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Recently, How can I trust Wikipedia, if everyone can change it? was asked. I feel questions like this pertaining to open knowledge should be in the scope of this site (even if it isn't necessarily now).

Should open knowledge questions be in scope for this site?

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I think they should. Wikipedia follows the Open Source ideas, the license being first GFDL, later CC-BY-SA. These licenses are fully in the idea behind open source, the only thing is they have no source (as they aren't code). Question about Creative Commons was asked before, so I think we can count Wikipedia as an Open project, as it has a license that falls into our already established scope.

EDIT: I would apply the same to other Open Knowledge projects, even if the license is open shareable, but not fully open source (like CC-NC and CC-ND licenses), because the top-voted answer to this, says these licenses should be included. Only because they are applied to knowledge, they shouldn't be out of scope.

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    It can even be seen as having source, since the format in which it is edited is not the same as the format in which it is viewed.
    – trichoplax is on Codidact now
    Jun 29, 2015 at 22:04
  • Right, but less important, as also if you only copy the text the license applies.
    – Mnementh
    Jun 29, 2015 at 22:20
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    The fact that Wikipedia is open source isn't related to this question. I agree with your conclusion but your reasoning doesn't make sense.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Jun 30, 2015 at 0:12
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This question is not about open source. Wikipedia's content is open source, but this question is not related to this aspect of Wikipedia. It's about the openness of participation, which is unusual even for an open source project.

Since open participation shares a lot of goals with open source, I think it does make sense to include it in the topics covered by this site. There is a significant overlap between the audience interested in open source and the audience interested in open participation.

I don't know if this warrants a change in the site name. I don't know what a good, clear all-encompassing name would be.

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  • There's an interesting point that "open participation" as a term includes much (not all) open source. Open participation doesn't just share the goals it also shares the problems. One could just as easily asking "how do I trust the linux kernel". The actual answer would be different ... IE management and QC process but that difference is a matter for such a question's answer not this site's scope. +1
    – Philip Couling
    May 11 at 11:07

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