In Jimbo's 2005 "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" post, he described the
purpose of the project:
Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a
free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single
person on the planet in their own language.
Does this still hold true? There have been a lot of major changes in
policy in the months since, which, we all hope, are supportive of our
fundamental goals. I think almost everyone who contributes to the
project agrees completely with this mission and wants to maintain it.
But if you think about it, the statement actually contains several
goals:
* free
* (create an) encyclopedia
* of the highest possible quality
* (distribute) to every single person on the planet
* in their own language
In fact, these goals occasionally conflict. For instance, machine
translations are considered "worse than nothing" because of their poor
quality, so it would seem that "of the highest possible quality" is
more important than "in their own language".
If Jimbo's statement is still valid, which objectives override the
others? Can they be arranged (preferably by Jimbo) in order of
priority?
Can this statement or the principles it represents ever be repealed or
changed? Who has the power to change it? Is this simply a top-down
authoritarian mandate that can't be challenged, or do regular
Wikipedians have a say when changes are made to the ultimate goals and
priorities of the project?