At what age does the Wikipedia article and photo about Hafada piercing become appropriate?

Question

The Wikipedia article about Hafada piercing ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafada_piercing ) is only one click away from the article about Earring, which is viewed about 37,000 times a month. Itself, the Hafada piercing article is viewed upwards of 12,000 times a month.

Should I be introducing my 6-year-old daughter to this article about Hafada piercing? What about her 9-year-old neighbor friend? When is it "too soon" to share all of the glorious things Wikipedia has to offer youngsters, or is it never too soon?

Answer 1

Having looked at the picture (I am in my forties, and I really didn't need to see that either), I would suggest the age of 103. With any luck, she will be senile by then, or otherwise past caring.

Answer 2

Damn it to hell, could you at least WARN us that you're posting a link that's not safe for work? I get your point that Wikipedia contains some content that isn't safe for minors to view, but there's no way it's safe for me to view it on my work computer.



I doubt your daughters are going to find the article on Hafada piercings just by clicking randomly. Even if I go to the Earring page, the navigation box on the bottom says, "Male genital piercings". I can tell right there that articles about Prince Albert piercings, dolphin piercings, and foreskin piercings aren't going to be family-friendly or work-safe material. Someone who's browsing Wikipedia in the normal method will probably realize that they're venturing into unsafe territory.



Meanwhile, you just casually threw a link out there without even indicating that it's unsafe for work. Does your employer condone this?



As far as your daughter and the nine-year-old next door are concerned, you should keep an eye on them while they're browsing the Web. There are a lot of sites out there more family-unfriendly than Wikipedia. For example, bmezine.com has some thoroughly nasty stuff in it.

Answer 3

It's not Wikipedia's job to worry about children finding inappropriate content (whether innocently or intentionally). That's YOUR job as a parent. Occasionally I wonder if you give much thought to how you pick your battles.



Besides, Wikipedia has never purported to be appropriate for children, to my knowledge. It has claimed to be "the sum of all human knowledge," and though it has serious deficits in that department, Wikipedia no shortfall of information where male genitals are concerned.



However, given the Wisconsin v. C & S case, Wikipedia's pornographic content is a plausible cause for its hopefully imminent downfall. Personally I'd prefer wikipocalypse to occur as predicted by Nostradamus rather than due to puritanical laws, but whatever takes Wikipedia down deserves our gratitude.

Answer 4

At whatever age you are no longer liable for exposing children to pornography. I was disgusted by that picture and I'm probably older than you (probably on account that I would never get piercings, much less in such a sensitive place). The issue when it comes to children and the Internet in America isn't whether or not it's pornography to you, but whether or not it's pornography to law enforcement officials in your community.



If you have some sort of blocker on your daughter's computer, you'd be better off just having it block all Wikipedia articles. More importantly than avoiding exposing your daughter to potentially titillating content, you'll be avoiding exposing her to wrong information on any topic. I'm sure if you looked at the earring article you'd find inaccuracies in it. That sort of misinformation is more damaging to children than photographs of human body parts.