cleanfeed and wikipedia

[Ian Batten]

On 11 Dec 08, at 1604, Roland Perry wrote:

> In article <ED104583-C73A-456B-82A8-A09D223A6F4D@batten.eu.org>, Ian  
> Batten <igb@batten.eu.org> writes
>>
>> On 11 Dec 08, at 1104, Roland Perry wrote:
>>
>> It doesn't matter what individual parents think (ask Sharon
>> Matthews), it's what society (represented by the parent on the
>> Clapham Omnibus) thinks.
>>
>> Is it?  I'd not be so sure.
>
> So you'd find Karen Matthews not guilty simply because as the mother  
> she gave herself permission to do anything she wanted to, to Sharon?

[[ Shannon, not Sharon ]]

No, and you'd have to be pretty obtuse to interpret my comment  
``That's why, in general, we let parents decide unless their behaviour  
is absolutely, unambiguously harmful.'' in that way.

However, there are a _lot_ of parents whose behaviour would be deemed  
unacceptable by at least 51 out of 100 randomly chosen people: the  
parents of child actors, the parents of child athletes, the parents of  
child musical and other prodigies, parents involved in exclusive  
religious organisations like the Plymouth Brethren, parents who appear  
on the telly every year to trumpet their eight year olds getting  
GCSEs, parents who give their children the MMR vaccine, parents who  
don't give their children the MMR vaccine (see also do/don't tutor for  
11+, do/don't fake church attendance for right primary school, do/ 
don't pay for education), parents who only have one child, parents who  
have six children, etc, etc.

That's why the threshold is set at `good enough': because if you set  
it at some Janet and John vision of middle-class perfection, almost  
every child is deemed at risk.  Karen Matthews crossed that line, and  
with hindsight probably had done so prior to her daughter's  
disappearance.  Baby P's mother and her partner, who we can't name,  
and Victoria Climbie's guardians, who we can, crossed that line.  The  
row in all three cases is about whether the crossing of the line was  
obvious to the point that it should have been spotted before the bad  
end happened.  But the days of taking children into care simply  
because a mother hadn't swept the floor have, mercifully, gone.

ian