On 9/28/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia is not a social project, not a democracy, not a soapbox, etc. We are here to write a free encyclopaedia, nothing more and nothing less. We should not be advocating certain social ideals; even the GFDL is only a means to an end - that of ensuring the sum of human knowledge is available to everyone.
The sum of human knowledge isn't available to people are oppressed, nor can it do them good if they are censored.
We need to hold the firm position that we are not fundamentally focused on these other things, For example, we are not a human rights organization, we are not a free software organization, etc.
But it is also very important for us to recognize that there sometimes exist important overlaps and opportunities.
I suspect that most of the people who come to edit the larger Wikipedias are not people who are passionate about building an encyclopedia or even about free content... Rather, many people edit because they are interested in a subject, because they want to show how smart they are, or even because they want to make sure their POV is well presented in a popular website. ... and that is perfectly fine. When our missions align we can and should work together with people who have differing missions.
I think that issues of censorship frequently overlap with our mission, perhaps more so than many other tangential outside interests. We can achieve the most if we recognize our proper and most effective role in those issues and we work with others to achieve more.
"Monahon, Peter B." Peter.Monahon@uspto.gov wrote:
Personally I think we - Wikipedia - should stand up for Tor operators who get abused.
I don't agree. At least not directly. I think we should instead make sure the world knows about the positive uses of Tor which intersect our actives.
Tor enables some people who are behind censoring filters to read Wikipedia. It's good and important and if it and tools like it didn't exist and didn't have brave exit operators who are willing to risk some false accusations then the world would be a less free and more censored place.
As Wikipedians I think it would only be fair of us to make a statement like that since it's the truth. ... but saying that is a long way for mounting an all out defense.