[WikiEN-l] An open letter to Jimmy Wales

[Oskar Sigvardsson]

On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 1:24 AM, Larry Sanger
<sanger-lists at citizendium.org> wrote:
> It certainly has changed since I wrote it.
>
> It looks as if you're trying to imply Wikipedia is not devoted to free
> speech, even in discussions about the community--even in discussions about
> the roles and public behavior of the most prominent representative of the
> community.  Perhaps you need to rethink what you're trying to say, David.

No, he's exactly right. Wikipedia is not, and it has never been a free
speech zone. It has never been a goal of the project to provide people
a platform for people to say whatever they want. Wikipedia is
absolutely not "devoted to free speech".

See, we're an *encyclopedia*, not a public forum. We may let anyone
edit, but we're always going to be first and foremost an encyclopedia.
Everything else is second to that.

 If you want free speech, use your blog. You can say whatever you want there.

--Oskar