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„Wikipedia” Project

added on: 18.07.2008 16:56

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„WIKIPEDIA” PROJECT

1. PURPOSE

Project’s main purpose is to make knowledge about the Austrian School more available and common. The best means to do this is the development of Wikipedia articles connected to the Austrian School.

Our operational purposes are:

  1. To write 1 medal article

  2. To write 5 good articles

  3. To develop 15 stubs

2. DESCRIPTION

Nowadays, the Internet is the most vital medium of information transfer. We should remember that the Austrian School also has its own share in it. It’s Friedrich von Hayek who discovered that knowledge is an economical good. It’s Fritz Machlup who created the term „information society”. Only a few know that Jimmy Wales – creator of Wikipedia, one of the most popular websites and sources of information in Poland and the world– was inspired by Hayek’s writings. Wikipedia itself is in fact well-known example of Hayekian spontaneous order.

Unfortunately, we cannot learn this important fact from the Polish version of Wikipedia. Moreover, there is also a lack of information about the entire Austrian School. Even worse, Austrian School articles often become the target of attacks for followers of concurrent (mainly leftist) visions of economics and politics. The effect is that people wanting to learn something about the Austrian School from Wikipedia, will find nothing at all or overtly critical information. We must change this problem!

It is worth stressing that Wikipedia is a great means of promoting the Austrian School. Articles that get the status of “good article” have a great chance to appear on the main page of Wikipedia in the column “Do you know that…”, e.g. “Do you know how Austrian Economists criticize welfare economics?” with a link to the proper article. Also, one of our goals is to create five good articles, which appear sometimes on the main page. But that is not all! Articles getting through the strictest selection receive a title of „medal articles”. It’s very hard to receive this title, but we see this as a goal worth achieving because such an article has a chance to appear on the main site in the form of a broad abstract. It is unnecessary to discuss the strength of marketing from such an article. Hundreds of thousands of people will see it daily. Howeve,r we shouldn’t concentrate our efforts on one or two articles. People look to Wikipedia for a variety of information, including various aspects of the Austrian School. Our roll is to fulfill their demand!

3. HOW TO HELP? INVITATION TO COOPERATION

We invite you to:

  1. create and expand articles on the Austrian School at Wikipedia;

  2. translate articles from foreign-language Wikipedias;

  3. give redactional and technical help with articles form;

  4. patrol Wikipedia’s pages to protect it against devastation from third parties;

  5. promote good and medal articles.

You can find more detailed information at Wikipedia page.

4. PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR PROJECT: Karol Lew Pogorzelski, economist, IM cooperant. Contact: karol.pogorzelski@mises.org.pl

DURATION: 6 months (15.01.2008 – 15.06.2008)