On 6/25/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
How about "New editors always welcome!" - then, the assumption is that we will give *anyone* a *chance* (as opposed to implying that we will let anyone edit, no matter how destructive they are).
I agree in principle that the slogan "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" is overly simplistic. It reminds me of the famous saying, "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member." It's more of a technical definition than one of principles and goals -- and can easily be confused with the latter.
I believe that we need to highlight the mission of providing a great, free encyclopedia, along with the core principle _how_ we want to accomplish it. And the single most important principle I can think of here is not "anyone can edit". It's not even NPOV or any other policy. It's "WikiLove" -- of which our commitment to openness is only an expression. We share a love of knowledge, and we treat everyone who shares the same love with respect and goodwill. (That's the idea, at least.)
If I wanted a three word slogan for Wikipedia, it would be something like "Love in Knowledge": emphasizing the core principle of WikiLove as well as the overarching goal to collect the sum of all human knowledge. Come to think of it, "Love in Knowledge" might be a nice slogan for the Wikimedia Foundation. Or is it too kitschy?
We're not elitist at all. The tone of most of our articles is very folksy and approachable
I'm not sure about "folksy," but of course an encyclopedia should be approachable. My idea of the perfect Wikipedia article is one which presupposes very little, and allows me to zoom into any level of detail which I require (following links and references to primary and secondary sources if Wikipedia itself is exhausted). Naturally, by "presupposing little", I don't mean that every concept needs to be explained in every article: that's what links are for.
"Elitism of results", as Jimmy put it, doesn't mean to me that we already believe that we've created the best encyclopedia in history. It only means that we believe that we should, and more importantly, that we can. And I think that these beliefs are firmly rooted in Wikipedia's culture.
Erik