[Olpc-open] Suggestion for Terms of Use for content

[Bryan Berry]

I immensely admire the Scratch website as a space for collaboration for
kids and adults. I suggest OLPC seriously consider adopting these same
terms of use for the wiki and other official OLPC sites.


Scratch Terms of Use  http://scratch.mit.edu/terms

As part of the Scratch community, you are sharing projects and ideas
with people:
• from many different countries and cultures
• of all ages (from young children to teens and grandparents)
• with all levels of experience

We need your help to make this community a supportive place for every
member. Here's how you can help:

Be respectful. When sharing projects, remember that people of many
different ages and backgrounds will see your creations.

Offer constructive comments. Instead of just criticizing a project, say
what you like about it and offer suggestions on how to make it better.

Give credit. Feel free to make modified versions of other people's
projects - just make sure to give them credit. One place to give credit
is in your Project Notes.

Help keep the site safe. If you feel others would find a project mean,
insulting, too violent, or otherwise inappropriate, click the link from
that page: "Flag as inappropriate." (The Scratch team will review, and
may remove any project or comments.)


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I think it would be great for OLPC to put together a team to
periodically review content tagged as inappropriate. This group should
include teachers and women (who could be teachers :) not be solely
composed of male software developers or pseudo-developers like myself. 

Perhaps it would be good to set up a site like www.xohacker.org where
people could post their free clones of Grand Theft Auto or Leisure Suit
Larry. This would give people the freedom to do what they want and
maintain a safe environment for kids w/in the OLPC activities pages.
Frankly, I myself like violent games but I respect that they bother a
lot of people, particularly teachers and parents I work w/.

I will try to contact John Maloney of the Scratch team and find out what
particular procedures they have for reviewing content.

BTW, I really like ScratchR community site and think it is a great
option for hosting the activities. 
http://scratch.mit.edu/scratchr

-- 
Bryan W. Berry
External Relations Manager
OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org