On 10/08/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
So the German Wikipedia will never be able to fulfill its mission?
I think Wikipedia's mission is sufficiently open that it would never be a question of saying "our mission is now fulfilled". I do believe that EN fulfils its mission better than DE when it comes to this issue, yes.
en: operates as if work is under US law and somewhat under UK law; de: assumes a majority of its contributors will be in Germany, so operates as if work is also under German law. Which may be overly conservative (though I think it's a good idea Commons operates under very conservative rules for maximum international usability), but probably makes sense in that case.
It does detract from what can be depicted in de:, which will reduce the usefulness of the resulting encyclopedia - e.g. my favourite example is that [[Xenu]] on en: would be significantly diminished without the single existing sample of the word "Xenu" in Hubbard's own handwriting - and there's also the moral issue of asserting that our shared culture should morally be usable when talking about it, even with odiously overextended copyright laws to deal with - e.g. Jimbo's kind offer to the National Portrait Gallery to sue and be damned (since which they've been rather quiet). It's all a tricky one.
- d.