Jeflicki

Youngpenn

MartellRedViper

The vision of the Wikimedia Foundation (the organization behind Wikipedia) is "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."

• What does this mission mean to you?
• To what extent does Wikipedia meet or fall short of the goals implied in this statement?
• Would you change anything about the Vision?

As a group, come up with one cohesive response to the Topic and its questions. Your response should address all of the questions, but not as a mutually exclusive list (e.g. what the mission means to you is tied in with how you see Wikipedia meeting or falling short of its goals). The only communication you should have with your group members is that which takes place here on Wikipedia (not in the classroom).

The mission is to collect all possible knowledge and distribute it without any barriers. Wikipedia shows progress in areas such as how many different topics exist and many of the articles are fairly extensive. Wikipedia is limited by its textual format; some types of knowledge are extremely difficult or impossible to effectively communicate with only words. Another limitation of Wikipedia is that it is only available to those with internet accessibility. While a lot of people in the United States may have access to the internet, this is not the case around the world. So as of right now there are a lot of people that don't have access (only 34.3% of the world's population has internet access^[1]) and therefore the "every single human being" part of the mission is not being met. The spirit and intent of the vision is fine, although the wording could be altered to not leave it open to unrealistic expectations.