joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting Will Beback will.beback.1@gmail.com:
Claiming the moral high ground is not part of the mission of Wikipedia. If someone else wants to claim it then fine,. let them. The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a free, neutral encyclopedia.
Wikipedia exists in the real world, and the project's reputation matters. It effects whether people will be likely to help us out or to join or to simply read. If we're thought of as an authoritarian, censoring dictatorship, not many people will join us. Furthermore, you can't have it both ways. You can't say "The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a free, neutral encyclopedia" but only have that be relevant when you want it to, and not when you want to remove the link. Either NPOV is what we're striving for or it isn't. But we don't only strive for NPOV when it is the convenient part of Will Beback's argument.
People won't want to join if it becomes known that participating in Wikipedia can lead to serious harassment at home and work, and that the community will do nothing to support its volunteers when that happens.
I dispute the contention that removing poor sources harms NPOV.
Will