On February 7, 2005 we had a poll on Meta to gather
opinions on how to
deal with the particular problem of whether to launch a Chinese language
edition of Wikinews or not. Back then, the main reason for not launching
the project was that it might jeopardize the Chinese Wikipedia, i.e.,
put it at risk of censorship. The poll was evenly split, with half
favoring launching the project given enough support (which it has), and
the other half wanting the decision to be left to the Chinese Wikipedia
community (which, incidentally, also voted 50/50):
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/China
Exactly one year later, I think it might be a good idea to relaunch this
poll, with the old votes archived, given that the situation has changed
fundamentally. According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Wikipedia_in_mainland_China
Wikipedia has been censored in mainland China since October 2005.
Furthermore, we have all seen large search engines cave in to the
Chinese government in recent months. Interestingly enough, recent
reports note that Google China is being censored in spite of filtering
search results:
http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/afx/2006/02/03/afx2498050.html
To me, this indicates that it may simply not be possible to create an
encyclopedia written from the neutral point of view which will be
accepted by the current Chinese government. The question then becomes
whether it is legitimate for us to continue to put a resource on hold
that might be useful to millions of Chinese speakers outside the
mainland, i.e. Chinese Wikinews.
So, are there any objections to relaunching this poll, or alternative
suggestions on how to proceed? I think the "wait and see" approach has
gone on long enough.
Best,
Erik
Admittedly, the previous attitude which consisted of "not opening" the
chinese speaking wikinews to avoid China censoring our projects... makes
little sense now...
Actually, I am concerned...
We currently claim this : "Imagine a world in which every single person
is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what
we're doing."
Unfortunately, I feel it is not true. That might be what we are *trying*
to do, or what we are *aiming* to do.
But if we are frank with ourselves, we are currently putting most of our
energy "in giving free access to a lot of knowledge to people who could
mostly access this knowledge without us".
Granted, we simplify the access to knowledge to many. We collect the
info. We organise it. We put all our attention in giving non biaised
information. And this is already really great.
But we mostly give information to those who have internet access and if
they made a bit of effort, they could actually find this information all
by themselves. At least for major languages.
In short, we facilitate access to information for those who *already*
can access it.
What we do not do is:
* We do not *improve* access to those who do not have access to
information now
* And we do not make *every effort* to collect the sum of human knowledge.
The best example being precisely chinese (main land) knowledge that we
do not collect and chinese (main land) end users which we do not inform.
ant