Wikipedia talk:10 things you did not know about Wikipedia

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On 11 March 2007, Wikipedia:10 things you did not know about Wikipedia was linked from Digg, a high-traffic website.
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On 11 March 2007, Wikipedia:10 things you did not know about Wikipedia was linked from Reddit, a high-traffic website.
All prior and subsequent edits are noted in the revision history.

Contents

[edit] Some contested items

"Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales occasionally acts as a final arbiter on the English Wikipedia, but his influence is based on respect, not power; it takes effect only where the community does not challenge it." Hi. Um. How is this true? I've been on WP a while, and I've never understood his "decisions" to be in effect where not challenged. One must only look to the Essjay issue to see that claim is false. It might be better put that his dictatorial powers are de facto, and he makes the final judgment except when the media is in an uproar? Xiphoris 19:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Let me be bold and say points 4. 5. and 6. are complete rubbish... -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 09:14, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Let me be bold and say that opinions without justification are completely useless. :-) --Eloquence* 09:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, that is the reason I said 4. 5. and six are rubbish. Totally unjustified opinions... -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 09:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I beg to differ. They are justified with arguments & references.--Eloquence* 10:14, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
You beg belief. Justification is not provided by statement. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 10:44, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Look at the recent essjay issue if you want proof that number 4 is invalid - he ended up deleting a large number of his old posts. Permanent deletion is a special power that admins on Wikipedia have.

"The Wikimedia Foundation is controlled by its Board of Directors, the majority of whom are elected by the community." Huh? Only 2 of 7 were elected. The majority still consists of Jimbo, his appointees, and his appointees' appointees. Which also makes nonsense of the claim that Jimbo's authority is based on respect rather than power. Let the entire Board be elected and see how much respect Jimbo will have then. Bramlet Abercrombie 12:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Mindspillage and Oscar came in second and third in the last election. I supported them for appointment specifically for that reason, and objected to appointment of anyone else. They were appointed to terms that end together with mine, and must stand for re-election together with myself. Insofar I would argue that the status quo is equivalent to their election.--Eloquence* 13:34, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
The election was for one place only. As such Mindspillage and Oscar were losers in the election (and indeed had only 28% and 30% support). They were arbitrarily appointed by the Jimbo-dominated Board (your support was not necessary). With the same kind of justification the fourth- and fifth-place finishers etc. could have been appointed as well. Jimbo had openly recommended the election of Mindspillage and Oscar, and when neither won first place he just appointed them anyway. It still is a dictatorship. (If you think Jimbo's authority is based on respect, why doesn't he stand for election himself?) Bramlet Abercrombie 13:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
1) "Only 28% and 30% support" is a disingenuous comment, given the method of voting and the number of candidates. Approval voting is widely considered superior to first-past-the-post voting in assessing honest voter choices. A "50% vote" does not by any means assess a 50% level of honest support for a candidate if you take into account strategic voting. 2) Michael is not Jimmy's functionary and has voted opposite to him and other Board members on numerous occasions. The fact that Jimmy endorsed Mindspillage and Oscar also does not make them functionaries. Thus, Jimmy never had a "safe majority", and he certainly does not now. 3) The Board is consensus-oriented, and a consensus solution typically quickly wins out over a non-consensus one. Suffice it to say that, at the relevant Board meeting, it was I who insisted that Mindspillage and Oscar should be appointed, over alternative proposals that were under discussion. 4) If you knew anything about non-profit Boards, you'd understand that by far the most important position is that of Chair. Jimmy is no longer the Chair of the Board. 5) Jimmy's term is already limited to one year (with regular renewal by majority vote), just like the other two appointed Board members. We've discussed the possibility of making his seat an elected one as he is basically a community member. Incidentally, the reason we have discussed this is partially that it would allow us to appoint another external person to the Board while retaining a community-elected majority. However, there are other concerns. In the next election, 3 Board members will stand for re-election, in addition to any expansion that may occur. Best practice for non-profit Boards is to have staggered appointments/elections to ensure orientation of new members. It therefore may not make sense to push for Jimmy's seat to be an elected one before 2008.--Eloquence* 14:40, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
1) No, it is precisely with this method of voting (i.e. where people can vote for multiple candidates) that 28% and 30% are very bad results. It means, on the face of it, that 72% and 70% respectively disapprove of the person. Had it been known in advance that lower-ranked finishers might be appointed, there would have been more candidates in the first place and the result would have been different. As it was, many people probably refrained from running because they didn't expect to be able to win first place. Deciding afterwards to appoint the best losers too is not a proper electoral procedure. 2) Well, I'll have to take your word for that. I don't see votes on the Board being published, so that one could check if any vote on any serious matter ever went against Jimmy. I just find it a strange coincidence that almost all of Jimmy's appointees have been libertarians or Objectivists like himself. 3) Any such practice would only be in effect at Jimmy's pleasure. If Jimmy and his appointees have the majority, they don't need a consensus. 4) Florence doesn't strike me as holding the most important position. Where is this supposed importance of the chair coming from? The decisions have to be made by majority vote. So if Jimmy and his appointees have a majority, they don't need the chair. 5) Again, if he has a majority of his own appointees, he hardly has to worry about being reappointed. If you're suggesting that in the future his seat will be made elective (and no further appointed seats will be added), so that a majority of seats will be elective, then that's good to hear, but as of now it is still a dictatorship. Bramlet Abercrombie 20:17, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that your intention is to take a deliberately hostile view towards everything Wikimedia, and that you find facts more annoying than helpful in this process. You continue to insist that Jimmy has "his appointees" on the Board, which, as I have explained, is flat out wrong and borderline libelous. You fail to understand even the most basic aspects of non-profit governance and are, through your ignorance, insulting the Chair of the Foundation who bears the brunt of governing responsibilities. You do not even understand approval voting: lack of a vote does not imply "disapproval", it implies nothing at all, and in an election with voters from dozens of countries and 17 candidates a non-vote is primarily predicted by unfamiliarity with the candidate. In short, you are trolling.--Eloquence* 21:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Flat out wrong? Did Jimmy not appoint Tim and Michael? And did not the board where those three had the majority, appoint Mindspillage, Oskar, and Jan-Bart? So the majority of the present Board are Jimmy's direct or indirect appointees. Insulting the chair? Well, maybe Florence is dealing with a lot of quiet bureaucratic stuff, but she's certainly not making any major decisions about matters the community cares about. On the other hand, there are plenty of pronunciamentos of Jimmy. I don't remember that it was Florence who asked Essjay to resign, for example. Do enlighten me about "the most basic aspects of non-profit governance" which you think I don't understand. So far you're just making empty insults. Bramlet Abercrombie 21:26, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
There is no "infectious" indirect appointment; a decision made by someone appointed originally by Jimmy is not implicitly a decision by Jimmy. I have also already pointed out to you that the appointment of Mindspillage and Oscar was not advocated by Jimmy, but by myself. Florence is responsible for "quiet bureaucratic stuff" such as talking to the Wall Street Journal, or leading the search for an Executive Director, or coordinating the interaction with our paid staff members, or organizing and setting the agenda for all Board meetings. Quiet indeed. Did it ever occur to you that, in the bigger picture, the things that "matter to the community" such as your everyday userbox dispute or admin wheel war, are not actually that important to an organization which operates 9 projects in 250 languages, runs 300 servers, and has to process 20,000 hits per second; an organization which must lead business negotiations and fundraising efforts, technological initiatives, coordination of chapters, and outreach? The extent of Jimmy's authority is explained in the page. You can choose to continue to believe in your vision of an arch-dictator, or you can face the reality of an organization that has moved on, as explained to you by one of its Board members.--Eloquence* 21:58, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
So you just expect people to trust that Jimmy makes only completely disinterested appointments of people who have no hesitation at all to vote against him, even though they were longtime business partners. Well, you can choose to believe that. As to Mindspillage and Oscar, he obviously agreed with their appointments, even if you think that it was you who made it happen. The point is, he and his appointees could have outvoted you and Florence in case of a disagreement. As to the things Florence does, yes, that's just what I thought. I'm not disparaging her work at all, but it is of an administrative rather than "political" nature. And as far as talking to the press goes, Jimmy is still doing much more of that than Florence. Indeed, you have yourself described Jimmy's authority in the page. The difference is only that you think it is a "natural authority" (the respected "founder"), while I don't think his authority would last if his appointees weren't dominating the Board. Bramlet Abercrombie 22:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
The logic by which you have declared Mindspillage and Oscar to be "Jimmy's appointees" (Michael and Tim were business partners and therefore would do anything he says, and even if I hadn't made the proposition to recognize the election result for the purpose of expanding the Board, and he hadn't argued for a different proposition, he could have controlled his "partners" to ensure the outcome that resulted, therefore the appointed trustees, who happen to be the legitimate runner-ups in the election, must also be directly controlled by Jimmy, even though it is clear that Jimmy is no longer even chairing the Board, and the majority of the Board has won the direct support of the community) is so tortured, unreal and full of false assumptions that it doesn't merit further commenting. You've truly lost touch with reality.--Eloquence* 22:58, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
What's a "legitimate runner-up"? A runner-up in an election is a loser in the election. And I wonder how 28% approval constitutes "direct support of the community". With your attitude here it is indeed no surprise that you did not win a majority yourself. Your story about Jimmy arguing for a different proposition is not verifiable and irrelevant. He agreed to it, and the appointment of those two was no doubt in his interest, since he had told people to vote for those very two before the election. Of course they are Jimmy's appointees. Bramlet Abercrombie 23:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Could you please explain why that change is "malicious"? If a "runner-up" is appointed, is that person still an appointee? An appointee is by definition unelected. When one does the math it still seems that the board is majority appointee. Quatloo 19:27, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
If you want to be completely anal about it, all Board members are appointees, since the Board is under no obligation to accept election results. This appears to be largely a game with semantics to support the conclusion that Wikimedia is "still majority appointee", in spite of the fact that the runner-ups were appointed to terms of the same length as mine (instead of a full year term), and will be required to stand for re-election after that. This was the most democratic thing the WMF could have done under the circumstances, if it didn't want to run yet another 2 month election circus. In any case, I've changed the text to reflect the reality of the Foundation bylaws, which require that the majority of the Board must be either appointed or elected from the community.--Eloquence* 19:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I'd rather fit something along the lines of "while anyone can edit Wikipedia, actually have something notable to write about first". And I'm surprised that didn't make it in here more clearly. As my subpage in my sig notes, the project would highly benefit from someone fixing this perception of Wikipedia as the place you can add anything to, and as an extension that's why you should never use it as a source (rather than noting it's a tertiary source, and that's the reason you shouldn't trust us beyond what we cite :p). -Wooty Woot? contribs 07:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with everything but point 9. This is a benevolent dictatorship, but the authoritarian boot has come down before when democracy is apparently not working fast enough. Not enough to make me even fathom quitting, but I've run into it a little too much to pretend it's not even a bit, uh, "Putin-ish". Great list overall --Bobak 01:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Policy wonks

I'm in agreement with Angela, I don't think that particular bit of humor works for this. My suggestion: "We do care about quality." --Michael Snow 05:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

If you have to say that you care, then nobody believes you. If they see quality, they will believe that you care about it. That is all. Mangoe 04:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikitravel

What about Wikitravel? Shouldn't it be included in the list?

159.140.254.10 19:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikitravel is not a Wikimedia project. It's hosted by Internet Brands.--Eloquence* 19:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I guess the suggestion is related to the item "Wikipedia is part of a growing movement for Free Knowledge". therfor your answer is irrelevant. What ius relevant is whether wikitravel is part of Free Knowledge" or not. So far the impression is that only wikimedia projects are listed, which is Bad Thing IMO, not to say that as a result the bold title We are not alone smells a bit overstretched when mentioning only jimboisms as a proud justifiction. `'mikka 21:54, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
It would be nice if non-Wikimedia GFDL and other flavours of "free" projects were mentioned apart from the the Wikimedia ones. I initially took the "we are not alone" comment to refer to the wider community of copyleft and "free" projects, and was disappointed to read the same old list of Wikimedia projects. Carcharoth 12:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I knew all these things

You lied! Now tell me things I really don't know! – Qxz 06:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I agree with Qxz. I feel cheated! :P GracenotesT § 11:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
You might like the Wikipedia:Tip of the day archive. ;-) --Eloquence* 13:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
No, I know all them too. Come on, tell me something new! Some inner Cabal secret that's never yet seen the light of day. Or something – Qxz 19:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I knew them too. WE DEMAND ACTUAL GEMS OF NEW INFO, PLS. Will (Speak to Me/Breathe)(Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash) 19:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I wonder if Qxz knows how to remove sysop status from a user. Or make users autoconfirmed as the result of placement in a group (via Special:Userrights), rather than as a function of time. Or write a featured article? Or an anti-vandal program (okay, nix that last one). Or who was desysopped in the userboxen wheel war. Or the history of ParserFunctions. Or how to use the wpReason delete parameter. Or when to use a list in an article. Or exactly how to go about major graphical layout changes. Or what WP:CSD#P2 or WP:CSD#G9 is. Or a particular instance where someone gained control of a sysop account and altered a highly visible page in a nonconstructive way. Or how to bypass the meta spam blacklist as a regular user. There is so little we know, but so much we all know. Hence, the wiki. (tada) (And you probably know one or two or [...] of these, Qxz!) GracenotesT § 23:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
get around the spam blacklist as an ordinary user — doesn't that defeat the point of a spam filter? Bawolff 03:18, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Well... it's an extremely obscure hack. Hopefully it'll stay as such :) GracenotesT § 16:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, let's see. The first I know, although I doubt I'll ever have the opportunity to do it on a Wikimedia project. The second, I could probably figure out if someone gave me the interface. I know how to write a featured article, I'm just too lazy. I know how to write anti-vandal software; a couple of minutes in the archives of WP:RFAR tells me exactly who was desysopped in the (ugh) userbox wheel wars, the history of ParserFunctions seems to be "AzaToth created {{qif}}, the developers responded with ParserFunctions in order to prevent the servers from dying", I assume the wpReason delete parameter is the reason-for-deletion field when you're deleting a page, you use a lists in an article when you need to list things (duh), you go about major graphical layout changes very carefully, G9 is WP:OFFICE and P2 is underpopulated portal (I committed those to memory some time ago), I have to say this looks a bit suspicious, though it was reverted soon after, I know it was possible to bypass the spam blacklist by adding HTML comments into the URL but I thought that was fixed.
Is that right? Do I win a prize? – Qxz 17:33, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
1. yes 2. no 3. dubious 4. right on! 5. no 6. yes 7. yes. 8. dubious/no 9. no 10. yes 11. yes 12. no 13. no Gracenotes gives Qxz a gold medal GracenotesT § 20:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Did you look all that up on Wikipedia Qxz? :) · AO Talk 12:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't know about that. Apparently you can't trust Wikipedia. GracenotesT § 04:43, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] We don't want you to trust us.

I have a big problem with this statement. I don't feel like we should be giving the green light to those who feel that Wikipedia is a totally unreliable source. It may be unreliable in some places, but I think we've done a damn good job trying to keep the truth in and the nonsense out. It's demeaning to the editors who put all their time into editing and sourcing articles and makes it look like the entire Wikipedia community is full of liars. I know what you're trying to say, but truthfully, most people who see this will only look at the headings, so it's important to make them truthful. └Jared┘┌talk┐  19:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

As you can see this statement links to a disclaimer, which is needed to protect Wikipedia against any lawsuits. Therefore I suggest calling this statement: "Wikipedia makes no guarantee of validity" or "Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of its articles". Itzse 20:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I'd be fine with "We cannot guarantee the validity of our articles." └Jared┘┌talk┐  20:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't. This isn't meant to be a boring disclaimer, it's meant to be interesting to read.--Eloquence* 20:36, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I know, and that's why I see where you're coming from, but it's too harsh of a statement. If you can think of something that's both funny and truthful, I'd like to hear it because I don't want to make this a totally serious thing, as you said. └Jared┘┌talk┐  20:40, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Both of you are correct. Maybe we can find the wording which isn't demeaning to the editors and at the same time not a boring disclaimer. Itzse 20:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
But you shouldn't trust "us" -- ie, the editors who write the articles. You should be checking the sources for yourself. We know there are bad articles on Wikipedia, as there will always be as long as it's the free encyclopedia anyone can edit. We can't guarantee the quality of any article, so we don't. – Þ  01:04, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. I think the wording is perfect, and not demeaning at all in context. Even if someone is only reading the headings, notice that this comes right after "We care deeply about the quality of our work." —Celithemis 01:35, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree - I mean, even in personal life, I don't expect (and don't want) people to trust what I say simply because I said it. I want to convince them with reasons. Obviously, this includes references. Mikker (...) 15:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I would just say that there's probably a more friendly way to state it. └Jared┘┌talk┐  19:10, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
'Don't take our word(s) for it'; 'We don't get the last word(s)'; are possibly friendlier phrases to wordsmith. Milo 03:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I like "don't take our word for it". Carcharoth 12:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'll edit in the classic idiom "Don't take our word for it." for a consensus check. 'Don't take our words for it' is a slightly more clever play on words that could be tried later. Milo 16:21, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
That doesn't even make any sense. "Don't take our word for it" is an exhortation, not a factual statement; it cannot be a "thing you didn't know" because it's not a thing to know. —Celithemis 21:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Try it now; I've made it declarative. Mangoe 21:49, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Better, but still not very good. It's likely to be read, at first, as "We don't want you to take our word for the previous five items on this list" rather than "we don't want you to take our word for the facts in our our articles", so all the surprise of the original is lost. —Celithemis 22:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Gah. This is better, but still doesn't encapsulate the full sense of the point. "We don't want you to trust us" is simple, to the point, and true. If it offends you, then go ahead and be offended, because it's still the case that readers should not trust the authors of articles, including you, no matter what point six says. – Þ  20:11, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

New compromise: We don't expect you to trust us. Still misses the punch of the original, but less Reading Rainbow-ish than "don't take our word for it" and solves Celithemis' concern about what we're referring to. I also think it's important to explicitly mention trust here because much of the criticism directed at WP is about trust and trustworthiness. – Þ  21:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
"We don't want you to trust us" connotatively goes way beyond "verify what you read here". It's not true, in a sense analogous to questions with a false premise. The criticism of occasional disinformation has been reframed by Wikipedia's opponents to an exaggerated global issue of "trust". This implies that Wikipedia is to be trusted or not like a single integrated person or a hierarchy-controlled organization - which diverse Wikipedia is not.
If an info source is "untrustworthy", then by connotation there must exist systemic motives for POV agenda, targeted deceit, and mendacious gratification. By using the loaded word "trust", critics are implying that the whole barrel should be landfilled because a few apples are rotten. Skipping to the logical result of this tar-brushing, if you were a donor, would you give money to suspected systemic liars?
Take back our issue frame. You/we/Wikipedia will want to stop using the falsely-premised word "trust" at all, because to continue doing so helps those who desire to take down the project. Please don't help them. Milo 10:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
First off, it is true. You can't ever trust anonymous Internet sources, so we aren't asking you to. I don't think we're that far apart here. I just want to counter the false premise directly: that it is somehow the goal or obligation of Wikipedia to magically turn the Internet into an authoritative source of information.
Refuting that false premise is not the same as saying that Wikipedia is full of lies and systemic bias. It's the mu response to "is Wikipedia trustworthy?" – Þ  23:44, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kudos

Excellent essay. Thanks for posting it. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Any specific reason for using full URLs rather than wikilinks? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:33, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Because it is intended to be copied and posted verbatim off-wikipedia, of course. Johntex\talk 04:44, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
That is what I thought. Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:51, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Excellent! A couple of minor points: "We don't want you to trust us." could do with noting that Wikipedia gives an introduction helping you to find sources you can check, not a definitive source in itself, and "Editors must follow a neutral point of view" might be clearer to the uninitiated if it said "Editors must follow a 'neutral point of view', giving unbiased accounts of various significant viewpoints". Just my suggestions, .. dave souza, talk 09:45, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The sum of all knowledge?

The following statement appears near the end of the essay:

We want you to imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.

I can imagine such a world, but I cannot currently imagine such a Wikipedia, because arguably most of the sum of all knowledge is insufficiently notable to make the cut here. Deletionists routinely delete articles from Wikipedia; in some of these articles, the underlying facts are not in dispute, but the facts are not the type of facts Wikipedia wants to publish. A large example is procedural knowledge (WP:NOT#IINFO), such as appears in instruction manuals and how-to guides. This is a significant exclusion, because we don't have to imagine a world in which (nearly) every single human being values procedural knowledge and seeks to obtain more — we inhabit that world. People routinely ask "How do I ...?" and Wikipedia wants them to find answers elsewhere. To its credit, Wikipedia often links to Web pages that provide such answers, but Wikipedia does not want to publish that sort of content directly.

One way to picture encyclopedic selectivity is to compare a paper encyclopedia to the non-fiction portion of a library: the encyclopedia might have a few dozen volumes, while a large library has a million or more. By no means does the encyclopedia replace the rest of the library, nor is that what encyclopedists intend.

This is not a criticism of Wikipedia, just a suggestion to make that closing remark accurately reflect Wikipedia's more modest goal. How about:

We want you to imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in that subset of the sum of all knowledge we consider to be encyclopedic.

It doesn't have the same rhetorical impact, but it's more honest. For an example of an organization which does claim to want to make all knowledge accessible to everyone, see Google. I'm not implying Google is "better" than Wikipedia. I recognize that Wikipedia is driving an explosion of interest in wiki technology. One might argue that by freely giving away its MediaWiki software, the WikiMedia Foundation is stimulating the growth of wikis in general, which might indeed lead to the open-sourcing of virtually all non-proprietary knowledge, as increasingly more wikis spring up to publish Wikipedia's rejects. --Teratornis 01:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. I wholeheartedley agree with the above. It also relates to what Wooky wrote somewhere above: ""while anyone can edit Wikipedia, actually have something notable to write about first" - too many people think that Wikipedia accepts anything anyone decides to write about one day. Carcharoth 12:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I found a better way to phrase the goal, direct from the Great Leader himself. Wikipedia#Language editions says, more accurately I think: Wikipedia has been described as "an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language".[1] Thus the sentence in Wikipedia:10 things you did not know about Wikipedia should read:
  • We want you to imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share an encyclopedia of the highest possible quality in their own language.
I don't see how to interpret Jimbo Wales's stated goal as encompassing all knowledge. I think it's fair to say that "quality" to Mr. Wales implies excluding a lot. While still leaving a vast amount of knowledge, of course - just the knowledge that can be expressed encyclopedically. --Teratornis 04:35, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Andrei Sakharov quote?

"I foresee a universal information system (UIS), which will give everyone access at any given moment to the contents of any book that has ever been published or any magazine or any fact. …Even the partial realization of the UIS will profoundly affect every person, his leisure activities, and his intellectual and artistic development. …But the true historic role of the UIS will be to break down the barriers to the exchange of information among countries and people." - Andrei Sakharov

I think it would be cool to add this quote to the bottom (or top) of the page. Sakharov's prophecy is coincidentally the principal ideal that motivates Wikipedia to become the grandiose free database of knowledge we want it to become. What do you guys think? RavenStorm 19:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

See my comments in the previous section. Sakharov is talking about making all published work freely available. That's what Google claims to want to do, but not Wikipedia. "Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language." [2]. An encyclopedia tries to summarize all the information in a library, but it neither replaces nor attempts to duplicate the library. One might argue that in its ultimate form, Wikipedia will be more generally usable than the kind of universal information appliance envisioned by Sakharov, because the information in Wikipedia will have been collectively filtered down to reflect the consensus of many people as to what is most important to know about things.
You can see this already by comparing the better Wikipedia articles on many topics to the results of Google Search on the same topics. The Google results tend to be random groupings of Web pages in inconsistent formats and of inconsistent quality. When you need to dig up specific, non-notable details about something, you have to dredge through tedious Web searches, but most people will want to start with a general introduction, and they'll usually get that faster and more predictably on Wikipedia than by trying to mine it out of a storehouse of all information. For the Sakharov idea reach its full potential, people do not merely need access to all the world's information, they need some sort of intelligent entity to explain it to them, and tell them what is relevant to their problems. (After all, conventional libraries have been common in the developed nations for centuries, yet only a small percentage of people make much use of them, because it is very mentally demanding to have to search for answers yourself. A big pile of information is not the same as having intelligent human experts at your disposal, who can deduce your goals even if you cannot articulate them well, and find the answers for you even if you have no idea where to look.) While we continue to wait N more decades for artificial intelligence to get there, Wikipedia is a pretty good interim stopgap.
If we really want to see something profoundly affect every person, wait until we have artificially intelligent software which can accept as input ordinary questions from ordinary people in their natural languages, and provide the best possible answers to any questions that can be answered from all the information that has been recorded, on par with what the best human experts can do in every domain of knowledge. That won't be quite as good as somehow downloading actual expertise into our brains, but it will be pretty darned good. --Teratornis 05:11, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I should add that while Sakharov's UIS is not exactly the same as what Wikipedia aims to build, having a UIS handy would certainly help with finding those often elusive reliable sources for our articles.
And another comment about goals and experts: not only do many people have difficulty articulating their goals clearly, often people don't even know what they want, until they see it. A knowledgeable expert is able to infer and clarify a non-expert's goals by presenting options, and observing how the customer reacts. --Teratornis 14:15, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plaudits: 5 and 6 read better now. Still have problems with 4

I want to applaud whoever rephrased items 5 and 6. They are vastly clarified, and easy for me to stand by. Number 4 is still confusing though, far from a clear statement of what its authors possibly laudable intentions were. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 11:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

<edit>I found a better phrasing of number 4 in the history of the project page, and re-instated it.</edit> -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 11:57, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

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