Ed, I said "for speech purposes," as in "suing." People may abuse its stated purpose, but it is rather in the nature of a "common carrier," open to all. If we insist that it is NOT a public forum, but rather a managed proprietary site, Mediawiki might well get sued.

C

----- Original Message -----
From: "Poor, Edmund W"
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 11:21:39 -0700
To: "English Wikipedia"
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Forum vs. project

> Wikipedia is not a public forum. It's not a place for people to come and
> exchange views. The Internet already has such a place: it's called
> Usenet, or "newsgroups".
>
> Wikipedia is a project to create freely editable encyclopedia articles.
>
> Unlike a forum, Wikipedia has strict rules of etiquette. Whereas it's
> perfectly acceptable in forums to impugn the character of other
> participants, Wikipedia has a "no personal attacks" policy.
>
> Unlike a forum, Wikipedia has no interest in determining the "winner" of
> a debate. So it doesn't matter who's cleverest, loudest, or keeps at it
> the longest. What goes and what stays is determined only by (a) acc uracy
> and (b) NPOV.
>
> Unlike a forum, Wikipedia produces an ever-increasing body of work,
> which is organized for the benefit of the public.
>
> I could go on, but I hope you get the point.
>
> Uncle Ed
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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