Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Jeffrey Kesselman]

Gotta get rid of those horrible war simulations like chess

Some people just need lives.


On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 5:01 PM, Martin Langhoff
wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 2:55 AM, Paul Mclean  wrote:
> > What about Sid Meier's Civilization?
>
> Flamefests again? Please enjoy reading the archive...
>
>
>
> m
> --
>  martin.langh...@gmail.com
>  mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect
>  - ask interesting questions
>  - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
>  - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Martin Langhoff]

On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 2:55 AM, Paul Mclean  wrote:
> What about Sid Meier's Civilization?

Flamefests again? Please enjoy reading the archive...



m
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Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Paul Mclean]

What about Sid Meier's Civilization?

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[ADMIN] end of thread (was: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page)

[Ivan Krstić]

This thread is _entirely_ inappropriate for the development list,  
should never have been started on the development list, and in general  
makes me want to slam my head against the wall until it goes away (the  
thread, the wall, or the head). Please respect the Reply-To header and  
move all followup discussion to the open list; devel@ has a well- 
defined purpose, and this thread does not fit.

Lovingly,
your devel@ list admin.

--
Ivan Krstić <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | http://radian.org

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Bennett Todd]

2008-01-19T02:40:02 Brad Paulsen:
> My advice to OLPC is to get out of the content business in any
> way, shape or form as quickly as your little green computer can
> carry you.

They (I've gotta refrain from saying "we" here, my heart's there but
I'm just someone so lucky his wife gave me a G1G1 for christmas) are
positively, unavoidably in the content business. Without enough
Activities in the built-in image to bootstrap experimentation,
discovery, and creation it's just an appliance, not an educational
tool. So they're delivering a very carefully managed set of built-in
Activities, and that's content.

Where things get exciting is the link, built into the Browse default
start page shipped with the image, to
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities>. The stuff linked off
that page certainly isn't OLPC-shipped content --- but that direct
link ties it closer to the project than the normal breadth of the
internet.

Nothing worrisome will go into the image; it appears that the
official OLPC team doesn't have the usual proportion of ... less
than helpful folk.

We can't censor the internet.

There's reasonable grounds for being careful about activities on the
page directly linked from the wired-in home of Browse, both in terms
of the children and the media. It's not the image, but thanks to
that direct link it is also not the breadth of the internet.

I'm a chicken, I'll freely admit it. I find myself taking a
contrarian position here, relative to my heart-felt views. I hope to
lose.

-Bennett


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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Bennett Todd]

Look, a big part of my heart is dead centered with those who want to
entirely avoid any sort of pre-judgement of Activities at all.

But I've got a question. What's the youngest target age OLPC is
shooting for, for kids to get these lovely gizmos?

http://wiki.laptop.net/go/Activities is _Special_. The first time
they fire up Browse on their glorious new companion, lookie, there's
a link that takes them straight there.

That link is shipped with the OLPC image (unless G1G1s are different
from real ones here?). And that implicity makes it a place whose
content _appears_, no matter how we disclaim, to be a part of the
OLPC "product offering". I'm really loathe to argue that such a page
is an appropriate place to press for my non-currently-mainstream,
not-politically-correct views to be expressed. It wouldn't take too
much idiotic media hoo-haa to inflict a taint on the project.

So I'm deliberately taking a position here that isn't really where
my heart lies, because I fear that in the constraints of the real
world as [largely, in the US, where OLPC comes from] the media
creates and defines it, this is sadly a wise place to forget the
personal values and yield partially to a more politically-correct
posture.

I'm not retracting anything I said before, I'm glad this discussion
has evolved towards ideas for practical tagging and classification
and controlled presentation. And for sure, let 'em at the internet
unsupervised and they get absolutely whatever they feel like, P.C.
or not. But http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities is in practice, or
at least in perception, part of the product since Browse always
starts with a direct link there. That changes things.

-Bennett


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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Edward Cherlin]

On Jan 18, 2008 1:58 AM, Antoine van Gelder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Edward Cherlin wrote:
> > On Jan 18, 2008 1:06 AM, Antoine van Gelder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> Edward Cherlin wrote:
> >>> I was in the hills north of Seoul, Korea, in 1968
> >>
> >> Mr Cherlin - with much respect to your service in Korea (I have friends
> >> who also served) but may I ask you to please consider the possibility
> >> that your experience as an armed, trained and well-supplied soldier was
> >> not the same experience as that had by civilians caught in the crossfire
> >> of armies ?
> >
> > Mr. van Gelder, I respectfully request that you read my message, over
> > and over if necessary, until you understand the severity of your
> > egregious and insulting error. Then apologize, not just to me, but to
> > the others on this list who have had it far worse, and are even more
> > fed up than I am with those whose ignorance and lack of imagination
> > causes them such pain.
> >
> > The rest of you, no spoilers. He has to make this discovery himself
> > for it to take.
> >
> > And to think that hummingbirds are the messengers of the Gods in Mayan
> > mythology.
>
>
>
> Ed - look...
>
> Unless I'm completely misreading you, you are arguing on the basis of
> your experience as a soldier that Children need to be exposed to
> violence lest their naivety be taken advantage of by monsters.

Yes, you completely misread me. I have never been a soldier. Now go
back to the message you replied to, and find the clues. They aren't
hidden.

> This is a valid point of view.
>
> I let my own children play the Harry Potter games and Starcraft etc.
> etc. (and yes, when they are older Quake or whatever other waste of GPU
> cycles Id has come up with by then) to their heart's content because of
> that very reason.

Excellent. We agree completely on this principle.

> BUT
>
> The thing which I am trying to point out is that on the continent on
> which I live children are _already_ on the receiving end of violence
> with the result that their needs are different to the needs of my children.

I simply propose that we put it to them, and hear what *they* have to
say about the matter. We have no business trying to arrogate to
ourselves the right to make decisions for them.

> Or to put it yet another way:
>
> South Africa is still deeply fractured along racial and economic lines.
>
> Less than ten minutes from my children's school is a predominantly poor
> community. The children in this community have daily experiences of
> drive-by shootings, sexual abuse, rampant crystal meth and alcohol
> addiction, gang warfare and other such pleasantly formative experiences.
>
> Now in my children's school, there are a small amount of children from
> that community.
>
> With a result, that I can guarantee you that if ANY parent at my kid's
> school were to start arguing that the school should install Doom on the
> media center's computers that I would oppose them in any way I can.

To my knowledge, nobody here has argued for putting Doom on school
servers. That is a strawman argument, as I am sure you have been
taught. We are talking about how to list entirely optional software on
the OLPC site.

> Sure - if we were to make these kinds of decisions on the basis of a
> majority then _clearly_ there are more kids at the school who would
> learn from Doom than kids who would be traumatized by Doom.

Majority? Where does that nonsense come from? These are *individual* decisions.

> I would hope however that such a decision would rather be made on the
> basis of common sense.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age
eighteen."--Albert Einstein

Common sense, if it existed, would be the sense which we hold in
common. We don't. Certainly not you and I.

>   - the messenger of the gods

If you are going to start with us on that track, you can go back to
the Mayan Hell where you came from and tell your Demon Snake Lord
Hapikorn I said so. %-[

-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Edward Cherlin]

On Jan 18, 2008 12:58 PM, Jeffrey Kesselman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Jan 18, 2008 6:17 AM, Chris Hager <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Chris Hager wrote:
> > > Noah Kantrowitz wrote:
> > >
> > >> I don't see why breaking this up by tags (some of which can be things 
> > >> like "PG13") isn't a good enough solution. We all know kids will seek 
> > >> this stuff out no matter what, lets at least do it in a controlled way.

None of these rating systems is any good. Where's the category for
stuff that is suitable for children but not for adults? I'm quite
serious about this. (Adults in this context means those who cannot
remember or imagine how it is for children. It has nothing to do with
age.)

> > > The MPAA uses those ratings: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PG13#Ratings)
> > >
> > > - G (General Audience - all ages admitted)
> > > - PG(Parental guidance suggested - might not be suitable for 
> > > children))
> > > - PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned - might be inappropriate for < 13 
> > > years)
> > > - R (Restricted - < 17 years requires parent or adult guardian)
> > > - NC-17 (No children under 17)
> > >
> > > Basically, we could introduce this ratings as tags on [[Activities]].
> > > Xo-get could list only 'G'-rated Activities by default, and users can
> > > then 'enable' all other somewhere in the application (preferences, ...).
> > >
> >
> > Or perhaps a bit lighther version:
> >
> > - G  (General Audience) (without tag)
> > - M  (Mature material, not recommendet for people under ... years of age)
>
> Coming up with ratings is relatively easy.  The ESRB already has a
> system you can use if
> you want.
>
> http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp
>
> Deciding who gets to decide how they are assigned... thats harder.
>
> JK
>
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Edward Cherlin]

On Jan 18, 2008 10:45 AM, Antoine van Gelder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Jeffrey Kesselman wrote:
> > I;m sorry... but your accusing the folks whoa re against censorship of
> > talking in abstracts?
>
>
> Straw man. [1]

Aha! You do know what that means. Sort of. You just don't understand
it. Ask me offline if you want clarification.

> You accuse me of accusing folk who are against censorship of talking
> abstract and then because censorship is bad you claim that my point is
> invalid.
>
> I am not advocating censorship.
>
>   - antoine
>
>
>
> [1] http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html
>
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Brad Paulsen]

Beg Disclaimer

Jeffrey, I'm replying to your message because it was the latest one in the 
thread when I retrieved my 120 OLPC mailing list message today (actually, 
that comes from several OLPC mailing lists, but devel seems to have the most 
traffic on any given day).  So, what I say here is not a reply to you 
personally.

End Disclaimer

I think the direction this thread is taking is completely the wrong way to 
go about things.  OLPC should be in the business of delivering a platform 
and productivity tools (e.g., word processor, paint program, etc.).  It 
should NOT be in the business of distributing content.  ANY content.  Tools 
to build content, definitely (EToys, pyGames, et al.).  But NOT the content 
itself.

If you folks think this little dust-up over violent games is a big deal, 
just wait until the creationists, the scientologists and the new-Nazis 
discover the XO.  If you take a look at some of the stuff on YouTube 
criticizing the very purpose and legitimacy of the OLPC project itself, you 
will know that we are going to have enough trouble just defending the 
platform and the tools.  $200 USD can by a lot of rice for starving children 
and there is no shortage of people out there right now trying to brand the 
OLPC project as another elitist wet dream.

My advice to OLPC is to get out of the content business in any way, shape or 
form as quickly as your little green computer can carry you.  You don't have 
to worry about the XO not having enough educational content.  Many people 
not affiliated with OLPC will be developing content for this platform. 
Then, let the recipients of the machines make the content decisions using 
their own, local standards.

Cheers,

Brad

- Original Message - 
From: "Jeffrey Kesselman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Chris Hager" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "OLPC Development" 
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page


> On Jan 18, 2008 6:17 AM, Chris Hager <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Chris Hager wrote:
>> > Noah Kantrowitz wrote:
>> >
>> >> I don't see why breaking this up by tags (some of which can be things 
>> >> like "PG13") isn't a good enough solution. We all know kids will seek 
>> >> this stuff out no matter what, lets at least do it in a controlled 
>> >> way.
>> >>
>> >>
>> > The MPAA uses those ratings: 
>> > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PG13#Ratings)
>> >
>> > - G (General Audience - all ages admitted)
>> > - PG(Parental guidance suggested - might not be suitable for 
>> > children))
>> > - PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned - might be inappropriate for < 13 
>> > years)
>> > - R (Restricted - < 17 years requires parent or adult guardian)
>> > - NC-17 (No children under 17)
>> >
>> > Basically, we could introduce this ratings as tags on [[Activities]].
>> > Xo-get could list only 'G'-rated Activities by default, and users can
>> > then 'enable' all other somewhere in the application (preferences, 
>> > ...).
>> >
>>
>> Or perhaps a bit lighther version:
>>
>> - G  (General Audience) (without tag)
>> - M  (Mature material, not recommendet for people under ... years of age)
>
> Coming up with ratings is relatively easy.  The ESRB already has a
> system you can use if
> you want.
>
> http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp
>
> Deciding who gets to decide how they are assigned... thats harder.
>
> JK
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Jeffrey Kesselman]

On Jan 18, 2008 6:17 AM, Chris Hager <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Chris Hager wrote:
> > Noah Kantrowitz wrote:
> >
> >> I don't see why breaking this up by tags (some of which can be things like 
> >> "PG13") isn't a good enough solution. We all know kids will seek this 
> >> stuff out no matter what, lets at least do it in a controlled way.
> >>
> >>
> > The MPAA uses those ratings: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PG13#Ratings)
> >
> > - G (General Audience - all ages admitted)
> > - PG(Parental guidance suggested - might not be suitable for children))
> > - PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned - might be inappropriate for < 13 years)
> > - R (Restricted - < 17 years requires parent or adult guardian)
> > - NC-17 (No children under 17)
> >
> > Basically, we could introduce this ratings as tags on [[Activities]].
> > Xo-get could list only 'G'-rated Activities by default, and users can
> > then 'enable' all other somewhere in the application (preferences, ...).
> >
>
> Or perhaps a bit lighther version:
>
> - G  (General Audience) (without tag)
> - M  (Mature material, not recommendet for people under ... years of age)

Coming up with ratings is relatively easy.  The ESRB already has a
system you can use if
you want.

http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp

Deciding who gets to decide how they are assigned... thats harder.

JK
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

Jeffrey Kesselman wrote:
> I;m sorry... but your accusing the folks whoa re against censorship of
> talking in abstracts?


Straw man. [1]

You accuse me of accusing folk who are against censorship of talking 
abstract and then because censorship is bad you claim that my point is 
invalid.

I am not advocating censorship.

  - antoine



[1] http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Jameson "Chema" Quinn]

>
> Finally, any suggestions about how to extent, augment, or replace
> Media Wiki with tools to make these sorts of things easier for the
> community to manage would be appreciated.
>

There are several mediaWiki extensions that might help:
1. You could do an evil hack using the well-tested PageFunctions (for
variables declared at the top of an including page) and ParserFunctions (for
using in templates that can hide themselves depending on the variable
values). This would involve significant, hard-to-maintain work for each new
slice view you wanted to implement. However, if all views were just a series
of subsets of the 'all' view (all, unproblematic, core), this would not be
too hard, and populating it could be done by anyone able to copy and edit
wiki templates.
2. The WikiDB extension [1] appears to be precisely, exactly what is wanted
here. From quickly browsing its homesite, it appears to be working, but
possibly too buggy to slap onto a wiki as large as the OLPC one.
Significantly, it does not guarantee that the databases it creates will stay
in sync under rarer operations (restoring deleted pages...), nor does it
appear at first to have a way to regenerate its databases if they do get
hosed. Go have a look if you're interested and tell us what you think.
3. Semantic mediawiki is a heavyweight replacement version of Mediawiki with
some tools that, while they are not precisely what we want, would work for
this issue. Probably overkill.

[1] http://www.kennel17.co.uk/testwiki/WikiDB
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Jeffrey Kesselman]

On Jan 18, 2008 4:06 AM, Antoine van Gelder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Jeffrey Kesselman wrote:

> The fundamental flaw in this line of reasoning Jeffrey... and this is a
> flaw which any sophomore would have been able to spot in the days when
> they still taught logic and critical reasoning skills at American
> universities is this:
>
>
> -> Putting violent arcade games in an educational resource violates the
> right to spiritual and emotional recovery for nations that are in the
> process of recovering from war.

JFHC.

I;m sorry... but your accusing the folks whoa re against censorship of
talking in abstracts?

What IS the "the right to spiritual and emotional recovery for nations
that are in the
 process of recovering from war" ??

Part of the geneva coinvention I missed somewhere?

Can we PLEASE lay off the empty propaganda phrases and discuss this
like adults??

Censorship denies others "the spiritual and emotional right to chose
what they experience,
how and why, for themselves".

See?  I can do it to.  Doesn't mean anything at all, but I can do it.

I'm going to go take a stress pill now.  Propaganda does that to me.

JK
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Walter Bender]

It seems that there are three ideas that have so far emerged form this
discussion: tags, "favorites" lists, and need for a better back end
than the wiki currently supplies to support search, sort, etc.

As SJ pointed out very early on in the thread, there is a page in the
wiki (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activity_guidelines) that is dedicated
to the definition of criteria by which activities can be assessed.
Please help us expand/refine the list and perhaps cross reference the
list with existing tag systems.

It'd be great to generate some pages in the Activities page hierarchy
that include slices through the activity list that are appropriate to
different contexts, e.g., my favorites, etc.

Finally, any suggestions about how to extent, augment, or replace
Media Wiki with tools to make these sorts of things easier for the
community to manage would be appreciated.

-walter
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Chris Hager]

Chris Hager wrote:
> Noah Kantrowitz wrote:
>   
>> I don't see why breaking this up by tags (some of which can be things like 
>> "PG13") isn't a good enough solution. We all know kids will seek this stuff 
>> out no matter what, lets at least do it in a controlled way.
>>   
>> 
> The MPAA uses those ratings: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PG13#Ratings)
>
> - G (General Audience - all ages admitted)
> - PG(Parental guidance suggested - might not be suitable for children))
> - PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned - might be inappropriate for < 13 years)
> - R (Restricted - < 17 years requires parent or adult guardian)
> - NC-17 (No children under 17)
>
> Basically, we could introduce this ratings as tags on [[Activities]]. 
> Xo-get could list only 'G'-rated Activities by default, and users can 
> then 'enable' all other somewhere in the application (preferences, ...).
>   

Or perhaps a bit lighther version:

- G  (General Audience) (without tag)
- M  (Mature material, not recommendet for people under ... years of age)

Is there a need for more than those two ratings right now?

For xo-get, it would be nice to make it into a tag like R:[Rating], for 
example R:M for M-rated Activities. And we might suppose, Activities 
without rating-tags are 'G'-rated.

Chris
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Chris Hager]

Noah Kantrowitz wrote:
> I don't see why breaking this up by tags (some of which can be things like 
> "PG13") isn't a good enough solution. We all know kids will seek this stuff 
> out no matter what, lets at least do it in a controlled way.
>   
The MPAA uses those ratings: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PG13#Ratings)

- G (General Audience - all ages admitted)
- PG(Parental guidance suggested - might not be suitable for children))
- PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned - might be inappropriate for < 13 years)
- R (Restricted - < 17 years requires parent or adult guardian)
- NC-17 (No children under 17)

Basically, we could introduce this ratings as tags on [[Activities]]. 
Xo-get could list only 'G'-rated Activities by default, and users can 
then 'enable' all other somewhere in the application (preferences, ...).

Chris

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

Edward Cherlin wrote:
> Mr. van Gelder, I respectfully request that you read my message, over
> and over if necessary, until you understand the severity of your
> egregious and insulting error. Then apologize, not just to me, but to
> the others on this list who have had it far worse, and are even more
> fed up than I am with those whose ignorance and lack of imagination
> causes them such pain.


My apologies Mr Cherlin and to the others on this list.

I jumped to a conclusion regarding the purpose of Mr Cherlin's presence 
in South Korea which was entirely and completely erroneous.

  - antoine


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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Hal Murray]

> What part of this do you not understand ?

Why we are still painting this bike shed.



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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

Albert Cahalan wrote:
> On Jan 18, 2008 4:06 AM, Antoine van Gelder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Albert Cahalan wrote:
>>> Sorry to hear about your war.
>> Attitudes such as this sir, is the reason that America is viewed by many
>> nations as a belligerent and imperialistic monster.
> 
> I'm sure you misinterpreted me. Maybe you thought
> I was being sarcastic; I was not.


My apologies Albert.

I was upset and jumped to conclusions.

  - antoine
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

Jameson "Chema" Quinn wrote:
> Wasn't it the Nazi's who first used censorship? On the other hand, 
> people who died in Nazi concentration camps have unanimously refused to 
> play Doom.


/me invokes Godwin's law.


  - antoine
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

Jameson "Chema" Quinn wrote:
> Wasn't it the Nazi's who first used censorship? On the other hand, 
> people who died in Nazi concentration camps have unanimously refused to 
> play Doom.


/me invokes Godwin's law.

Good call.

  - antoine
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

I wrote:

> > The fundamental flaw in this line of reasoning Jeffrey... and this is a
> > flaw which any sophomore would have been able to spot in the days when
> > they still taught logic and critical reasoning skills at American
> > universities is this:


Edward Cherlin wrote:

> Antoine, you are turning this into an rwar. This is an ad hominem
> attack, as I'm sure they taught you. Stop it.


My apologies Jeffrey, Edward is correct.

It makes me angry to hear a person throw around words like 'censor' or 
'freedom of speech' when those rights are not being threatened.

Censorship is the suppression or deletion of material, which may be 
considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor.

Asking for material which could be traumatic to kids & communities who 
have not have the good fortune to be born in a country that has 
experienced unparalleled levels of peace and economic prosperity to be 
kept off-site is neither suppression nor deletion.


> Treatment for PTSD requires gradually easing the stress to the point
> where the victim can stand to think about what happened without
> bringing it back. And about every other kind of violence, real or
> fictitious. They have to get to the point where they could play these
> games.


Yes, they _do_ have to get to that point.

But surely in a therapeutic setting ?


> You, sir. I fail to understand what bee you have in your bonnet.


I see the river of dreams running red with the blood of children.

  - antoine
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Noah Kantrowitz]

On Jan 18, 2008, at 4:58 AM, Antoine van Gelder wrote:
>
>
> With a result, that I can guarantee you that if ANY parent at my kid's
> school were to start arguing that the school should install Doom on  
> the
> media center's computers that I would oppose them in any way I can.

No one is coming even remotely close to saying that these kind of  
potentially offensive or harmful activities/content should be there by  
default, what is being said is we shouldn't pretend it doesn't exist.  
If someone wants it, it will be right there in the list, with a nice  
little description that makes no false projections as to what is  
contained.

It comes down to what OLPC's job in this is. Are we simply chronicling  
what content is out there, or are we actively pushing certain content  
and curtailing others. I think both have a place, and a wiki page with  
links to a small collection of high-quality educational content would  
be a great addition to the wiki. However a page called "Activities"  
should contain all activities, or needs to be renamed.

--Noah
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

Edward Cherlin wrote:
> On Jan 18, 2008 1:06 AM, Antoine van Gelder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Edward Cherlin wrote:
>>> I was in the hills north of Seoul, Korea, in 1968
>>
>> Mr Cherlin - with much respect to your service in Korea (I have friends
>> who also served) but may I ask you to please consider the possibility
>> that your experience as an armed, trained and well-supplied soldier was
>> not the same experience as that had by civilians caught in the crossfire
>> of armies ?
> 
> Mr. van Gelder, I respectfully request that you read my message, over
> and over if necessary, until you understand the severity of your
> egregious and insulting error. Then apologize, not just to me, but to
> the others on this list who have had it far worse, and are even more
> fed up than I am with those whose ignorance and lack of imagination
> causes them such pain.
> 
> The rest of you, no spoilers. He has to make this discovery himself
> for it to take.
> 
> And to think that hummingbirds are the messengers of the Gods in Mayan
> mythology.



Ed - look...

Unless I'm completely misreading you, you are arguing on the basis of 
your experience as a soldier that Children need to be exposed to 
violence lest their naivety be taken advantage of by monsters.

This is a valid point of view.

I let my own children play the Harry Potter games and Starcraft etc. 
etc. (and yes, when they are older Quake or whatever other waste of GPU 
cycles Id has come up with by then) to their heart's content because of 
that very reason.

BUT

The thing which I am trying to point out is that on the continent on 
which I live children are _already_ on the receiving end of violence 
with the result that their needs are different to the needs of my children.

Or to put it yet another way:

South Africa is still deeply fractured along racial and economic lines.

Less than ten minutes from my children's school is a predominantly poor 
community. The children in this community have daily experiences of 
drive-by shootings, sexual abuse, rampant crystal meth and alcohol 
addiction, gang warfare and other such pleasantly formative experiences.

Now in my children's school, there are a small amount of children from 
that community.

With a result, that I can guarantee you that if ANY parent at my kid's 
school were to start arguing that the school should install Doom on the 
media center's computers that I would oppose them in any way I can.

Sure - if we were to make these kinds of decisions on the basis of a 
majority then _clearly_ there are more kids at the school who would 
learn from Doom than kids who would be traumatized by Doom.

I would hope however that such a decision would rather be made on the 
basis of common sense.

  - the messenger of the gods



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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Jameson "Chema" Quinn]

Wasn't it the Nazi's who first used censorship? On the other hand, people
who died in Nazi concentration camps have unanimously refused to play Doom.

New thread please?
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Edward Cherlin]

On Jan 18, 2008 1:06 AM, Antoine van Gelder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Jeffrey Kesselman wrote:
> > My personal suggestion to the self-appointed censors is, if you don't
> > like the content it ships with, go create some you DONT find
> > objectionable to offer as an alternative.

Hear, hear.

> The fundamental flaw in this line of reasoning Jeffrey... and this is a
> flaw which any sophomore would have been able to spot in the days when
> they still taught logic and critical reasoning skills at American
> universities is this:

Antoine, you are turning this into an rwar. This is an ad hominem
attack, as I'm sure they taught you. Stop it.

> -> Putting violent arcade games in an educational resource

Which nobody here has suggested doing. We're talking about a list of
what exists, not about what anybody recommends, and certainly not
about what ships with the XO.

> violates the
> right to spiritual and emotional recovery for nations that are in the
> process of recovering from war.

Utterly false, just as in the case of violent movies such as Hotel Rwanda.

Treatment for PTSD requires gradually easing the stress to the point
where the victim can stand to think about what happened without
bringing it back. And about every other kind of violence, real or
fictitious. They have to get to the point where they could play these
games.

> -> Making lists of whatever entertainment resources you wish _OFF-SITE_
> does not violate anyone's freedom of speech nor their right to choose
> whatever type of drivel they wish to waste their time on.

I reject your motion to censor.

> What part of this do you not understand ?

You, sir. I fail to understand what bee you have in your bonnet.

>   - antoine
>
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Albert Cahalan]

On Jan 18, 2008 4:06 AM, Antoine van Gelder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Albert Cahalan wrote:
> > Sorry to hear about your war.
>
> Attitudes such as this sir, is the reason that America is viewed by many
> nations as a belligerent and imperialistic monster.

I'm sure you misinterpreted me. Maybe you thought
I was being sarcastic; I was not.

I do however mean to suggest that a problem in one
part of the world should not be used to justify restricting
things elsewhere. I have sympathy for the pain, but I
don't agree that this should impact those outside of
the region in question.

I also don't believe that all people affected by war
will be unable to enjoy DOOM. In any case, they
certainly won't be forced to install and run it.
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Edward Cherlin]

On Jan 18, 2008 1:06 AM, Antoine van Gelder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Edward Cherlin wrote:
> > I was in the hills north of Seoul, Korea, in 1968
>
>
> Mr Cherlin - with much respect to your service in Korea (I have friends
> who also served) but may I ask you to please consider the possibility
> that your experience as an armed, trained and well-supplied soldier was
> not the same experience as that had by civilians caught in the crossfire
> of armies ?

Mr. van Gelder, I respectfully request that you read my message, over
and over if necessary, until you understand the severity of your
egregious and insulting error. Then apologize, not just to me, but to
the others on this list who have had it far worse, and are even more
fed up than I am with those whose ignorance and lack of imagination
causes them such pain.

The rest of you, no spoilers. He has to make this discovery himself
for it to take.

And to think that hummingbirds are the messengers of the Gods in Mayan
mythology.

>   - antoine
>



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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

Edward Cherlin wrote:
> I was in the hills north of Seoul, Korea, in 1968 


Mr Cherlin - with much respect to your service in Korea (I have friends 
who also served) but may I ask you to please consider the possibility 
that your experience as an armed, trained and well-supplied soldier was 
not the same experience as that had by civilians caught in the crossfire 
of armies ?

  - antoine
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

Jeffrey Kesselman wrote:
> My personal suggestion to the self-appointed censors is, if you don't
> like the content it ships with, go create some you DONT find
> objectionable to offer as an alternative.


The fundamental flaw in this line of reasoning Jeffrey... and this is a 
flaw which any sophomore would have been able to spot in the days when 
they still taught logic and critical reasoning skills at American 
universities is this:


-> Putting violent arcade games in an educational resource violates the 
right to spiritual and emotional recovery for nations that are in the 
process of recovering from war.

-> Making lists of whatever entertainment resources you wish _OFF-SITE_ 
does not violate anyone's freedom of speech nor their right to choose 
whatever type of drivel they wish to waste their time on.


What part of this do you not understand ?


  - antoine
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

Albert Cahalan wrote:
> Sorry to hear about your war.


Attitudes such as this sir, is the reason that America is viewed by many 
nations as a belligerent and imperialistic monster.

It is not whether you can argue for the case that America is NOT a 
monster. It is the fact that she is _seen_ as such which should cause 
you pause to think.

  - a

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Bernardo Innocenti]

Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> On Jan 17, 2008, at 23:18 , Bernardo Innocenti wrote:
> 
>> Tom Hannen wrote:
>>> I disagree with the idea of censoring games based on violence.  I
>>> think that a warning at the top of any page should be sufficient.
>> While I agree with your your anti-censure POV, I think
>> the whole thread is moot as it's based on the assumption
>> of Doom II being a *violent* game.
> 
> You are not honestly suggesting that running around with a hand gun  
> and shooting and blood splashing and screaming is not violent? Even  
> the authors call one of their settings "ultra-violence".

Yeah, I remember the "ultra violence" slogan... lol!

These days we're used to a greater level of reality.
Old games, with their naive graphics and sound effects,
really fail to trigger much strong emotions.

For similar reasons, the future depicted in the original
Star Trek TV series just makes us smile now, and the
old Nosferatu horror movie is even ridiculous to see.

Look, I've been playing "violent" games on the C64 too,
such as this one:

  http://user.tninet.se/~lrv840n/platform/rygar2.gif

Can you imagine that Rygar was considered so violent in
1987 that in some countries they tried to ban it from
shops?

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Bert Freudenberg]

On Jan 17, 2008, at 23:18 , Bernardo Innocenti wrote:

> Tom Hannen wrote:
>> I disagree with the idea of censoring games based on violence.  I
>> think that a warning at the top of any page should be sufficient.
>
> While I agree with your your anti-censure POV, I think
> the whole thread is moot as it's based on the assumption
> of Doom II being a *violent* game.

You are not honestly suggesting that running around with a hand gun  
and shooting and blood splashing and screaming is not violent? Even  
the authors call one of their settings "ultra-violence".

- Bert -


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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Gordon Hopper]

All games in the PC Doom series were rated M (Mature) by the ESRB [1].
 This Doom is the first one in the series, and thus the least graphic
of the lot.  If we trust the ratings of the ESRB, then M means it is
not appropriate for children ages 5-16, who are the primary target
audience of the laptop [2].

Note that xo-get uses the Activities page as its list of activities.
Although I like having all the activities listed in one place, I don't
want it to be that easy for my children to install Mature content.  I
would suggest to move Doom to an Activities/Mature page, but then
again, I fear that creating such a page would invite much worse
content.

On the other hand, the doom that is on the activities page is not
*exactly* the same doom that was released by ID and rated by the ESRB.
 (The game engine is compatible, but the levels are different.)  I
don't think the ESRB can officially rate open source software.

> I don't see why breaking this up by tags (some of which can
> be things like "PG13") isn't a good enough solution.

A rating tag is a good step.  (Although I suspect there will be
intense arguments about various ratings, and the rating system).  At
least with ratings, children know what to expect before they download
an activity.

Gordon

[1] http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp
[2] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Target_Audience
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Jeffrey Kesselman]

2008/1/17 Bennett Todd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> 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.

here here.  And this was my first complaint.

My second however though is more basic.

Those attacking the messenger by accusing those of us who dont want to knee
jerk censor "violence" with insensitivity could frankly use some
sensitivity lessons themselves.

Now, lets try to have a discussion not a propaganda war, okay? (Ad
hominem attack is a PRIME element of propaganda.)

The fact of the matter is that people all over the world have had
traumatic experiences with
all sorts of different things.  I don't think it is or should be the
mission of the OLPC
to try to protect them  from themselves and what they might decide to
expose themselves to.

Parents.  Absolutely.  No child of mine will be using an OLPC
un-monitored.  It doesn't take spending very long on the internet for
one to realize there are all sorts of things on it a child shouldn't
be exposed to at the wrong development point.

Educators, again absolutely.

If there is really such a culture wide trauma that a government wants
to, well, then maybe that too.  (Germany for instance until fairly
recently in history outright outlawed any mention of the Nazis.  In
that case, sure, let them take an axe to  the encyclopedias and
whatever on the OLPCs they might chose to distribute.)

But the OLPC organization is NONE of these and does ALL of these
others a disservice when it choses to start playing "in loco
parentis."

Once... whne dinosaurs roamed the earth, I was a college sophamore.
And back then I believed in the sophomoric notion that laws should
protect people from themselves.  I've learned a lot better since then.

"Those who are willing to sacrifice freedom for safety, deserve
neither."  --Benjamin Franklin


>
> 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.

On a content level, sure.  And its dfinitely not a "young childrens" activity.

OTOH the DOOM engine represents some *extremely* clever graphics
programming on limited hardware and as a programmign example is
something kids can learn
a lot from.

My personal suggestion to the self-appointed censors is, if you don't
like the content it ships with, go create some you DONT find
objectionable to offer as an alternative.

.
>
> > And it's not so controversial politically, or socially.
>
> Doom no, it appears. But:

Well Ill stand apart and say I think, given what we ship to other
countries otu of Hollywood, its ABSURD to be worrying about the level
of violence in DOOM.

>
> > 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.

Wrong.  Im neither.

>
> It's folks in extreme [religion] sects, and other "my beliefs win,
> agree or die" types that worry me the most.

Uh huh.  And "violence is inherently wrong and evil and we must
protect other people's children from it" is really just such a
religious belief.

>
> > 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.

War?  Where is there a War  in DOOM?  I'd classify DOOM closer to
Horror/Survival to be honest.

And if were "not going to include war material in an education
project" does that mean no history texts?  Cause they are full of
wars...

>
> 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?

I really want to know why we are singling out "strongly violent" as if
its the only message you should worry about your child getting.

Wha

Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Bernardo Innocenti]

Tom Hannen wrote:
> I disagree with the idea of censoring games based on violence.  I
> think that a warning at the top of any page should be sufficient.

While I agree with your your anti-censure POV, I think
the whole thread is moot as it's based on the assumption
of Doom II being a *violent* game.

People have clearly forgot what Doom II used to look like:

  http://images.google.com/images?q=doom+II

Spooky, maybe?  Bah.  Compared to modern 3D graphics,
it could just be described as pathetic by any non-geek
observer.


> Games are just another form of creativity...  Should we also remove
> any links to violence in books and artwork, within Wikibrowse for
> example?

I suggest we also take off my XaoS activity, because its name
could hint at anarchic ideas and corrupt the young minds of
our users :-)

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Noah Kantrowitz]

On Jan 17, 2008, at 7:36 PM, Arnd Bergmann wrote:

> On Friday 18 January 2008, Edward Cherlin wrote:
>> I see no point in OLPC
>> arguing with either governments or families about their rights in
>> these matters. Others may wish to, but that is no part of the  
>> question
>> before us.
>
> I think this is exactly the point. Distributing violent games to
> minors is a violation of the law in many countries, so you just can't
> do it unless you start adding filters by IP-address or similar.

Like I said before, if you (where "you" can mean any body up to and  
including a government) do not want your children to find (violence| 
porn|etc) do not let them anywhere near a computer. It just won't  
work, kids are remarkably good at finding ways to do exactly what  
their elders tell them not to.

I would never try to claim that we should force things like Doom or  
sex ed books into the standard software image, legal or not. What we  
are talking about is the closest thing we have to an official  
aggregation point for 3rd party software. I don't see why breaking  
this up by tags (some of which can be things like "PG13") isn't a good  
enough solution. We all know kids will seek this stuff out no matter  
what, lets at least do it in a controlled way.

Another things worth mentioning is that while OLPC is an education  
project, games and play can be a big part of that. Doom is still  
talked about today precisely because of how enjoyable a game  
experience it is. I won't try to argue the violence-in-games-leads-to- 
violence-in-real-life case either way, but suffice to say that the  
jury is very far out.

--Noah
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Albert Cahalan]

Bryan Berry writes:

> 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.

OLPC is not shipping DOOM. That really ought to put an end to
things right then and there. OLPC is **not** shipping DOOM.
You're referring to a simple list of all activities. Many of
the activities aren't even working; the list covers **all**.

Sorry to hear about your war.

Games like DOOM provide a powerful incentive to learn subjects
like geometry and physics; the teaching is done elsewhere.
I happen to have a brother who would not have bothered to study
these subjects except that he had an intense desire to learn
how to make video games like the ones he'd been playing. Games
like DOOM set him on a path to learn about coordinate transforms,
linear algebra, computing efficiency, and so on. I wouldn't want
to deny that to any child.

> 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.

On a mainly development-oriented wiki, we certainly don't.
I suggest that you start a wiki in Nepal, with mirrors of
the activities you like best.

I notice that people tend to object on behalf of other people.
Nobody ever tries to claim that they felt compelled to download
something that then messed up their life.

I find some of the non-activity content on the wiki to be
highly offensive. The wiki actually has a PDF of a book that
strongly encourages genuine violence and intolerance. DOOM
is nothing by comparison. Unlike that book, DOOM has not
caused millions of real humans to die and many more to be
horribly oppressed.

As for inappropriate activities, nothing beats Browse. Students
in Nigeria have been using it to study anatomy, which is often
considered an inappropriate subject.
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Friday 18 January 2008, Edward Cherlin wrote:
> I see no point in OLPC
> arguing with either governments or families about their rights in
> these matters. Others may wish to, but that is no part of the question
> before us.

I think this is exactly the point. Distributing violent games to
minors is a violation of the law in many countries, so you just can't
do it unless you start adding filters by IP-address or similar.

Other examples would be a book about sex education being illegal
in countries that count any display of nudity as pornography, or
religious works being illegal in countries that forbid material
contradicting their own religion.

Unlike the 'doom' example, I think it's very clear that these
works have their place in an education project, but it still needs
to be controlled so that the OLPC project is not breaking the law.

Arnd <><
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Re: [OLPC-Games] Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

Jameson "Chema" Quinn wrote:
> 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.


Thank you Chema.

I really appreciate what you said.

  - antoine

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Edward Cherlin]

On Jan 17, 2008 2:49 PM, Antoine van Gelder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Bennett Todd wrote:
> > Let's get a concrete definition of "violence" and I think the
> > disagreement will fade right out.

Absolutely not. I for one take an entirely contrary view on violence.

Background first: I have played war games, text adventure games, video
games, and so on. My daughter plays violent games for a living at
LucasArts. She has no trouble distinguishing between games in which
she is to kill everything in sight, games where there are Good Guys
and Bad Guys, and the real world, in which she is something of a
pacifist, rather like me. We don't live by an Us vs Them philosophy.

I was in the hills north of Seoul, Korea, in 1968 when a North Korean
assassination team came through a few miles away, heading for the Blue
House (the Presidential residence of Pak Cheonghee). When the North
Koreans were surrounded by the police, one of them threw a grenade on
a bus, killing a good friend of my best friend in the Peace Corps.
People I stayed with also endured tear-gassing by the South Korean
police from time to time. The North Koreans seized a US Navy vessel,
the Pueblo, while I was there, and there were moderately frequent
military incidents between North Korea on one side and South Korea and
the US on the other the whole time I lived there.

Now to the question: It is conventionally up to governments to decide
what content is allowed in their schools, and to parents what content
is allowed in their homes, with religious advice in both cases.
(Please don't argue the details. I am aware that advice amounts to
coercion in many cases, and I know about a great deal more, which I am
skipping over in order to come to the point.) I see no point in OLPC
arguing with either governments or families about their rights in
these matters. Others may wish to, but that is no part of the question
before us.

And to the actual point: I want children to read violent literature,
such as Alice in Wonderland or Huckleberry Finn or the Oz books or A
Series of Unfortunate Events or Harry Potter, and later on War and
Peace. I want them to see violent movies, such as Snow White or Peter
Pan; or Blood Diamond or Hotel Rwanda or Dingaka; or again any of the
versions of War and Peace. I also want violent games to be available
to children. Not as a steady diet, and not as propaganda for war. But
children live in a dangerous world, where government and family are
not the least of the dangers they face, and need the opportunity to
explore both real and fictitious dangers, to the extent that *they*
find useful and interesting.

Why are Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket so popular with children? In
large part, because at least two adults understand what children feel
they are up against and say so rather plainly, right under the noses
of the adults. Scout, in To Kill a Mockingbird, expresses this
sentiment strongly, also, and there are many others. All of
Huckleberry Finn is about Huck wrestling with adult notions of right
and wrong, particularly the right of adults at that time to visit
violence on slaves and children, and his ultimate decision not to join
in, even if it means (as he has been taught) that he will go to Hell,
quite literally.

I will not argue against a category for violence, along with other
categories, but I will argue strongly against any exclusion of
violence. I would accept the repurposing of the Supreme Court's
criteria for obscenity, that we can exclude material by considering,
among other things, "whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious
literary, artistic, political or scientific value…" (This replaced the
"no redeeming social value" standard).

In the case of Doom, I would vote thus, having seen it played at some length.

literary No
artistic Yes
political No
scientific No

If the Sin City game had materialized, I might have given it a Yes for
literary, artistic, and political, (assuming that those elements of
the graphic novel and movie survived the transition) but still, of
course, a No for scientific. There are violent Space War games with
realistic gravity simulations that would get a Yes for scientific.
From me, at least.

I also want to involve the children in inherently more interesting
games, so that they don't feel that they have to escape from boredom
with the artificial excitement of violent computer games. Discovering
the real world, for example. Linux, by far the best computer game I
know, with endless levels of wizardry to achieve. And so on.

The biggest problem I have with this discussion is that we aren't
talking with any children. I intensely dislike the "When I want to
hear *your* opinion, I'll tell it to you" of so much conventional
education.

> If I did it to you and you would go *ouch* as a result then it is violent.

If you did it to me, sure. If you do it to electrons, I don't care.

>   - antoine
>
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Re: [OLPC-Games] Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Carol Lerche]

May I suggest that we take a step back from the debate about doom?  I see a
general problem with the activities page, in that there is insufficient
information there to suggest the audience ian activity is intended for.
There needs to be some way to indicate even if the person using it needs to
be literate or not, and the information about build requirements and
internationalization is Delphic at best.  This iis an area where the Wiki
model is inadequate.  A more  useful way to present the information would be
as the result of a database search where tags could be given as search
criteria.  There needs to be a more systematic effort to keep this
information up to date.  Everyone is proud of the OLPC hardware, and the
state of the system software is already very good.  We will not be providing
what is needed by the classrooms of children in the developing world until
materials appropriate for children at each of the target ages, and in each
of the target languages can be identified.

Naturally those individuals who received G1G1 machines will first make
available the software they want to use.  But just because you like a piece
of software doesn't make it even interesting for all ages of children.  Lets
have some assistance from educators in this, and let them also identify
glaring missing pieces that good teachers will notice.  We have great tools
for teaching science to upper elementary students.  Not so much is available
for younger kids, or for teaching literacy.  Somewhere the activities should
be assessed against threads of the curriculum that every school teaches in
some way.

The fact that teachers need to track what each student has accomplished
isn't evidence of an academic police state.  It is the way a good and caring
teacher makes sure kids don't fall through the cracks, so make sure
assignments can be submitted and recorded  and put tracking/ management
software on the school servers.   This isn't in contradiction to
constructionist methods of teaching.  It enhances that because it allows the
teacher to spend more time observing and guiding children.  All teachers,
especially when underresourced and faced with huge classes will tell you
they spend too much time on bureaucracy.

Carol Lerche
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Re: [OLPC-Games] Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Jameson "Chema" Quinn]

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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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Tom Hannen]

pronounce the last 4 letters of the word "touch"

2008/1/17 Bennett Todd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> 2008-01-17T22:49:57 Antoine van Gelder:
> > Bennett Todd wrote:
> >> Let's get a concrete definition of "violence" and I think the
> >> disagreement will fade right out.
> >
> > If I did it to you and you would go *ouch* as a result then it is
> > violent.
>
> Well, then asteroids makes it though, I'd be dead before I could ay
> "ouch". Pacman is right out, though. Colossal Cave wouldn't make
> the cut. And Rogue isn't in the runnning.
>
> -Bennett
>
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Bennett Todd]

2008-01-17T22:49:57 Antoine van Gelder:
> Bennett Todd wrote:
>> Let's get a concrete definition of "violence" and I think the
>> disagreement will fade right out.
>
> If I did it to you and you would go *ouch* as a result then it is
> violent.

Well, then asteroids makes it though, I'd be dead before I could ay
"ouch". Pacman is right out, though. Colossal Cave wouldn't make
the cut. And Rogue isn't in the runnning.

-Bennett


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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Noah Kantrowitz]

On Jan 17, 2008, at 5:49 PM, Antoine van Gelder wrote:

> Bennett Todd wrote:
>> Let's get a concrete definition of "violence" and I think the
>> disagreement will fade right out.
>
>
> If I did it to you and you would go *ouch* as a result then it is  
> violent.

This rules out Minesweeper, Mario, Sim^WMicropolis, etc etc.

--Noah
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Re: [OLPC-Games] Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

Noah Kantrowitz wrote:
> On Jan 17, 2008, at 5:26 PM, Bryan Berry wrote:
> 
>> 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.
> 
> Who picks what is "endorsed" and what isn't?


Noah,

Given that this is an education project I would hazard a guess that the 
only endorsements which are likely to be taken seriously by anyone of 
even moderate intelligence would be those endorsements which are made by 
educators of good repute ?

If that's okay with you ?

  - a

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

Bennett Todd wrote:
> Let's get a concrete definition of "violence" and I think the
> disagreement will fade right out.


If I did it to you and you would go *ouch* as a result then it is violent.

  - antoine

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

[Noah Kantrowitz]

On Jan 17, 2008, at 5:26 PM, Bryan Berry wrote:

> 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.

Who picks what is "endorsed" and what isn't? My suggestion would be to  
implement something similar to ESRB ratings. I have no problem saying  
Doom is a game for mature audiences, nor do I think the authors would  
say differently. This is a very different approach to walling off some  
activities as unsuitable or otherwise shunned. It is also worth noting  
that ESRB ratings are a voluntary thing, game makers allow themselves  
to be rated because they think it is the right thing to do (increased  
market availability notwithstanding). While I understand violence is a  
dicey subject in many parts of the world, would you also propose to  
endorse an activity containing a library of artwork with nude figures?  
Its a cliche, but this is a very slippery slope. I think drawing lines  
in the sand between some activities is counter-productive and far too  
error-prone for OLPC to get in to.

--Noah
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Re: [OLPC-Games] Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> 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.



Hi Carl,

I'm also trying to understand me (and us) better, so good luck in that 
project!

*grin*

I grew up (and still live) in South Africa.

Apart from the intense levels of violence we continue to experience [1] 
South Africa was a country which had _real_ problems with freedom of 
speech and expression in that if one wanted to say or do something which 
certain folk disagreed with then you couldn't simply surf over to 
another website in order to say or do it!

  - antoine

[1] Our family has a very dear friend who runs a tyre shop in Cape Town. 
In the week before Christmas a group of armed thugs robbed her shop, 
pistol whipped her face and head into a pulp, beat another employee so 
hard that her eardrum burst and just before they left they pointed a 
pistol in her face and pulled the trigger. We will never know if the gun 
malfunctioned or the robber had simply forgotten to cock it.

In South Africa most families have a story to tell like this and, 
frankly, she got off relatively lightly.

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Ties Stuij]

On Jan 17, 2008 10:46 PM, Bennett Todd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> 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?

I personally think you're  whole post is exactly on the dot. Really.
And great point about Sesame Street. For me you hit the sweet spot in
this discussion. And "Strongly violent" sounds excellent to me. One
shouldn't bog stuff down to much, and leave room for common sense.

Sorry for the boring post ;o)

/Ties
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Re: [OLPC-Games] Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Bryan Berry]

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, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Send Devel mailing list submissions to
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> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Devel digest..."
> 
> 
> 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 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [OLPC-Games] Violent games on the OLPC Activities page
> To: Games for the OLPC <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: OLPC Developer's List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 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" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page
> To: "Hal Murray" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: OLPC Developer's List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Message-ID:
>   <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> On Jan 17, 2008 6:37 PM, Hal Murray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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 b

SV: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Jens Andersson]

Also, while this discussion certainly is bigger than just Doom, it could be
worth to pointing out that a number of organizations have rated Doom as:

ESRB: M
ESRB: T (GBA)
BBFC: 15
OFLC: MA15+
PEGI: 16+

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_%28video_game%29)

/Jens

-Ursprungligt meddelande-
Från: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
För Bennett Todd
Skickat: den 17 januari 2008 22:46
Till: Ties Stuij
Kopia: OLPC Developer's List
Ämne: Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

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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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Bennett Todd]

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

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

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
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Mitch Bradley]

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


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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Samuel Klein]

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 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> 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
>
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Ties Stuij]

On Jan 17, 2008 6:37 PM, Hal Murray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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
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Re: [OLPC-Games] Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Antoine van Gelder]

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

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Bennett Todd]

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


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Re: 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.
>
>
>   

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Noah Kantrowitz]

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.

--Noah
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Bennett Todd]

2008-01-17T17:31:38 Ricardo Carrano:
> Ok, but let's not be radical relativists. Nobody would agree that
> pornography (to give an example) would belong in the wiki.

Understood. And I'm not arguing for (or against) doom; I've never
seen it.

What scares me is precedent that anybody can say "I feel that's
inappropriate" and we all say, Ok. Take the intersection of just
that material that's acceptable to everyone, everywhere, and what's
left?

Before we all smugly pull a Jack Thompson and say "that's obviously
inappropriate, and if you don't agree you are wrong", is there any
chance we could discuss criteria?

Of course, if we're gonna say "it's obvious", the we clearly oughta
kick Browse. Look at all the horrible violence that's out there.
news.google.com is horrific.

-Bennett


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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Ricardo Carrano]

Ok, but let's not be radical relativists. Nobody would agree that
pornography (to give an example) would belong in the wiki.
It seems that we do draw lines. All of us, all the time. It is a matter of
common sense.
In my opinion, violent content does not belong in the OLPC wiki.
But has anyone suggested the author that this is a controversial content?
Maybe he would kindly understand other people's concerns and let go.

2008/1/17 Bennett Todd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

> 2008-01-17T15:46:31 Bryan Berry:
> > I feel very strongly that violent games should not be associated with
> > OLPC.
>
> Who decides? Who draws the line between appropriate and
> inappropriate? Does anybody with access to email and web get to ban
> games for being violent, according to their standards? Or is it just
> going to be for a special group? If the latter, what's the criterion
> for joining?
>
> -Bennett
>
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Jameson "Chema" Quinn]

This is a wiki. The question here is not, what is the right decision. If
everybody holds out for their version right decision, we have a permanent
edit war. The question is, what is a compromise I can live with. And since,
as they say on wikipedia, we have plenty of time before the publication
deadline, any argument based on setting the right/wrong precedent is moot -
there's time to deal with the next situation when it happens. Everything is
provisional, and there's no slopes too slippery to climb back to the top of.

Right now the status quo is separate Activities and Activities/unendorsed
pages, with text on the Activities page to say don't delete unendorsed
activities and text on the unendorsed page to say that this is not meant to
imply that other activities are endorsed. If you died now, before you could
get to the edit link on the wiki, would you want your shade to come back and
haunt people until they fixed it to what you want?
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Hal Murray]

> 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.




-- 
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.



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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Ties Stuij]

2008/1/17 Bennett Todd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> 2008-01-17T15:46:31 Bryan Berry:
> > I feel very strongly that violent games should not be associated with
> > OLPC.
>
> Who decides? Who draws the line between appropriate and
> inappropriate? Does anybody with access to email and web get to ban
> games for being violent, according to their standards? Or is it just
> going to be for a special group? If the latter, what's the criterion
> for joining?
>
> -Bennett

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.
It's easy for the majority of us in the western world who have never
been in a violent conflict to take a standpoint on violence in
video-games. That's however not the topic I feel.

Do you know for sure how playing Doom will affect a Nepali ex
child-soldier kid? And do you know for sure what the viewpoints of
people from a warzone community will be on a project that 'advertises'
playing Doom? I don't know. I'd say the latter might not be such a
problem. But I'm not really sure, and it's certainly not an absurd
thing to imagine. So why take the chance? What's there to gain?

/Ties
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Bennett Todd]

2008-01-17T15:46:31 Bryan Berry:
> I feel very strongly that violent games should not be associated with
> OLPC.

Who decides? Who draws the line between appropriate and
inappropriate? Does anybody with access to email and web get to ban
games for being violent, according to their standards? Or is it just
going to be for a special group? If the latter, what's the criterion
for joining?

-Bennett


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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Jameson "Chema" Quinn]

I've made a subpage called Activities/unendorsed , and explained it on the
activities page. On a wiki, compromises are the only way to avoid eternal
edit wars.
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Ian Daniher]

Bryan,
Having dealt with people suffering from PTSD and the like, I agree that Doom
should not be on the Activities page. No matter how much one can argue the
whole aspect of "Free as in Free Speech," Doom obviously does not fall in
with OLPC's missions. I am in agreement that Doom should be removed from the
Activities page, but not removed from the OLPC wiki. To someone with an
exposure to violence, violent video games, no matter how unrealistic, can
either be therapeutic or traumatic.
Just my .02usd,
-- 
Ian Daniher
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Skype : it.daniher
irc.freenode.com: DyDisMe


On Jan 17, 2008 10:46 AM, Bryan Berry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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.
>
>
> --
> Bryan W. Berry
> OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org
>
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[linaccess]

On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:46:31 -0500
Bryan Berry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> People can host such games on their own sites but they should not be
> hosted by OLPC.

I quite agree!

yokoy

-- 
 
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Tom Hannen]

I disagree with the idea of censoring games based on violence.  I
think that a warning at the top of any page should be sufficient.

Games are just another form of creativity...  Should we also remove
any links to violence in books and artwork, within Wikibrowse for
example?

Tom

On Jan 17, 2008 3:46 PM, Bryan Berry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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.
>
>
> --
> Bryan W. Berry
> OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org
>
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Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Bryan Berry]

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.


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

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