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# Wikipedia commentary/Should Wikipedia Use Profanity

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Some people might wonder why this needs to be asked at all. After all, what place does profanity have in an encyclopedia? Upon closer examination, however, there are some cases in which an article might require words considered to be impolite, or even taboo. An good example would be an article on profanity? itself. Such an article could not use phrases such as "the f word" and still be taken seriously. There are alternatives, such as the tried-and-true "f*ck", could be used in such an such article, but this is not a perfect solution, as it is only useful to people already familiar with the word. A person attempting to find out which words to avoid in a language not his own might be confused by such obscured spelling.

Let's look at some of the pros and cons of using profanity directly in Wikipedia articles:

# Pros

1. Provides completely accuracy. If swear words are used in their normal form, it doesn't leave those unfamiliar with the word guessing. As an encyclopedia project, Wikipedia is striving to be highly accurate.
2. Gives Wikipedians more academic freedom. People are often somewhat nervous about doing articles on certain subjects if reference must be made to offensive words and phrases. If a person knows that she won't have to fight with the community over the professional use of such language, she would be more apt to produce an article on the subject.
3. Provides evidence of objectivity. If profanity is necessary in an article, and it is used in an professional fashion, it is one way to showing that Wikipedia can produce objective articles on controversial subjects.
4. Will make us a target of right-wing Christian groups. Ok, this one isn't exactly serious. However, whenever groups attempt to ban literature, films, or anything else, it seems to become very popular...

# Cons

1. Wikipedia will be blocked by offensive content filters. In fact, it's happening already. I was at an Internet cafe yesterday and tried to check RecentChanges. One swear word caused the filtering program to flag www.wikipedia.com as a site "not suitable for public viewing". As many schools use such software, this would especially hurt Wikipedia's value as an educational tool.
2. Certain people may not be permitted to use Wikipedia. This is related to the first con, only this time, the filters are other people. The big example would be parents not letting their children use Wikipedia because of some offensive content.
3. Offended people will not contribute to Wikipedia. There may be very intellegent, knowledgable people who would be turned off of Wikipedia simply because they are offended by any use of profanity, no matter what the context.

Personally, I am undecided. On the one hand, I want to provide complete, accurate information, and I don't want to have to shy away from topics that some people might find offensive. On the other hand, I don't want Wikipedia to be banished from schools and public access terminals all over the world. What do you think? -- Stephen Gilbert

  Actually, this topic has already been discussed, linked somewhere via Wikipedia policy (which really, really needs to be totally refactored--the whole area).

One thing not addressed so far in Wikipedia -- at least from my limited experience -- is the issue of age/maturity-appropriate content. Censorship aside, six-year-olds need to read significantly different materials, both in terms of content and language, than adults. Providing some sort of mechanism to loosely classify content -- and to make appropriate-level content easier to find -- isn't directly censorship. It may make life easier for potential censors; on the other hand, it may make potential censors less inclined to hassle Wikipedia over sections that are more risque.

  This suggestion is right now practically impossible to implement, though in the future it might be possible. It's now impossible because there is no way to persuade everyone to agree to label the articles they work on according to age level, let alone get them to agree on a scheme in the first place. Anyway, Wikipedia is not for children...yet. (Though nearly 100% of the pages here are perfectly safe for children of reasonably open-minded parents; "reasonably open-minded," I say, because some parents might not want their children to see the God entry, since that might raise too many questions in their minds.) --LMS

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Last edited July 27, 2001 11:30 pm (diff)
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