Since the launch of its campaign five days ago, Wikimedia Deutschland’s “Wikipedia for World Heritage” campaign has gathered speed, and followers (8477 at the time of writing). What they want is to have as many people as possible sign the petition, which they can then present to UNESCO, in an attempt to convince them to make Wikipedia the first digital world heritage site.
Wikipedia actually fulfills a number of UNESCO’s criteria including that it:
- “represents a masterpiece of human creative genius”
- “exhibits an important interchange of human values, over a span of time, or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning, or landscape design”
There you go, two of the ten criteria met (you only need one to be able to nominate it). But – the way I see it at least – getting world heritage status would be nice, but isn’t the main aim of the game. What the project will do, is – even if it doesn’t become a world heritage site, raise the profile of the 5th most popular website in the world: Wikipedia.
The public will learn, as a direct result of the campaign, that Wikipedia “represents a masterpiece of human creative genius” and that it “exhibits an important interchange of human values, over a span of time, or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning, or landscape design”.
That is the most important thing, to me at least. Not getting a “world heritage sticker”, but teaching the world about the project. What it does, how it works, the ethics behind it.
So please sign the petition, so that we can teach the public about Wikipedia. And if we can get world heritage status, that would be nice, too. Sign here
