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

Jameson "Chema" Quinn jquinn at cs.oberlin.edu
Thu Jan 17 17:59:03 EST 2008


Oops - I have to stop using that 'reply' button in gmail. This was meant to
go to the list in general, the first half is now obsolete (except to make me
look like a fool) because Antoine responded, but the second half is still
valid.


> 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.


Sorry. Here in Guatemala, I have second-degree relatives (first-degree to my
wife) who were tortured and third-degree relatives who were killed. And if
my wife were to hear me say that, she would be angry, because when you live
in a dirty-war zone, where calling names can get people killed, you get a
different attitude to security and information. Responding to a call for
empathy towards a population we all agree exists, with prying individual
questions, should be rethought, not answered.

Just my opinion.

Back on topic:

This is an opportunity for two-birds-with-one-stone. The structure of a
wiki, and the programming principle of SPOT/DRY (don't repeat yourself)
means that one big list of activities is the natural state of things. Yet
the activity list is too long, and there are some activities in there which,
for all kinds of different reasons, should not be in our public face. One
solution:

1. one big list with everything, in sections, using templates to list each
activity.
2. A field or fields in the template which say whether the activity should
be generally advertised.
3. General guidelines of what fits (works, open source, no graphic violence
or sex?)
4. A public-facing page which just includes the big list of everything
5. Mediawiki magic using functions and variables to hide inappropriate
activities from the public-facing page.

This is possible. It is a programming effort. I am volunteering to do one
third of the work, that is, to share responsibility for getting this done if
any other person or people claim they'll do 2/3ds or more.
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