Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Chris Hager]

Aah, this discussion had to be coming ... :p

I see the point that it's problematic to 'propagate' violent material on 
an educational tool for kids 6-14. On the other side, censoring content 
is problematic as well.

I feel strongly, that there should be a community discussion, *before* 
removing anything from [[Activities]]. And if something is/should be 
removed:

1. We should write up some Activity-Guidelines
2. We might create a subpage for 'censored activities' (?)

=> What about xo-get? Should it be possible to easily install doom, or 
to enable a 'censored' repository...?

- Chris

Bryan Berry wrote:
> I feel very strongly that violent games should not be associated with
> OLPC. Albert Cahalan points out that games like Doom can teach geometry
> and other skills. There are ways to teach those skills w/out involving
> violence. I work in Nepal, a country recovering from an 11-year civil
> war. Exposure to more violence, real or virtual, is the last thing most
> Nepali communities want.
>
> I removed the Doom activity from the Activities page yesterday and put a
> note on the page asking people not to post violent activities to the
> page.  Doom was added back shortly thereafter and my note was removed.
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities
>
> People can host such games on their own sites but they should not be
> hosted by OLPC.
>
> We can debate forever whether violent games cause violence. The fact is
> many those people (esp. outside the US) whose support we need for OLPC,
> think that violent games are damaging to kids. We need to respect that
> sentiment.
>
> Is there an existing wiki policy regarding violent activities? If there
> isn't, there should be.
>
>
>