[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia as moral tool?

[Ray Saintonge]

William Pietri wrote:

>My understanding of what Wikipedia does at the core has always been 
>pretty simple: We take factual material elsewhere and summarize it 
>neutrally and clearly. I feel like the service we provide to readers is 
>pretty simple: instead of making them dig through all the stuff out 
>there on some topic just to get an overview, we do the first pass at 
>that for them.
>
>But lately I hear a different thing. Now that we've become so prominent, 
>I hear people saying that we should be using Wikipedia as a moral 
>instrument.
>
It only begs the question : Whose morality?

Ironically I think that Jimbo's pronouncement that we should put more 
emphasis on quality has contributed to the problem.  The desire to 
improve quality has always been theser among those who are committed to 
the wiki philosophy.  When a major pronouncement is made to promote 
quality it can encourage too many of Mrs. Worthington's daughters to go 
on the stage.  We end up with too many people who believe that they know 
what quality is.

Ec