charles matthews wrote:
"Raphael Wegmann" wrote
The main
purpose of Wikipedia can be defined as a (new) kind of
publishing,
namely putting high quality and informative and neutral, factual articles
into the public domain, under the GFDL. That is what we do. This is not
propaganda.
That's what Wikipedia pretends to do according to the policies.
I've believed that myself until I've found out, that administrators
block editors they disagree with.
This might be considered an application of 'falsus in uno falsus in omnibus'
([[List of Latin phrases (F-O)]]), to argue that if you could find anything
propagandistic in the English Wikipedia, that makes all 1130000 pages
propagandistic. Of course that misunderstands. It is quite understandable,
psychologically, why such arguments are brought up (this is hardly the first
time). Someone with a specialised interest scrutinises our coverage, and
sees something they reckon is flawed.
But that is not an argument on the purpose of the encyclopedia. It merely
says that it is not finished. We know that.
I think, that you missunderstand me. I'm not claiming, that I've
found an article, which is propagandistic. That would indeed only
prove, that Wikipedia is not finished. What I've found is, that
administrators abuse their priviledges to have a final say in
content disputes. This is a systematic flaw in the Wikipedia,
which is excused by accusing the opposition of Wikilaywering
or by claiming to follow the policies "in spirit". The policies
are great, but there is not seperation of powers in Wikipedia,
and power corrupts even in reputed "open" systems like Wikipedia.
--
Raphael