[Foundation-l] Board resolutions on controversial content and images of identifiable people

[phoebe ayers]

On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 2:14 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 06/01/2011 11:05 PM, Michael Snow wrote:
>> On 6/1/2011 2:03 PM, Milos Rancic wrote:
>>> "Wikimedia projects are curated and edited collections, according to
>>> certain principles: namely, we host only content that is both free and
>>> educational in nature."
>>>
>>> So Board said that Wikinews is out of scope. Its nature is
>>> informational, not educational.
>> I'm sorry, but I don't understand what distinction you're trying to
>> make. In this context, those look like synonyms to me.
>
> If so, I am fine with it. What do Board members mean with that?
>

Hi Milos,

We meant what is stated there: that Wikimedia project content should
be at a minimum both free and educational in nature. (In general, you
can assume that language in resolutions like this is intentional).
However, you can also safely assume that the Board did not
specifically discuss the scope of Wikinews when writing this
resolution; we were focused on the topic at hand. I personally think
there is a very valid argument to be made that Wikinews, like most
news sources and like the rest of our projects, is educational (as
well as possessing other qualities, such as the more general quality
of being informative, which also arguably applies to all of our
projects).

If people want to discuss these subtleties of language (or the scope
of wikinews) in depth however, a separate thread might be best.

-- phoebe