ABSTRACT

Wikipedia is by definition an encyclopedia, and the universal scope and availability it promises are ideals-in the pursuit of worldwide access to information. The history of literary production is equally the history of censorship, knowledge suppression, preservation, and material circulation. While widely accessed online sources might appear to have moved beyond these issues, they are in fact part of this complex balance between freedom and restriction. Therefore, it is useful to consider Wikipedia in terms other than as a website-as a library, as a dictionary, as an archive, as a book. In this light, we see that Wikipedia has many precedents in the history of knowledge dissemination and preservation, precedents as diverse as the Library of Alexandria, the Oxford English Dictionary or the Bible. Wikipedia is so different from what has gone before in any one field but so similar to what has happened in different aspects of many fields. This paper discusses how the idea of “free” is related to the production and dissemination of knowledge by looking at methods by which knowledge has historically been curtailed-through copyright; censorship; destruction; price; and language. Wikipedia is the latest in a long line of defenders of the ideal of free knowledge.

摘要

维基百科根据定义是一部百科全书，它所承诺的普遍范围和可用性是理想的——在追求全球信息访问的过程中。文学创作的历史同样是审查、知识压制、保存和物质流通的历史。虽然广泛访问的在线资源似乎已经超越了这些问题，但它们实际上是自由与限制之间这种复杂平衡的一部分。因此，将维基百科视为网站之外的其他术语——图书馆、词典、档案馆、书籍——是有用的。有鉴于此，我们看到维基百科在知识传播和保存的历史上有许多先例，如亚历山大图书馆、牛津英语词典或圣经等多种多样的先例。维基百科与以往任何一个领域的情况都截然不同，但与许多领域不同方面的情况又如此相似。本文通过研究历史上通过版权限制知识的方法，讨论了“免费”的概念如何与知识的生产和传播相关联；审查制度；破坏；价钱; 和语言。维基百科是自由知识理想的众多捍卫者中最新的一个。