[Foundation-l] Back to basics

Tue Jan 2 11:39:09 UTC 2007

Danny Delivers!

On 1/2/07, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
> With all the commotion, with the departures over the sitenotice, with the
> infighting on various projects (and between various projects), with the
> bitter
> debates over image policy, I thought it may be a good idea to go back to
> the
> very root of all the Wikimedia projects. It is a simple statement, but
> what
> it says--and doesn't say--summarized the very essence of what we
> are  doing.
>
> "Imagine a world in which every single human being can  freely share in
> the
> sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."
>
> Perhaps this should be the yardstick with which we make our decisions.  It
> is
> inclusive ("every single human being") and devoted to free content ("can
> freely share"), and it defines the parameters of our content ("the sum of
> all
> human knowledge."). It recognizes that this project is still in the works:
> we
> have not finished what we set out to do ("Imagine a world ...")
>
> That's our commitment.
>
> As for what it doesn't say:
> It does not say, "Imagine an advertising-free world."
> It does not say "where every single person who speaks a English or a
> European language ..."
> It does not say "share freely unless the unfree content is better."
> It does not say "free knowledge and links to where to find out  more/buy
> it."
> It does not say "That's what we did."
>
> Let's try and refocus the discussions on what our goals are and how we can
> best achieve them. Let's use this as our yardstick.
>
> Danny
>
>
>
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