous amount of work, pouring through basically all of the articles that might contain photos, diagrams, or text info that a conservative parent would not want to have available to a child. (It is, of course, a parent's rightful place to be able to do this. I remember the remarks I heard from other HS kids, looking at their biology books. And they were also passed around to younger students. It's the nature of the beast - lust.)

English Wikipedia has 6,812,260 articles. That's a lot to go through. Does he take out the pages or put in a blank page? Does he go through and take out the links to these pages?

I don't know for sure, but I think he takes those things out. His main focus is, I think, things of a deviant s3xual nature, and in the children's edition, information that is not age appropriate. Basically it is not really 'censorship", but rather aiming for an appropriate mix of information for the different groups I named before: Children, Teachers, & Adults. I think there are different access paths in both the teacher's and parents' editions, that allow a child to access only information that they should be seeing. He has OKed it for me to keep a copy myself, but I haven't used it a great deal.

According to the terms of the licence, he can’t prevent you from keeping a copy for yourself, nor anyone else.

Whilst I appreciate his work, I would also be a bit miffed if he is telling people not to copy it, because that’s a direct violation of the licence terms that let him copy Wikipedia in the first place.

[Neto]

English Wikipedia has 6,812,260 articles. That's a lot to go through. Does he take out the pages or put in a blank page? Does he go through and take out the links to these pages?

I don't know for sure, but I think he takes those things out. His main focus is, I think, things of a deviant s3xual nature, and in the children's edition, information that is not age appropriate. Basically it is not really 'censorship", but rather aiming for an appropriate mix of information for the different groups I named before: Children, Teachers, & Adults. I think there are different access paths in both the teacher's and parents' editions, that allow a child to access only information that they should be seeing. He has OKed it for me to keep a copy myself, but I haven't used it a great deal.

According to the terms of the licence, he can’t prevent you from keeping a copy for yourself, nor anyone else.

Whilst I appreciate his work, I would also be a bit miffed if he is telling people not to copy it, because that’s a direct violation of the licence terms that let him copy Wikipedia in the first place.

I understand you point. But aside from just doing it all as an open-source free product, how can such people be supported for their contributions to reach the objectives we have as conservative Christians? I looked all the way through old emails back to my initial contact with Samuel (June 2016) before I found an "Installer's Agreement" form. I don't know if he has changed the wording of this authorization form, but in this version (dated May 31, 2016), he states that HOR holds the rights to the filtration of wiki, etc. While that may technically infringe on the legal conditions under which wiki is distributed, and while I don't know what other business operations he may be depending on for support of his family, he DID invest the time and effort to see this come to fruition, and I don't think we should throw a wrench in the works for people who are seeking to meet a need of this kind.

I haven't looked at a recent version of a printed encyclopedia for many years, but I can imagine that there might be a fair bit of content in them now that a conservative Christian parent or educator would find concerning. I'm not up on current copyright laws, but it would be a mammoth task to compose articles on such a wide range of information. Perhaps the only fully legal recourse would be to simply ASK the user to respect the investment he has made. As already pointed out in this discussion, there is already that element of trust on his part, because he has no internal protections that prevent the free copying. It reminds me that this is the way software used to be presented - there was that element of trust that could be circumvented by any unscrupulous user. My version of Microsoft Word for DOS, and the version of Word for Windows is like that. The license codes are on the original CD jacket, and these codes fully authorize the installation. Perhaps all software was like that prior to the start of the internet. Are people as a whole just that much more dishonest now, that software companies were able to conduct business that way back then, but now can no longer survive financially with that level of trust? I'm trying to remember when Microsoft Windows changed from that registration model, perhaps around Windows 98SE or 2000?

[Josh]

Some of the material in his Wikipedia is content that I wrote. He’s not paying me for it. Why should he be supported for what he did but not me?

I licenced it freely, but expected anyone who copied what I wrote to comply with the licence terms, which is to not prohibit someone else from copying it.

Perhaps the only fully legal recourse would be to simply ASK the user to respect the investment he has made.

It’s not legal to ask someone to violate a licence.

[Neto]

Some of the material in his Wikipedia is content that I wrote. He’s not paying me for it. Why should he be supported for what he did but not me?

I licenced it freely, but expected anyone who copied what I wrote to comply with the licence terms, which is to not prohibit someone else from copying it.

Perhaps the only fully legal recourse would be to simply ASK the user to respect the investment he has made.

It’s not legal to ask someone to violate a licence.

He isn't charging for the content, only for the filtration process. The content itself is still technically distributed freely. Essentially (as I understand it) his customers are paying for the EXCLUSION of content, not for that which is included. But I guess you could take it up with him directly, and see how he responds.

In my own business, I install a lot of free programs. I charge nothing at all for the content of the program, only for my time to do the installation. He is charging for his time in doing the filtration. A lawyer might see it differently - I am certainly not one, nor do I know the ins & outs of copyright law.

I guess my question for anyone in your position is whether the service he provides is of value - that is, do we want to encourage, or prevent such services.