> In a message dated 5/22/2011 9:31:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time, > fredb...@fairpoint.net writes: > > >> Legally, Wikipedia is private property belonging to a nonprofit >> corporation. If the United States government, or some other government, >> owned it and regulated it in such a way as to guarantee public access >> it >> would be a public website. >> > > My point Fred, is there is no such animal. So calling something a > "private > website" is redundant, since all websites are private, there are no > public > websites. Certainly there are websites owned by governments, but they > are > not public in the sense above that there is guaranteed access to *modify* > their contents. >
There are public spaces which are enforced, for example, freedom of religion or of the press in the United States. But you are correct that words alone fail; such guarantees must be enforced by citizens with a commitment to them. But that is not fundamentally different from how Wikipedia, or any voluntary organization, works. Fred _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l