User:Hex/Notes/Founding principles

I recently happened across WP:CONEXCEPT, an obscure redirect that's existed since 2007 but had only been linked to from project space 50 times as of September 2015.

When the shortcut was created, Wikipedia:Consensus had a link to meta:Founding principles (which at the time was called "Foundation Issues"), and which persisted on it until 2009. The differences between the version of that page at the time and as it is at the time of writing make for interesting reading.

30 July 2007 27 September 2015
The Wikimedia projects as a community have certain foundation issues that are essentially beyond debate. People who strongly disagree with them sometimes end up leaving the project. These issues include: The Wikimedia projects as a community have certain foundation issues founding principles that are essentially beyond debate in common. These principles may evolve or be refined over time, but they are considered ideals essential to the founding of the Wikimedia projects – not to be confused with the Wikimedia Foundation (which also arose from the Wikimedia projects). People who strongly disagree with them are nonetheless expected to either respect them while collaborating on the site or turn to another site. Those unable or unwilling sometimes end up leaving the project.

These issues principles include:

  1. NPOV as the guiding editorial principle
  2. Ability of anyone to edit articles without registering
  3. The "wiki process" as the decision mechanism on content
  4. Copyleft licensing of content; in practice, defined by project, either GFDL or CC-BY.
  5. The Board of Trustees has ultimate authority on all matters pertaining to the Wikimedia Foundation. By convention, Jimbo Wales retains some authority on certain projects. The Arbitration Committee can also make binding, final decisions such as banning an editor.
  1. NPOV Neutral point of view (NPOV) as the a guiding editorial principle.
  2. The ability of almost anyone to edit (most) articles without registering registration.
  3. The "wiki process" as the final decision-making mechanism on for all content.
  4. The creation of a welcoming and collegial editorial environment.
  5. Copyleft Free licensing of content; in practice, defined by each project as public domain, either GFDL, CC-BY-SA or CC-BY.
  6. The Board of Trustees has ultimate authority on all matters pertaining to the Wikimedia Foundation. By convention, Jimbo Wales retains some authority on certain projects. The Maintaining room for fiat to help resolve particularly difficult problems. On the English Wikipedia, an Arbitration Committee can also has the authority to make certain binding, final decisions such as banning an editor.

The "founding issues" have gone from being "beyond debate" to being able to "evolve or change over time" (in fact, #2 has changed to be significantly different from what it actually was at the time of founding), and a tone of "love it or leave it" authoritarianism has entered the introduction.

If something about this is giving you déjà vu, it may be that you're being reminded of the Seven Commandments of Animalism. It seems that I'm far from the first to notice this, as well.