On 09/03/2013 12:33 PM, Delirium wrote: > I certainly agree with learning from history, but when it comes to > censoring encyclopedias or similar reference works, are there good > examples that might more concretely narrow down the specific type of > thing we ought to be learning from history?
Not that I know of, but that's because the model of what an encyclopedia /is/ has changed a great deal -- they used to be centralized distribution of knowledge and subject to an unknown number of pressure points (including, most dangerously, self-censorship). Wikipedia, and the Net in general, have changed the landscape substantially and -- accordingly -- the attack vectors. I don't think we have much left to fear from attempts to repress individual bits of data so much as attempts to change the landscape back to top-down control (through legislation, disinformation, and so on). Certainly, the Défence Nationale's attempt to rubber hose information out of the French Wikipedia is a recent and very visible failed attempt. I've no doubt that for every very visible and embarrassing failure like that one, there are a dozen that fly under the radar. > Are there more successful attempts? It would be difficult to enumerate successful attempts since, by definition, they would have been successful at not being known. :-) I don't disagree that it would be very difficult, perhaps even nearly impossible, to completely censor information in this day and age and under our current political climate -- but that is exactly *because* we reflexively fight authority figures attempting to control information not because there is no longer a desire or attempts to do so have gotten less frequent. Gilmore was already noting in in 1993 while the 'net was still the province of the elite geekdom; there is no reason to believe this has gotten better since (and lots of reasons why it could have gotten worse). -- Marc _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>