[Foundation-l] Censorship discussion: Thanks to all

[Dovi Jacobs]

Sorry, I don't know how I missed this. Thanks for the reply.
 
Overall, "pausing to evaluate the situation" is a good idea, and it is important to choose battles wisely. What worries me is that this might be more than just a pause, and put the issue on a back-burner indefinitely. And also how we evaluate which battles we choose to fight.
 
A couple of points I think should be re-emphasized:
 
1. I hope Wikinews people won't throw rotten tomatoes at me for saying this, but Wikinews is just a hobby and not a value-product, and not likely to be much more than a hobby for a long time in English and most other languages. I think it will eventually provide great value as it grows, but it doesn't now, because there are much better news sources out there on the net. But this is *not* true of Chinese: Providing an outlet like this for Chinese news would be a thing of tremendous, immediate value to a huge number of people. And it is precisely this language that we are blocking! That is terrible.
 
2. When it comes to choosing our battles, we should remember that our choices *now* have implications for our *future* choices. Will we also deny Wikinews in Arabic if people in some countries are worried about that being blocked? Or certain other countries in Asia and Africa, or even a few left in Eastern Europe? A firm policy decision now will might prevent damage in the future if people (and governments and corporations) simply know, in advance, that censorship is not on the agenda at Wikimedia.
 
3. When you decide which battles to fight, you first have to evaluate how strong you are! Wikimedia is not weak; Wikipedia (plus its sisters) have become invaluable resources provided by a well-known, well-respected organization. This is only becoming more and more so, month by month, and the trend is not going to be reversed. In other words, we have the *strength* to stand up to this in the long term. It is not all or nothing: We should assume that even the *worst-case* scenario is a ban that will be eventually be revoked, because no govenment will be able to justify banning it in the long term.
 
4. Jimbo wrote: "We would be lauded as heros in the western media. I'd have my face on
the cover of Time Magazine and Der Spiegel and so on. "Wikipedia shut
down by the Chinese government" -- an exciting story! We feel great
about ourselves for fighting against censorship!" .... 
I really think that the whole point has been missed here. Of course we are not looking for glory and amazing press releases (though they are nice... :-). The point is that those press releases are not important for making us feel good, but for the good that they can do for our Chinese contributors. If the worst-case scenario happens, and we get press releases like that, their purpose in our eyes will *not* be to *report* on the problem, but to help *solve* the problem. The Chinese government is not impervious to criticism, and such press will make sure that blocking, if it happens, will not stand in the long run.
 
5. We should also consider negative press, like this story that came out today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4088702.stm. Do we want to be the same as that? Because we are non-profit, we have the opportunity to provide an alternative that other corporations cannot provide. Let's do it!
 
6. I wonder if the Chinese censors are reading this right now? If so, let's send them the right message. :-)
 
Dovi
 

		
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