[Foundation-l] Politico: "Wikimedia foundation hires lobbyists on sopa, pipa"

[Theo10011]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 12:30 AM, Mike Godwin <mnemonic at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Why do you imagine money spent is the measure of influence? The
> pro-SOPA forces outspent the tech industry three-to-one and still
> lost.
>

Citation needed.

>
> Plus, If money is the measure of effectiveness, what does this say
> about Encyclopedia Britannica versus Wikipedia?


We have more. You need to separate Wikipedia from WMF, one is a US based
non-profit, the other is an online Encyclopedia. An encyclopedia, or
Wikipedia in this case, has to strive to be free of bias and political
positions, especially local ones. WMF on the other hand, can facilitate and
protect its interest and mission.

If I were to use a simplistic analogy, I would see Encyclopedia Britannica,
as a strictly scholar written encyclopedia with 65 thousand articles, who
in this model might have no options but to use lobbyist, since they don't
have a direct way of communicating with their readers. English Wikipedia at
3.8 million articles, written by you, me and most people on this list,
updated every second, might seem more at home by being direct, and talking
to the people who read and write it, and let them decide on their own
instead.

Regards
Theo