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

[andrew.cady at gmail.com]

On Wed, Jan 31, 2007 at 10:00:05PM -0500, Omegatron wrote:

> These arguments that free content is our primary goal is like an
> argument that our primary goal is to be a wiki, because hey, it's
> right there in the title of the project, right?  This is, of course,
> demonstrably false.  The wiki/"anyone can edit" aspect of the project,
> while highly important, is regularly ignored when it doesn't serve the
> primary purpose of writing a high-quality encyclopedia and making it
> available to as many people as possible.

Every contributor has his own motives for contribution.  I imagine the
general function of wikipedia to most contributors--its place in their
lives--is an outlet for creativity or constructive impulses.  Users
may also be motivated by the desire to have some record of particular
viewpoints or topics, or may have a purely destructive purpose (though,
of course, effort is made to keep those users away).  The passing
on of knowledge--teaching--seems to be valuable to those who have
been devoted to their own education.  Reciprocity no doubt inspires
some contribution--readers aware of the free nature of the content
will feel some indebtedness and be encouraged by the ease of adding
whatever corrections or additions might present themselves.  Others
value community and the sense of *autonomous* collaboration which is so
often lacking in centrally-managed creative endeavors (such as work).

Many other motives could be ascribed to various groups or individuals.
No "primary purpose" is going to give any *accurate* description of
everyone or, probably, anyone--even those who would identify with some
particular purpose.  However, it is fairly certain--to me, anyway--that
on the whole, the purpose of wikipedia is not in the product, but the
process.

> Unfortunately, there is a lot of encyclopedic content that will never
> be released under a free license, and limiting ourselves to *only*
> free content would also limit the breadth, usefulness, and neutrality
> of our encyclopedia.  So we allow non-free content whenever it is
> encyclopedic, legal and doesn't displace equivalent free content.

I certainly agree with this (as much as I would prefer that free content
replace non-free).

> > It seems fruitless to argue about the details of any particular
> > policy if we disagree on the purpose of the project.
>
> I think you mean "It's fruitless to try to reach a consensus about
> the details of any particular policy when a small group of users have
> modified it to suit their ideals and are unwilling to compromise".

I say, there's plenty of fruit for everyone.