[WikiEN-l] Online Newspapers Considering Subscription Model

[Charles Matthews]

David Goodman wrote:
> A much more serious problem is the availability of this material in
> the less-developed world, which includes a great many people who rely
> on the English Wikipedia--many of whom do not have practical access to
> any good library.  
Quite. But then the traditional solution has been ... compile an 
encyclopedia (since the 17th century). The cream of scholarly info 
without all the underlying scholarship.

The fact that we have extremes of scepticism, often driven by divisive 
or ideological or partisan starting points, should not eclipse the fact 
that _we_ offer a solution to the inequities of access to basic 
information. As they say, if not us, who?

Those of us who have been around here a while have seen the 
ultra-verificationist perspective spread out from the most vexed areas 
to appear as a problem all over the 'pedia. (Not without justification.) 
But let's keep things the right way round: if we post the facts, and 
they are verifiable, and the verifying sources are behind subscription 
walls, the readers are still better off than without the info.

Charles