[Foundation-l] Is Wikip/media politic?

[Andrew Lih]

This may or may not be what you're interested in:

The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, keeper of Wikipedia, was created
to be "politically neutral," says Wales. "But on a deeper level there
is something profoundly political about what we're saying – which is
that everybody should have access to information."

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:ITAAW

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


On 10/10/05, Jakob Voss <jakob.voss at nichtich.de> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> A friend of mine is searching for a quote of Jimbo meantioning that
> Wikipedia or Wikimedia is not political. Maybe Jimbo said something like
> this during the Politics of Wikimedia panel at Wikimania or related to
> comparing Wikimedia with the Red Cross or it's because something with
> tax in the US. Does anybody has a quote with a source?
>
> In my opinion every encyclopaedia is politic; Jean-Baptiste Soufron
> wrote about "The political importance of the Wikipedia Project" [1]:
>
> "It seemed to me that, first of all, a real encyclopedia should be a
> place directed toward a political project of its own, and not only
> toward some sort of simple scientific dictionnary project."
>
> There is several distinct questions:
> 1. Is Wikipedia politic?
> 2. Does the community think that Wikipedia is politic
> 3. Is Wikimedia Foundation a politic organisation?
>
> I think the answer to the first question is "yes", the answer to the
> second is "some do, some don't" and the answer to the third is "no"
> (isn't it?) - but how do you explain the difference in the answers?
>
> Greetings,
> Jakob
>
> [1] http://soufron.free.fr/soufron-spip/article.php3?id_article=71
>
> P.S: Mathias pointed me to two German newspaper articles that also
> mention politics and Wikipedia - but you know that you cannot believe
> everything that journalists write, especially when there is only a
> German translation and no original quote of who said what:
>
> http://www.faz.net/s/Rub4C34FD0B1A7E46B88B0653D6358499FF/Doc~E197429C5610645CAB70619D096D35BC5~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
> http://www.weltexpress.info/index.php?artikel_id=983&rubrik=5&lan=de
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