[WikiEN-l] What is the fundamental goal of the project?

[Ray Saintonge]

Omegatron wrote:

>A number of users are trying to change Wikipedia's
>policy to prohibit *all* fair use and permission-only images, and
>deleting scores of them.  Their rationale hinges around this concept
>that we have a "primary goal" of creating free content, and a
>"secondary goal" of writing a high-quality encyclopedia.  If the goals
>can in fact be split into multiple sub-goals (which itself is
>contentious), their subdivision seems completely wrong and backwards
>to me, and they're destroying a ton of irreplaceable encyclopedic
>content with it.
>
What you call the "primary goal" applies to all Wikimedia projects; the 
"secondary goal" applies only to the Wikipedias.  I think there is a 
place for fair use in Wikipedia, and at the same time I support the 
rationale for its being prohibited in Commons.  Your talk of multiple 
sub-goals seems to be a second rate categorixation problem more than 
anything else.  Don't make the issue more complicated than it should be.

>In the years I've been contributing to the project, I have always
>understood that our goal is to create a neutral, reliable encyclopedia
>"of the highest possible quality" that can be distributed as widely
>and freely as possible.  "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia".  Copyleft,
>free content is a tremendously important means to that end, but it
>isn't the end itself.  We should use free content wherever possible,
>but when no free content exists to suit our encyclopedic purpose, we
>should still use whatever else we legally can and maximize the benefit
>downstream users get from the project. 
>
Jimbo, in his speech at Wikimania 2005, spoke of freeing various kinds 
of intellectual property.  People seem to forget that he used the verb 
"free" rather than the noun "free". The verb is dynamic; the noun is 
static.  That is the case irrespective of whether we are talking about 
"free as in beer" or "free as in speech".  Simply taking material that 
is already free and regurgitating it is insufficient to the task.  While 
I support fair use I still recognize the transitivity problem connected 
with it.  Simply using fair use may not effect free use in all 
circumstances; it only does so in a difficult-to-define subset.  If we 
are to regard "free" as a verb our task is to take things that are not 
now free, and through our efforts make them free.  This is a more 
complex and more challenging task than what we have been doing up until 
now.  It involves recognizing law as a tool, not as a hindrance.

>Our goal is to create a
>repository of "the sum of all human knowledge"; not "a collection of
>copyright-free human knowledge".  (That's what Project Gutenberg is
>for.)
>
Then what do you see as the goal of Wikisource?

>Should we remove articles that haven't been translated into other
>languages yet because it doesn't meet our subgoal of "in their own
>language"?
>
That seems like a space cadet extension of the concept that no article 
should be allowed unless it is perfect in every respect from the beginning.

>Should we delete and paraphrase all quotations and excerpts because
>they don't meet our subgoal of being free content?  Quotation is a
>form of fair use copyright violation, too, yet I don't see any
>fanatics with "Say 'NO' to quotation!" banners on their user pages.
>
To get your terminology straight "fair use" is specifically NOT a 
"copyright violation".  Don't muddle the argument by mixing up claimed 
fair use and actual fair use.

>Our goal is to write a useful, authoritative encyclopedia and make it
>as distributable and accessible as possible.  We should be doing
>everything we can to meet this goal.
>
Yes, but we still need to be mindful of prevailing constraints.

Ec