[Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Ian A. Holton]

On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 5:39 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> Fred Bauder wrote:
> >> Can you and Kurt come up with a proposal that doesn't abandon our
> >> fabulously useful and marketable air of neutrality?
> >>
> > Yes, good thought, I think we could. After all, it is a sort of cemetery.
> >
> >
> Maybe it would be better to start the project on Wikia.  That would
> certainly be better than trying to upset the balance that we have here
> between what are often extremely divergent approaches to some topics.
>
> Ec
>

I agree with the majority on this list that this proposed project is not
within the scope of the WMF and would better be hosted either on Wikia or
even on private hosting (which is low-cost as pointed in a previous
message).

The main reasons are as mentioned the problem of neutrality/POV and also
that once one such project is created many more proposals will follow and I
don't really want to see the WMF in a political role of deciding which
event/incidents/... in history and currently "deserve" a memorial wiki or a
wiki of any kind.

I do however believe that such a project is a good idea and also believe
that it being hosted outside of the WMF might even be benefitial and might
even be worth an organisation itself if the scope is extended to cover more
than "just" the victims of one regime, others have been already pointed out
in previous messages.

Also, Wikipedia is (currently) not blocked in "Red China" (this statement is
based on Original Research by living in Beijing, but is verifiable). And the
differences in system and split have been mentioned, although parallels did
exist.

Merry Christmas to all fellow Wikimedians,

Ian
[[User:Poeloq]]