I agree absolutely with this. All Wikipedians are political and we pontificate to the world quite happily while following a complex set of agreed rules. To believe that Wikipedia has a neutral point of view is like believing there is no systemic bias in the academic world. The gateway that anyone must pass in order to keep their edits live on Wikipedia is navigating the extremely complex web known in our jargon as "reliable sources". I believe Wikipedia has done a better job overall than academia in general of expanding this magic list by opening up our "set of rules" to a worldwide playing field, but this magic list is uneven and a work-in-progress. Face-to-face meetups have only cemented rankings on our magic list, not erased them. Where does this magic list stand in the post-truth world? If we believe in our magic list, we believe in the people who made it and add to it every day and thus we believe in free passage for those people to any meetup anywhere in the world. Any threat to that safe passage is a direct threat to our community, no matter how good your irc, google hangout, skype call, or facebook group might be.
And meanwhile, we will deal with political issues as they affect us in the way we deal with all the other random stuff of humanity that pops up regularly in our projects, whether it is based on "reliable sources", religious belief, superstition, politics, fear, humor, or all of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bowling_Green_Massacre&direction=next&oldid=763427006 On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 8:06 PM, Robert Fernandez <wikigamal...@gmail.com> wrote: > That is an obvious false equivalence. The issue isn't people rooting > for the WMF to take political stances that mirror their own. The > issue is whether or not that the WMF should recognize that its mission > can intersect with or conflict with political stances and then act > appropriately. The free dissemination of factual, neutral information > and the ability of editors to participate in that dissemination is in > many contexts a political act and the WMF should recognize this. To > contend that Wikimedia activity is, can be, or should be always > politically neutral is naive and comes from a place of privilege where > your personal engagement will likely never be threatened by political > interference. > > > > On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:59 PM, Nathan <nawr...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 7:26 PM, Natacha Rault <n.ra...@me.com> wrote: > > > >> ...After all there is a notion called "freedom of speech".... Katherine > >> Maher did a statement and so what? That does not prevent wikipedians > from > >> editing, and confronting opinions to approach NPOV (actually there is no > >> achieved NPOV on Wikipedia in what concerns the gender biases as far as > I > >> see it). > > > > > > > > I imagine that your response would be different if Katherine's position > > didn't match your own. What if she posted that she agreed that "extreme > > vetting" was an appropriate response to the risk of terrorist attacks, > that > > nations with liberal refugee policies had experienced multiple attacks in > > recent years, and that radicalism is an existential threat to free > > societies? These are views shared by hundreds of millions of people > > (although not you, Katherine, or me). This hopefully illustrates why > taking > > political positions beyond the mission is fraught with risk, and why the > > frequent demands that the WMF (or the community) do so are misplaced. > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
