[OLPC-Games] Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

Thu Jan 17 17:26:15 EST 2008

My only objection is that Doom be on the same page as Squeak, Library,
Speak, etc. I have no problem with it being on a page that explains that
activities w/ violence are not endorsed by OLPC.

I will try to write later w/ my ideas about a policy for violence and
adult content

On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 16:48 -0500, devel-request at lists.laptop.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
> 
>    1. Re: [OLPC-Games] Violent games on the OLPC Activities page
>       (Antoine van Gelder)
>    2. Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page (Ties Stuij)
>    3. Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page (Samuel Klein)
>    4. Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page (Mitch Bradley)
>    5. Re: [OLPC-Games] Violent games on the OLPC Activities page
>       (Carl-Daniel Hailfinger)
>    6. New joyride build 1542 (Build Announcer v2)
>    7. Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page (Bennett Todd)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:53:25 +0200
> From: Antoine van Gelder <hummingbird at hivemind.net>
> Subject: Re: [OLPC-Games] Violent games on the OLPC Activities page
> To: Games for the OLPC <games at lists.laptop.org>
> Cc: OLPC Developer's List <devel at laptop.org>
> Message-ID: <478FC045.9020008 at hivemind.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> 
> Noah Kantrowitz wrote:
> > On Jan 17, 2008, at 10:46 AM, 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 understand your point, however this is the case, the government in  
> > Nepal should simply decide not to include the offending material on  
> > their software image. OLPC is not in the business of censorship or  
> > content classification, and you have no right to try and remove thing  
> > from the wiki just because you dislike them. If you are worried  
> > children will find distasteful things on the internet, perhaps you  
> > shouldn't give them a laptop.
> 
> 
> I second and strongly share Bryan's feelings.
> 
> As you pointed out Noah, if children want distasteful things they can
> find them elsewhere on the Internet.
> 
> Also Noah - could you please try and show some empathy for the
> backgrounds of the people you talk to? Do you understand that large
> parts of the rest of the world have not enjoyed the same levels of
> stability and safety that your country has ?
> 
> Do you understand that not every person who finds some kinds of content
> emotionally hurtful wants to prevent you from exercising your own rights
> to access that content to your heart's content in forums which are more
> appropriate to that kind of content ?
> 
> Many of us in the other countries have been shot at, had bombs going off
> next to us and been brutalized by people with  guns that were loaded
> with real bullets made of lead that, should you be shot with them, would
> blow your head clean off.
> 
> Permanently.
> 
>   - antoine
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:09:22 +0100
> From: "Ties Stuij" <cjstuij at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page
> To: "Hal Murray" <hmurray at megapathdsl.net>
> Cc: OLPC Developer's List <devel at laptop.org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<d7ce4ebf0801171309n460d1316n2ad7e52991834a31 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> On Jan 17, 2008 6:37 PM, Hal Murray <hmurray at megapathdsl.net> wrote:
> >
> > > What's wrong with erring on the safe side with a controversial topic
> > > like video game violence in a learning setting like the OLPC project.
> >
> > That doesn't solve anything.  It just pushes the decision point down the
> > scale a bit.
> >
> > Instead of arguing whether something is "violent", we'll be arguing about
> > weather it's "violent enough" to be controversial.
> 
> Just to keep on beating that dead horse:
> 
> As was mentioned earlier in this thread, there are always gliding
> scales. The solution is not to just forget about them and just allow
> everything to keep things simple. To clarify my sentence above, I
> don't think the topic of violence in a learning setting is so
> controversial. There are little learning packages I know of that
> situate themselves in a post-apocalyptic setting with as goal to
> murder as many henchmen of Satan as possible. And it's not so
> controversial politically, or socially. The only groups who would
> endorse a game like this that i can think of would be the arms lobby
> and some extreme Christian sects.
> 
> I don't want to generalize but amongst a number of nay-sayers I sense
> a strong cencorship fear, while I just see a pragmatic decision to not
> include war material in an education project. This is the default
> attitude in the educational world methinks. While on the other hand
> the chance of a wave of gripping cencorship amongst the XO activities
> seems pretty slim to me.
> 
> Still the strongest point to be concidered should be if a certain
> class of children might not react well to it. How do vague conceptions
> about freedom stack up against that?
> 
> So to me this is a no-brainer. But then again, one might argue that
> one shouldn't confuse a developer-wiki with an educational package.
> And then you would have me beat!
> 
> Btw, great game, Doom. Ah the memories.. especially on the later
> levels when you got the hang of strafing and would comfortably slalom
> around the fireballs of whole armies of those doom imps.
> 
> /Ties
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:15:13 -0500
> From: "Samuel Klein" <meta.sj at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page
> To: "Bennett Todd" <bet at rahul.net>
> Cc: Bryan Berry <bryan.berry at gmail.com>,	OLPC Developer's List
> 	<devel at laptop.org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<5396c0d10801171315n6858176dr485381f9dfe62427 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> Thanks, Chris.
> 
> And thanks to Ties, Bryan, Noah, and all for sharing their coments --
> please use this effort to build a great set of guidelines for what
> makes a good activity.  This is as good a place as any to reiterate
> the need for overall guidelines for what makes for a good or even a
> great activity... and to add better structure to the activities pages,
> with a page for the best activities and one for public review.
> 
> A serious review of Doom [fast, well-programmed, modularly-skinned,
> open source] in line with educational goals would not be wasted -- my
> guess is that with some art and music and sound effort, and some AI
> tweaks, one could use its engine and most of its levels to produce a
> world-class educational game that teaches about 2.5-d motion, careful
> control, and  with no hint of violence.
> 
> Please see [[Activity guidelines]] on the wiki, seeded with Walter's
> comments from October and a few more recent discussions, and update
> them with your own contributions and thoughts.  One thing is certain :
> [[Activities]] is too long, and includes many things we would not
> recommend others download or try out, for a variety of reasons.
> 
> Cheers,
> SJ
> 
> 2008/1/17 Bennett Todd <bet at rahul.net>:
> > Thank you!
> >
> > 2008-01-17T19:02:27 Chris Hager:
> > > 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
> >
> > Those address my concerns.
> >
> > -Bennett
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Devel mailing list
> > Devel at lists.laptop.org
> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
> >
> >
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 4
> Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:18:16 -1000
> From: Mitch Bradley <wmb at laptop.org>
> Subject: Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page
> To: Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com>
> Cc: Bryan Berry <bryan.berry at gmail.com>,	OLPC Developer's List
> 	<devel at laptop.org>
> Message-ID: <478FC618.2030902 at laptop.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> 
> Samuel Klein wrote:
> >
> > A serious review of Doom [fast, well-programmed, modularly-skinned,
> > open source] in line with educational goals would not be wasted -- my
> > guess is that with some art and music and sound effort, and some AI
> > tweaks, one could use its engine and most of its levels to produce a
> > world-class educational game that teaches about 2.5-d motion, careful
> > control, and  with no hint of violence.
> >   
> 
> http://www.snopes.com/humor/nonsense/kangaroo.asp
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 5
> Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:33:14 +0100
> From: Carl-Daniel Hailfinger <c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006 at gmx.net>
> Subject: Re: [OLPC-Games] Violent games on the OLPC Activities page
> To: Antoine van Gelder <hummingbird at hivemind.net>
> Cc: OLPC Developer's List <devel at laptop.org>,	Games for the OLPC
> 	<games at lists.laptop.org>
> Message-ID: <478FC99A.3000706 at gmx.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> Hi Antoine,
> 
> On 17.01.2008 21:53, Antoine van Gelder wrote:
> > Also Noah - could you please try and show some empathy for the
> > backgrounds of the people you talk to? Do you understand that large
> > parts of the rest of the world have not enjoyed the same levels of
> > stability and safety that your country has ?
> > [...]
> > Many of us in the other countries have been shot at, had bombs going off
> > next to us and been brutalized by people with  guns that were loaded
> > with real bullets made of lead that, should you be shot with them, would
> > blow your head clean off.
> >   
> 
> Unfortunately I lack information about your backgrund, which results in
> the following question:
> You use the word "us" very often. Please tell the list members which
> country you have lived in where bombs went off next to you.
> I'm trying to understand you better.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Regards,
> Carl-Daniel
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 6
> Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:36:18 -0500 (EST)
> From: Build Announcer v2 <reinier at heeres.eu>
> Subject: New joyride build 1542
> To: devel at laptop.org
> Message-ID: <20080117213618.8CEC43FCFA at crank.laptop.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> http://xs-dev.laptop.org/~cscott/olpc/streams/joyride/build1542
> 
> Changes in build 1542 from build: 1540
> 
> Size delta: 0M
> 
> -kernel 2.6.22-20080110.1.olpc.940c801838dbaf2
> +kernel 2.6.22-20080117.1.olpc.a0ca568e912c1c5
> 
> ------
> This mail was automatically generated
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> See http://dev.laptop.org/~rwh/announcer/joyride_vs_update1.html for a comparison
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 7
> Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:46:17 +0000
> From: Bennett Todd <bet at rahul.net>
> Subject: Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page
> To: Ties Stuij <cjstuij at gmail.com>
> Cc: OLPC Developer's List <devel at laptop.org>
> Message-ID: <20080117214617.GA10298 at rahul.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> 2008-01-17T21:09:22 Ties Stuij:
> > > > What's wrong with erring on the safe side with a controversial
> > > > topic like video game violence in a learning setting like the
> > > > OLPC project.
> > [...]
> > As was mentioned earlier in this thread, there are always gliding
> > scales. The solution is not to just forget about them and just allow
> > everything to keep things simple. To clarify my sentence above, I
> > don't think the topic of violence in a learning setting is so
> > controversial.
> 
> Let's get a concrete definition of "violence" and I think the
> disagreement will fade right out.
> 
> Would a game like pacman count? How about asteroids? Missile
> command? I'd probably feel good about a definition that could
> exclude missile command, that made me feel ill the first time I saw
> it.
> 
> What I'm uncomfortable with is a lack of definition, any activity
> that could expose a child to anything that anybody feels is too
> violent should be evicted, or at least chased off into a ghetto.
> 
> > There are little learning packages I know of that situate
> > themselves in a post-apocalyptic setting with as goal to murder as
> > many henchmen of Satan as possible.
> 
> I missed Doom, didn't know anything about it. Sounds like a good
> candidate for putting in a separate place from educational games for
> young children. Can we define any sort of objective criteria ---
> including "a majority of people expressing an opinion agree" (which
> Doom has certainly achieved here).
> 
> > And it's not so controversial politically, or socially.
> 
> Doom no, it appears. But:
> 
> > The only groups who would endorse a game like this that i can
> > think of would be the arms lobby and some extreme Christian sects.
> 
> It's folks in extreme [religion] sects, and other "my beliefs win,
> agree or die" types that worry me the most.
> 
> > I don't want to generalize but amongst a number of nay-sayers I sense
> > a strong cencorship fear, while I just see a pragmatic decision to not
> > include war material in an education project.
> 
> Can we get a concrete definition of "war material"?
> 
> It's not censorship, OLPC owns this microphone, they get to decide
> how it's used. I'm not saying Doom belongs on the same page as
> SimCity and Speak. Given your above description it shouldn't. I'm
> asking for _some_ kind of line between the two. The recent DVD
> release of the first season of Sesame Street warns that it isn't
> appropriate for young children. That creeps me out.
> 
> How do we define the line between Doom and SpaceWars?
> 
> I see the Activities page currently requests no "strongly violent"
> games. Is that clear enough?
> 
> -Bennett
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