[Foundation-l] Re: free speech and wikinews

Wed May 4 00:03:58 UTC 2005

Anthere wrote:

> Tim writes that Wikimedia has always supported "free speech" as used
> in Stallman's analogy, but not "free speech" in its usual meaning.
> The question is whether this is completely true. It is true that
> endorsing the former meaning (Stallman's) does not *necessarily*
> imply endorsing the latter meaning. However, it is equally true that
> endorsing the former strongly suggests endorsing the latter as well,
> and many or most Wikimedia users probably assume that this is the
> case, and not wrongly. So it is a strong implication, but has never
> been made an explicit policy. What I suggest is that we formally
> honor the implication by making it explicit policy.

Of course there is also censorship at Wikimedia. For instance we 
regularly delete nonsense.

"Free speech" as used by Stallmann is coverd by GFDL but "Free speech" 
in its usual meaning is (partly) implied by NPOV!

If there is a relevant number of people who want to set up Chinese 
Wikinews and NPOV can be applied for Wikimedia projects as whole then it 
does not matter if there is majority for or against Chinese Wikinews in 
the community. Chinese News just have to be mentioned. If there is a 
risk in doing so we have to risk it as well as in single articles where 
unloved opinions are mentioned because of NPOV.

just my point of view,
Jakob