Talk:Adult Themes
Pro:
Not talking about important problems does not make them go away. It only saves the problems for a later day. We need free and open discussions of all aspects of the human condition to understand how we can live in space.
Tom Riley --Jriley 06:16, 4 March 2007 (PST)
Con:
We do need to work with our students and support them in a safe place. Perhaps the adult material belongs in another wiki altogether.
Tom Riley --Jriley 06:17, 4 March 2007 (PST)
Warning
Personally, I am liberally minded, however, there is extreme legal liability. Posting obscene material can get you (or others) prosecuted in some jurisdictions. The definition of what is "obscene" varies widely in different jurisdictions. This wiki can be accessed by anybody anywhere in the world, so could run afoul of local regulations and laws. Because of such concerns we have deleted items which look to be at risk of violating obscentiy laws in ANY jurisdiction. The risk to too great, e.g. a schoolteacher in USA is currently facing a 40 year jail term for inadvertently exposing students to obscenity.
If a person is convicted as a "sex offender" this stays with you for the rest of your life and becomes a public record.
This wiki is completely open and we do not have any way of restricting access to adults only at this time. This might be an enhancement which might be added in the future, talk to MikeD about that.Charles F. Radley 06:37, 4 March 2007 (PST)
The problem then is to arrive at a concensis on rules that clearly define what is not obscene. If we cannot then we are stuck only discussing space settlement at a very simplistic level. We will bore people to tears and in the end fail to granish support.
--Jriley 14:24, 5 March 2007 (PST)
Legal Disclaimers
Take a look at this web link on legal disclaimers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer
We probably needed similar legal disclaimers on Lunarpedia.
Stories in a Wiki
I'm concerned that a wiki is a less than optimal location for fiction, regardless of content, unless the fiction is being developed in a cooperative fashion on the wiki (in which case a wiki may indeed be optimal).
I am also unsure of the value of releasing stories to the public domain as a general policy.
If we decide to go ahead, I would suggest that we should probably create a namespace specifically for fictional works, possibly locking completed works and also tagging each story individually for its usage status (all rights reserved on one end to public domain on the other). -- Strangelv 07:03, 4 March 2007 (PST)
I certainly intend the stories here to be a cooperative effort. I feel it was necessary to seed the idea with a few examples to get it started. People hate trying to stare down a blank page.
The commercial value of these stories is exactly zero. I know because I had the best of them rejected by several publications.
Wikipedia claims that they won the rights to everything on their site. I do not doubt it but I will not believe it until their claim is tested in a court of law. If The Moon Society wants to claim rights to everything I have posted on Lunarpedia, I would be happy to add their copyright claim myself.
There are plenty of good writers out there who can turn out a solid short story but who cannot make it as a professional writer. Those are the people I am looking for. Professional writers should definitely not post anything on a Wiki, unless they are doing as a give away to build a following.
--Jriley 14:36, 5 March 2007 (PST)
Our problem is how to allow legitimate consideration of real human needs, actions, and consequences, while blocking tasteless, exploitive material.
We need to allow "Streetcar Named Desire", while blocking both "South Park" and "Deadwood". --Jriley 12:12, 7 March 2007 (PST)
Well Actually I do not see it that way at all. I am only interested in avoiding legal liability, taste is a different matter which should be unregulated. So "Southpark" and "Deadwood" are fine. Although I do not see how either of those shows would be relevant to Lunarpedia. Interesting factoid, did you see/hear Buzz aldrin's guest appearance and voiceover on "The Simpsons" some years back?Charles F. Radley 20:34, 7 March 2007 (PST)
