Talk:Mission Statement
From iA wiki
Should probably discuss a breakdown of the words chosen, possibly discuss how a wiki may not realistically be able to maintain a mission. -- rack
The Mission Statement needs to be clean and concise. It needs to be directed at the activities of the entire wiki and not just a few topics found in it. Technically the Homepage is a form of mission-statement in that way. Cleanup needs to pull out personal commentary. Descriptions of the "why" of the mission statements should probably go on subpages or should remain in their topics. Links to the major topics from this mission statement would probably work out reasonably well. -- rack
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When addressing copyright, principled organizers need to keep some important things in mind. There's a good analysis of some key misconceptions on our side at the following link:
http://www.nyfairuse.org/analysis/misinterpreting-copyright.xhtml
The 3 misconceptions are:
- "striking a balance"
- "maximizing output"
- "maximizing publishers' power"
Below is Richard Stallman's bit on "balancing."
Remember that the copyright bargain places the public first: benefit for the reading public is an end in itself; benefits (if any) for publishers are just a means toward that end. Readers' interests and publishers' interests are qualitatively unequal in priority. The first step in misinterpreting the purpose of copyright is the elevation of the publishers to the same level of importance as the readers.
It is often said that U.S. copyright law is meant to "strike a balance" between the interests of publishers and readers. Those who cite this interpretation present it as a restatement of the basic position stated in the Constitution; in other words, it is supposed to be equivalent to the copyright bargain.
But the two interpretations are far from equivalent; they are different conceptually, and different in their implications. The balance concept assumes that the readers' and publishers' interests differ in importance only quantitatively, in "how much weight" we should give them, and in what actions they apply to. The term "stakeholders" is often used to frame the issue in this way; it assumes that all kinds of interest in a policy decision are equally important. This view rejects the qualitative distinction between the readers' and publishers' interests which is at the root of the government's participation in the copyright bargain.
The consequences of this alteration are far-reaching, because the great protection for the public in the copyright bargain -- the idea that copyright privileges can be justified only in the name of the readers, never in the name of the publishers -- is discarded by the "balance" interpretation. Since the interest of the publishers is regarded as an end in itself, it can justify copyright privileges; in other words, the "balance" concept says that privileges can be justified in the name of someone other than the public.
As a practical matter, the consequence of the "balance" concept is to reverse the burden of justification for changes in copyright law. The copyright bargain places the burden on the publishers to convince the readers to cede certain freedoms. The concept of balance reverses this burden, practically speaking, because there is generally no doubt that publishers will benefit from additional privilege. So unless harm to the readers can be proved, sufficient to "outweigh" this benefit, we are led to conclude that the publishers are entitled to almost any privilege they request.
Since the idea of "striking a balance" between publishers and readers denies the readers the primacy they are entitled to, we must reject it.
Balancing against what?
When the government buys something for the public, it acts on behalf of the public; its responsibility is to obtain the best possible deal -- best for the public, not for the other party in the agreement.
For example, when signing contracts with construction companies to build highways, the government aims to spend as little as possible of the public's money. Government agencies use competitive bidding to push the price down.
As a practical matter, the price cannot be zero, because contractors will not bid that low. Although not entitled to special consideration, they have the usual rights of citizens in a free society, including the right to refuse disadvantageous contracts; even the lowest bid will be high enough for some contractor to make money. So there is indeed a balance, of a kind. But it is not a deliberate balancing of two interests each with claim to special consideration. It is a balance between a public goal and market forces. The government tries to obtain for the taxpaying motorists the best deal they can get in the context of a free society and a free market.
In the copyright bargain, the government spends our freedom instead of our money. Freedom is more precious than money, so government's responsibility to spend our freedom wisely and frugally is even greater than its responsibility to spend our money thus. Governments must never put the publishers' interests on a par with the public's freedom.
Not "balance" but "trade-off"
The idea of balancing the readers' interests against the publishers' is the wrong way to judge copyright policy, but there are indeed two interests to be weighed: two interests of the readers. Readers have an interest in their own freedom in using published works; depending on circumstances, they may also have an interest in encouraging publication through some kind of incentive system.
The word "balance," in discussions of copyright, has come to stand as shorthand for the idea of "striking a balance" between the readers and the publishers. Therefore, to use the word "balance" in regard to the readers' two interests would be confusing -- we need another term.
In general, when one party has two goals that partly conflict, and cannot completely achieve both of them, we call this a "trade-off." Therefore, rather than speaking of "striking the right balance" between parties, we should speak of "finding the right trade-off between spending our freedom and keeping it."
Perhaps a balance could struck between complexity and simplicity.. sortof like integrating the driving forces behind our interest in those in Friends and Enemies, Good Guys, Pioneers and perhaps Big Boys.. sets of links to existant essays on certain topics could be provided in a subsection of the mission statement. This way the mission statement could flow something like: ->
- the infoAnarchy wiki tries to be a centre for activism on issues such as...
However that would be what the Homepage is for.. hrm. I'm not sure how to define the structure which I think would work. Basically things like ->
- x is bad, and there are some proposed solutions (discuss activism, etc...)
- link to wiki topic
Aarg.. that doesn't work either. Perhaps just have this be an essay on it's own and not have it linked to the works of others? The topics found buried in this wiki already cover things like quoting or linking to existant essays. I can't quite wrap my brain around this. <code> =/ </code> -- rack
I threw in some ideas into the pot. I like what I see so far, but I think perhaps an overall flow might do very well in helping form something a little more functional. A lot of the "we think" or "we like" statements seem to just flow into the need to back them up with argument.. which will really enlarge things. This needs to somehow be clear and concise and perhaps not complete in the sense that a reader would be curious to delve into the wiki to learn more. Perhaps the homepage could be reformulated a bit to conform with some of the ideas being bounced around for this mission statement. -- rack
Erik, I intended the Mission Statement page to be a wiki-wide mission statement to help focus attention on the wiki primary issues, not for just copyright reformation. My goal was to have some leverage in recommending some topics over others. I'm still waiting for someone to start up a topic discussing the relevance of seeing the Power Puff Girls cartoon featured in the movie Blade II (and there is none, they just couldn't get the rights to what they wanted and picked something cool semi-randomly). Maybe there needs to be separate mission statements.. maybe use /Wiki and /Activism or such? -- rack
This page is shaping up nicely. Any guidance for the wiki goals and aims is appreciated. It is important to get it right soon. I for one, feel that I may, post stories, edit wiki entries and write diary entries about topics which others might think is off topic. I'm not sure a young wiki can be too overwhelmed with useless info, but having a complete mission statement allows users to edit and post relevant information with more confidence.
I do have one related question, should the wiki aim to have one opinion about a topic or is it about sharing a diverse set of views? - ABliss
