On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 4:23 PM, Todd Allen
<toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I've never understood why that was considered
non-neutral. WMF, as an
entity, can have viewpoints, especially as relates to the organization
itself. The WMF, for example, is not neutral on the question of
whether or not people should make donations to the WMF, and utilizes
the project (through banners) to that end. However, they do not go put
into the article [[Wikimedia Foundation]] a line that says "Donating
to WMF is great, go do it!" Similarly, we never once advocated
abandoning neutrality on the [[SOPA]] article.
It's simple. The WMF didn't do anything. The English Wikipedia did. That
project effectively changed the content of the entire encyclopedia for
political reasons. That is the condicio sine qua non for abandoning
neutrality. You might say it was done for great reasons, and that it
doesn't corrupt the principle of neutrality generally or imperil the
reputation of the project, etc. But it's impossible to rationally argue
that the SOPA/PIPA protest didn't temporarily set aside neutrality.
And I still don't understand where all those IPs and single-purpose
accounts voting for the blackout came from, or why administrators were
directed to let their votes stand, when we regularly exclude such votes
from far less important community discussions.