--- "Poor, Edmund W" Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote:
I maintain that the Wikipedia community is Popper's sort of "open society" for the following reasons:
There is a basic fact about Wikipedia's uniqueness that allows its developed philosophy to likewise be regarded as somewhat unique and altruistic. Anybody who really knows Wikipedia knows that its success is a validation of the open model. Hence there is some altruistic interest in continuing to keep things open open open. Hence, there is a natural clash between commonplace concepts of government--which tends to claim ownership of any elitist or goal-oriented movements toward improving content-- and idealism.
Because this is all electronics in the web aether, the drive to be egalitarian is naturally much stronger than it is in the meatspace context. Hence, I for one have always agreed with the application of altruistic concepts to Wikipedia, simply because human beings demand it. This is why, for example I dislike claims that sysops have a "janitorial role" (as opposed to a "shepherd" role) or that the Arbcom should hold to an impersonal and pragmatic tone, rather than to a principled and responsive one.
Anyway this meatspace debate between "do whats best" pragmatism and "do whats good" moralism is old enough in the real world--we Trekkies demand that wikipedia hold to its idealistic potential. I.e. it seems rather "unwiki" to supress principled appeals in favor of pragmatic ones--and no citatious "originalist" referentialism is suitable for either writing, nor editing, nor social engineering. It seems only natural that a truly open medium wants to grow more open, in a reflection of (what we loosely call) idealism. Granted there are government disagreements about how to get there...
Fuck it. Party on. SV
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