Talk:Vision/Unstable

I support M7's addition. "Imagine ...(period)" seems to me to lose something. Eh, people need no activities external out of their brains, if they would like only to imagine something. And that is not what we are doing, we are engaging. The proposed version at Vision seems to me too much to incline to vita contemplativa, and a charitable mission is rather active. In truth, we are comtemplating the world expected and committed to realize it. I would love to see to have some phrase mentioning to our real engagement to the world, so in my humble opinion we are better to retain "that 's we are doing" like part (phrasing may be altered though).

If you are not happy to have "that's we are doing", I propose to omit the verb "Imagine". It sounds for me that our vision is to have a vision of a certain world, to imagine something. It sounds too metaphysic, manyfold and not realistic. "Our vision is ... (to create) so-and-so a world" sounds less dreamers than "Our vision is imagin .... so-and-so" in my impression. --Aphaia 10:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I also don't like the "Imagine". Our vision is not to imagine. Our vision is to do it. Hence:

Vision: "A world where .... knowledge." (anon)

It's summer 2007, and I saw the Vision, in a few languages. It reads well in German and in Italian, and as far as I can make out, in "lt" also. But in English and in French it reads bancal and boiteux, like a strict translation. Let us rewrite it as if we had the right to say things the way people really spoke. Imagine everyone having access to all the knowledge there is. We're getting there.

Where to add in a translation?—Bencmq 10:09, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

"Commitment"

Not sure if this is the proper place to propose changes to the current vision, as this seems to be an outdated version (with the old, ludicrously false "that's what we're doing"). But I'm sort of finding it difficult to come to terms with even the more tame "that's our commitment". "Commitment" implies we're promising to do this (give every single person on the planet free access to the sum of all knowledge)... when it's simply an impossible goal. The sum of all knowledge would be some sort of omniscient compendium of all knowledge that cannot actually exist. Anyway, I would propose something like "vision" or "dream" instead of "commitment". To me, "commitment" comes across as an arrogant, unattainable promise. "Vision", however, retains the feeling that we are working for and aspiring to something idealistic and great, without making impossible promises. Basically, I propose:

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our vision.

-kotra 01:07, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you that "commitment" is not a good word. But I think the best word is just "goal". It doesn't matter that it's virtually impossible to achieve - in fact, it wouldn't be much of a vision otherwise. GreenReaper 14:18, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Bias

I removed the blatant xenophobia and anti-furry bias. I'm sure if we meet non-humans from other planets that we'd take their knowledge, and share it with them, too . . . though their language might have to wait on an ISO-639 code. "In their own language" is implied by "free access" - if you can't read it, you don't have access. I used more concise language, and removed words like "single" that I felt redundant; translators should consider the original phrase when deciding between multiple possible meanings. "That's what we're doing" is more appropriate for our mission statement; this is our ultimate goal (which may never be fully achieved). Similarly, our vision is that they have information, not that we give it to them. GreenReaper 13:46, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the redaction of "human" might be a bit oversensitive; most self-identified furries use the word in the sense of "furry fan" or "furry lifestyler", not as an actual non-human being. Yes, I acknowledge that there exist furries that truly identify, entirely seriously, as not human, as do otherkin, but when considering the vast body of contributors and potential contributors, these people are a nearly insignificant minority. Besides, what "furry knowledge", as in, knowledge exclusive to those who identify as non-human furries, do we include or strive to include? Even in WikiFur, I am not aware of any such knowledge. I have seen knowledge only known to furry fans, certainly, but knowledge only known to those who identify as non-humans? If we do not include exclusively non-human knowledge, then there is no need to redact "human".

I believe the motivation for using the phrase "human knowledge" is to acknowledge that knowledge is not solely the domain of humans, and to make no pretension as to our capability to compile and present all knowledge (of all creatures everywhere in the universe). "Human knowledge" is a useful phrase which keeps our vision within somewhat more comprehensible (if still somewhat ludicrous) bounds. Godlike omniscience is not what WMF's vision is, I'm pretty sure; it's one of the few true impossibilities in the universe.

If, however, meaningful, mutually understandable contact is made with extraterrestrials, non-human animals, or other knowledgeable entities, and we find ourselves wanting to include their knowledge we do not comprehend (comprehension would make it human knowledge), then certainly some sort of change should be made. But until then, "human" serves a useful purpose and I don't find the arguments for contemporary non-human-identified people convincing... but I invite alternate viewpoints. -kotra 00:52, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I admit to having my tongue in cheek a bit with the "anti-furry bias", though therians or otherkin might be more concerned. :-)

The most important reason to remove "human" is that it is likely to be implied by the reader, and is thus redundant. But it also needlessly restricts our vision.

Even today, some computer-assisted proofs are beyond the practical ability of humans to understand. Facts may be generated dynamically; consider systems for automatically identifying species, or algorithmic summaries of news patterns. Wikipedia is not generally in the business of generating facts, but other Wikimedia projects might. If they are not known by any human until requested, can they really be called human knowledge? (If so, "human" becomes even more redundant, since any knowledge we provide automatically becomes "human knowledge", unless we provide it to another species.) GreenReaper 03:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

That's --> That is

I changed the contraction so that the statement would sound more professional. Does anyone have any objections? Aero-Plex 01:34, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure professionalism is what we're looking for. A vision is something you talk about, and I would use "that's" in that situation. GreenReaper 02:21, 25 November 2011 (UTC)