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

[Mike Hahn]

Hi all,

I feel that someone at OLPC should determine whether every game and every XO
app on the OLPC web site is politically correct. By that I mean that the app
is NOT violent, sexist, homophobic, racist, containing sexual content
inappropriate for kids, or discriminating against those who are marginalized
by society.

As you know, OLPC is a non-profit organization that helps those who are
marginalized (children in developing countries). I used to work for another
non-profit that works with those who are marginalized (low-income people),
and I now do volunteer work there. Both of those organizations need to
"filter out" politically incorrect ideas and behaviour.

This is how I propose to deal with politically incorrect XO apps on the OLPC
web site. All of these apps are linked to on a parallel web site meant just
for these types of XO apps. Somewhere on the main OLPC web site is a link to
this parallel web site, and when clicked on, a warning message pops up
informing the user that he or she is entering politically incorrect
territory, and that he or she may encounter XO apps which are violent,
sexist, homophobic, racist, contain sexual content inappropriate for kids,
or discriminate against those who are marginalized by society.

BTW I myself am to some extent marginalized by society, as I am a person
with mental health issues (depression). My own OLPC-compatible project
(Treenimation) is a game creation system, and I plan to use the same
strategy I have mentioned above to filter out politically incorrect games on
my own www.treenimation.net web site. I am currently having fun learning
Python (I use Delphi in my day job).

Regards,

Mike Hahn

-----Original Message-----
From: games-bounces at lists.laptop.org [mailto:games-bounces at lists.laptop.org]
On Behalf Of Richard Vegh
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 01:10 PM
To: Games for the OLPC
Subject: Re: [OLPC-Games] Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

Although I sense that all sides seem to be relatively entrenched in their
views, my personal reasoning in support of including the software in
question hasn't been expressed.

I would support inclusion of the software on the principle that almost any
software or even content could be objectional for reasons that make sense to
a particular constituency -- reasons not shared by others. For example,
suppose that a particular constituency, perhaps a country's education
ministry participating in the OLPC project, objected to a certain
educational-intentioned piece of software that presented a version of
history that is contrary to a government's official position. At that point,
the issue is more clearly a case of censorship, however not one that OLPC is
in any position to overtly oppose.

To offer a possible compromise which incorporates an idea already suggested,
each member country or constituency might have its own wiki page that
automatically includes updates from a main wiki page once they have been
accepted by a moderator or group of moderators. The main resource need not
be linked to by a the group concerned. I think OLPC would be open to
extending the wiki in this manner... Resources offered should reflect local
needs as a rule, as I believe I have read elsewhere in OLPC principles.

This ought to meet the objectives of, for instance, constituencies that
favor non-violence in all content (a view I am highly sympathetic
toward!) offering sanctioned material while still allowing access to the
wider universe of all resources available to the wider OLPC community
without a great deal of effort, thereby meeting the objectives of those
opposed in principle to anything resembling censorship.

I am also biased toward acceptance of the Doom program, specifically; the
Doom engine is by no means limited to violent games, represents an
innovation for its time, and the argument that alternatives may be made
(even utilizing the Doom engine itself) seems reasonable to me.

Respectfully,

Richard Vegh
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