Dear community,
after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Wikipedia was
overwhelmed by people expressing their sympathy for the victims,
adding material about affected organizations, and generally flooding
us with content that was inappropriate. Rather than turning these
people away, the decision was made to set up a separate wiki,
sep11.wikipedia.org, which still exists today.
A poll on Meta for closing the project showed 104 people in support
and 6 people in opposition. A volunteer, Jeff Merkey, has offered to
host the content under a dedicated domain name,
sep11memories.org, in
a read-only state. It will from then onward be completely separate
from the Wikimedia Foundation.
Before we make this move, I would like to call all volunteers to help
review the state of the wiki. Remove comments or pages which are
inappropriate, remove inappropriate references to Wikipedia which
suggest an ongoing association (pointing out the historical
association is fine), and so on. An alternative logo would also be
helpful; otherwise the logo will have to be turned off.
To help, do the following:
1) Create an account on
http://sep11.wikipedia.org/
2) Add yourself to the "Cleanup Group" on
http://sep11.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_Portal
3) Start working. :-) If you need admin rights, leave a note on my
talk page (User:Eloquence).
I hope people will help. I believe our own project history is
important and deserves respect and attention, even if we decide that a
project is not within the scope of the Wikimedia Foundation, and
especially when dealing with a subject such as this.
I would suggest a cleanup period of 4 weeks at most. Remember, this is
not a call for reviving the project and adding new information (though
new navigation structure is fine), but to get it into a state where it
can exist as a separate, valuable resource.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.