On February 7, 2005 we had a poll on Meta to gather opinions on how to deal with the particular problem of whether to launch a Chinese language edition of Wikinews or not. Back then, the main reason for not launching the project was that it might jeopardize the Chinese Wikipedia, i.e., put it at risk of censorship. The poll was evenly split, with half favoring launching the project given enough support (which it has), and the other half wanting the decision to be left to the Chinese Wikipedia community (which, incidentally, also voted 50/50):
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/China
Exactly one year later, I think it might be a good idea to relaunch this poll, with the old votes archived, given that the situation has changed fundamentally. According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Wikipedia_in_mainland_China
Wikipedia has been censored in mainland China since October 2005. Furthermore, we have all seen large search engines cave in to the Chinese government in recent months. Interestingly enough, recent reports note that Google China is being censored in spite of filtering search results:
http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/afx/2006/02/03/afx2498050.html
To me, this indicates that it may simply not be possible to create an encyclopedia written from the neutral point of view which will be accepted by the current Chinese government. The question then becomes whether it is legitimate for us to continue to put a resource on hold that might be useful to millions of Chinese speakers outside the mainland, i.e. Chinese Wikinews.
So, are there any objections to relaunching this poll, or alternative suggestions on how to proceed? I think the "wait and see" approach has gone on long enough.
Best,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
On February 7, 2005 we had a poll on Meta to gather opinions on how to deal with the particular problem of whether to launch a Chinese language edition of Wikinews or not. Back then, the main reason for not launching the project was that it might jeopardize the Chinese Wikipedia, i.e., put it at risk of censorship. The poll was evenly split, with half favoring launching the project given enough support (which it has), and the other half wanting the decision to be left to the Chinese Wikipedia community (which, incidentally, also voted 50/50):
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/China
Exactly one year later, I think it might be a good idea to relaunch this poll, with the old votes archived, given that the situation has changed fundamentally. According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Wikipedia_in_mainland_China
Wikipedia has been censored in mainland China since October 2005. Furthermore, we have all seen large search engines cave in to the Chinese government in recent months. Interestingly enough, recent reports note that Google China is being censored in spite of filtering search results:
http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/afx/2006/02/03/afx2498050.html
To me, this indicates that it may simply not be possible to create an encyclopedia written from the neutral point of view which will be accepted by the current Chinese government. The question then becomes whether it is legitimate for us to continue to put a resource on hold that might be useful to millions of Chinese speakers outside the mainland, i.e. Chinese Wikinews.
So, are there any objections to relaunching this poll, or alternative suggestions on how to proceed? I think the "wait and see" approach has gone on long enough.
Best,
Erik
Admittedly, the previous attitude which consisted of "not opening" the chinese speaking wikinews to avoid China censoring our projects... makes little sense now...
Actually, I am concerned...
We currently claim this : "Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."
Unfortunately, I feel it is not true. That might be what we are *trying* to do, or what we are *aiming* to do.
But if we are frank with ourselves, we are currently putting most of our energy "in giving free access to a lot of knowledge to people who could mostly access this knowledge without us".
Granted, we simplify the access to knowledge to many. We collect the info. We organise it. We put all our attention in giving non biaised information. And this is already really great. But we mostly give information to those who have internet access and if they made a bit of effort, they could actually find this information all by themselves. At least for major languages.
In short, we facilitate access to information for those who *already* can access it.
What we do not do is: * We do not *improve* access to those who do not have access to information now * And we do not make *every effort* to collect the sum of human knowledge.
The best example being precisely chinese (main land) knowledge that we do not collect and chinese (main land) end users which we do not inform.
ant
I'm glad that the chinese wikinews is going forward. Eventhough I don't speak chinese, I feel its very important to have it in that language. There is still a huge chunk of people who speak chinese and use wikipedia.
-- - Bawolff Caution: The mass of this product contains the energy equivalent of 85 million tons of TNT per net ounce of weight.
On 04/02/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
On February 7, 2005 we had a poll on Meta to gather opinions on how to deal with the particular problem of whether to launch a Chinese language edition of Wikinews or not. Back then, the main reason for not launching the project was that it might jeopardize the Chinese Wikipedia, i.e., put it at risk of censorship. The poll was evenly split, with half favoring launching the project given enough support (which it has), and the other half wanting the decision to be left to the Chinese Wikipedia community (which, incidentally, also voted 50/50):
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/China
Exactly one year later, I think it might be a good idea to relaunch this poll, with the old votes archived, given that the situation has changed fundamentally. According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Wikipedia_in_mainland_China
Wikipedia has been censored in mainland China since October 2005. Furthermore, we have all seen large search engines cave in to the Chinese government in recent months. Interestingly enough, recent reports note that Google China is being censored in spite of filtering search results:
http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/afx/2006/02/03/afx2498050.html
To me, this indicates that it may simply not be possible to create an encyclopedia written from the neutral point of view which will be accepted by the current Chinese government. The question then becomes whether it is legitimate for us to continue to put a resource on hold that might be useful to millions of Chinese speakers outside the mainland, i.e. Chinese Wikinews.
So, are there any objections to relaunching this poll, or alternative suggestions on how to proceed? I think the "wait and see" approach has gone on long enough.
Best,
Erik
Admittedly, the previous attitude which consisted of "not opening" the chinese speaking wikinews to avoid China censoring our projects... makes little sense now...
Actually, I am concerned...
We currently claim this : "Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."
Unfortunately, I feel it is not true. That might be what we are *trying* to do, or what we are *aiming* to do.
But if we are frank with ourselves, we are currently putting most of our energy "in giving free access to a lot of knowledge to people who could mostly access this knowledge without us".
Granted, we simplify the access to knowledge to many. We collect the info. We organise it. We put all our attention in giving non biaised information. And this is already really great. But we mostly give information to those who have internet access and if they made a bit of effort, they could actually find this information all by themselves. At least for major languages.
In short, we facilitate access to information for those who *already* can access it.
What we do not do is:
- We do not *improve* access to those who do not have access to
information now
- And we do not make *every effort* to collect the sum of human knowledge.
The best example being precisely chinese (main land) knowledge that we do not collect and chinese (main land) end users which we do not inform.
ant
Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
Dear Anthere,
you're very right, but is it not the UNESCO job to help propagation and protect knowledge for everyone ? Is it not a too BIG task for wikimédia ?
but i agree wikipédia and all the sisters projects are used and build by people having no problem with knowledge access . Not so Neutral ?
amitié, jacques divol
Le 4 févr. 06 à 23:43, Anthere a écrit :
Erik Moeller wrote:
On February 7, 2005 we had a poll on Meta to gather opinions on how to deal with the particular problem of whether to launch a Chinese language edition of Wikinews or not. Back then, the main reason for not launching the project was that it might jeopardize the Chinese Wikipedia, i.e., put it at risk of censorship. The poll was evenly split, with half favoring launching the project given enough support (which it has), and the other half wanting the decision to be left to the Chinese Wikipedia community (which, incidentally, also voted 50/50): http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/China Exactly one year later, I think it might be a good idea to relaunch this poll, with the old votes archived, given that the situation has changed fundamentally. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Wikipedia_in_mainland_China Wikipedia has been censored in mainland China since October 2005. Furthermore, we have all seen large search engines cave in to the Chinese government in recent months. Interestingly enough, recent reports note that Google China is being censored in spite of filtering search results: http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/afx/2006/02/03/afx2498050.html To me, this indicates that it may simply not be possible to create an encyclopedia written from the neutral point of view which will be accepted by the current Chinese government. The question then becomes whether it is legitimate for us to continue to put a resource on hold that might be useful to millions of Chinese speakers outside the mainland, i.e. Chinese Wikinews. So, are there any objections to relaunching this poll, or alternative suggestions on how to proceed? I think the "wait and see" approach has gone on long enough. Best, Erik
Admittedly, the previous attitude which consisted of "not opening" the chinese speaking wikinews to avoid China censoring our projects... makes little sense now...
Actually, I am concerned...
We currently claim this : "Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."
Unfortunately, I feel it is not true. That might be what we are *trying* to do, or what we are *aiming* to do.
But if we are frank with ourselves, we are currently putting most of our energy "in giving free access to a lot of knowledge to people who could mostly access this knowledge without us".
Granted, we simplify the access to knowledge to many. We collect the info. We organise it. We put all our attention in giving non biaised information. And this is already really great. But we mostly give information to those who have internet access and if they made a bit of effort, they could actually find this information all by themselves. At least for major languages.
In short, we facilitate access to information for those who *already* can access it.
What we do not do is:
- We do not *improve* access to those who do not have access to
information now
- And we do not make *every effort* to collect the sum of human
knowledge.
The best example being precisely chinese (main land) knowledge that we do not collect and chinese (main land) end users which we do not inform.
ant
Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
I have already contacted some of the people involved in the original zh.wikinews proposal. They have re-examined the project with an eye toward updating the policy pages, templates, and layout. It appears the project meets the required number of volunteers, has moved through pre-launch process (twice), and is ready to be created.
Amgine
Erik Moeller wrote:
On February 7, 2005 we had a poll on Meta to gather opinions on how to deal with the particular problem of whether to launch a Chinese language edition of Wikinews or not. Back then, the main reason for not launching the project was that it might jeopardize the Chinese Wikipedia, i.e., put it at risk of censorship. The poll was evenly split, with half favoring launching the project given enough support (which it has), and the other half wanting the decision to be left to the Chinese Wikipedia community (which, incidentally, also voted 50/50):
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/China
Exactly one year later, I think it might be a good idea to relaunch this poll, with the old votes archived, given that the situation has changed fundamentally. According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Wikipedia_in_mainland_China
Wikipedia has been censored in mainland China since October 2005. Furthermore, we have all seen large search engines cave in to the Chinese government in recent months. Interestingly enough, recent reports note that Google China is being censored in spite of filtering search results:
http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/afx/2006/02/03/afx2498050.html
To me, this indicates that it may simply not be possible to create an encyclopedia written from the neutral point of view which will be accepted by the current Chinese government. The question then becomes whether it is legitimate for us to continue to put a resource on hold that might be useful to millions of Chinese speakers outside the mainland, i.e. Chinese Wikinews.
So, are there any objections to relaunching this poll, or alternative suggestions on how to proceed? I think the "wait and see" approach has gone on long enough.
Best,
Erik _______________________________________________ Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
I would strongly support doing a new set of polls but before we do we need to work out exactly what we are asking the community to decide, and what the parameters of the decision will be.
The decision not to start Chinese Wikinews was, in my view, one which the community took out of respect for the strength and openness of Chinese Wikipedia, and the (valid) concerns of that community. Things have changed now, of course, and it is good to reassess.
What I'm personally looking for is broad support from both the Chinese Wikipedia community *and* from the entire community before we start it.
Some Chinese Wikipedians may believe that the block will be lifted if we continue the current strategy. They would presumably argue that now is the *worst* possible time to open Chinese Wikinews. Others will argue that "Well, we're blocked anyway, might as well go for it."
Anything we do should be thoughtful about what those community members need.
--Jimbo
OK, I've created a brainstorming page on
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/China_2
to design a poll or set of polls to deal with the issue. I think all votes should take place on Meta rather than Wikipedia, since there already is Chinese Wikiquote, Chinese Wikisource, Chinese Wiktionary, Chinese Wikicommons, Chinese Wikispecies, and Chinese Wikibooks, and it wouldn't be fair to potentially exclude people who are members of any of these communities, but not of the Chinese Wikipedia.
Erik
wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org