Andrew Lih wrote:

On 7/15/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:

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On 7/15/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:

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Wikipedia should avoid gratuitous self-reference, but the blocking of Wikipedia by China is itself newsworthy/articleworthy, IMO. We have a [[Wikipedia]] article, after all - not all self-reference is forbidden.

I think that's a good assessment, and good criteria to use. The blocks have been covered in the major media, and the articles ties in with other articles about PRC internet censorship, particularly [[Baidu Baike]].

Well as someone living on the front lines of Wikipedia access in China, I do think moving the article to Wikipedia: namespace is the correct thing to do. It's not really appropriate for the main namespace. It wouldn't be appropriate for any of these either:

[[Blocking_of_BBC_in_mainland_China]] [[Blocking_of_Blogger_in_mainland_China]] [[Blocking_of_HRIC_in_mainland_China]]

Why wouldn't they be appropriate? The subject, including the treatment of Wikipedia, the BBC, and various bloggers and blogging services, has been of great interest to some people and has received considerable mainstream media coverage.

It's certainly possible that the article incorporates material that is either not neutral or not verifiable. That should be handled by pruning it, and if the pruning is drastic enough the article might warrant merging. Perhaps to [[Internet censorship in mainland China]] (neutrality check: would [[Internet filtering in mainland China]] be a better title?). But moving to the Wikipedia namespace is not the solution to these problems any more than deleting the article would be.

--Michael Snow