Wikipedia says it is not a social network.

Then you have this professor from Michigan State using Wikimedia.org's blog to sing Wikipedia's praises for its being a social network.

Maybe he didn't get the memo.

Visiting assistant professor.....

He's just another reason to write that book, Greg. You need to make a mockery of his chosen
area of study, in a public forum that MSU/TISM can't ignore.

(He's from Penn State.....snigger...)

So what's the deal? There is an obvious difference between a statement of principle and a statement of actuality.

Being a social network is not one of wikipedia's objectives or goals. However it does function like a social network i many aspects - and it has to function as a social network in order to be able to produce a collaborative encyclopedia - but it also has to maintain as a rule that that is not the primary purpose. I don't see what the fuss is about here.

I have made many valuable social and professional connections editing wikipedia (more than through facebook, linkedin and academia combined) - but doing that was only possible because networking wasn't the objective of our interactions. In my opinion it is absolutely necessary to maintain that the objective of wikipedia is to write an encyclopedia, not to socialize - but also to acknowledge that socializing is necessary in order to achieve that goal. It is a statement of priority.

Maybe the quote I provided below is off the topic of this particular post, but I believe it is an interesting one.
According to wikipedia co -founder
And today wikipedia co -founder Provided an example of wikipedia having elements of monarchy

I noted that one too and was somewhat disturbed, especially since a couple of weeks ago he corrected me when I called him the "owner of wikipedia". But again there is a different between a statement of is and a statement of ought. He is clearly noting that the way wikipedia works it has elements of all those political systems (not least aristocracy) - not giving a stamenet about what wikipedia should be like.

Never mind social networking for the moment. A more cogent issue might be the question of whether or not WP is a social movement, given that social movements are essentially ideologically driven, and so too are most of WP's political and military history articles, which have a clear pro-Western ideological bias.

I don't think that is a very well thought question either. It would have to be several social movements since there is no single ideological platform that can characterize all or even mos of the community. Wikipedia is a medium that functions as a vehicle for many different mutually exclusive social movements at the same time.

You being a WP admin would say that, wouldn't you? But I beg to differ. I challenge you to provide just one instance of any high-traffic modern military history or military-political article exemplifying any social movement rationale that deviates from the single ideological platform characterising most of the English WP community (and the WR community, for that matter). The single ideological platform I'm referring to is of course one that's exclusively pro-Western, pro-capitalist, pro-"democracy" (whatever that means), and pro-official version of history and military-political affairs. WP's World War II and Cold War related articles are good cases in point. Please identify the particlar article or articles that exemplify your contention as stated.

BTW, your reference to the mutual exclusivity of social movements "at the same time" indicates a failure to understand the basis of NPOV, which is supposed to allow no room for mutual exclusivity, (in theory at any rate, but in practise it's the norm).

Contrary to popular belief wikipedia admins are not made to swear a blood oath that they will maintain public allegiance to the hive mind.

You are committing a category mistake by proposing that the fact that certain viewpoints are predominant suggests a social movement. The viewpoints that are predominant in wikipedia are not predominant because there is a movement to expound them but because they are hegemonic in western civilization and wikipedia is a product of western civilization and that in most areas 99% of its editors have never been in contact with any other viewpoints. Also the very concept of an encyclopedia is a western concept, meant to present western forms of knowledge to a western minded audience. This just means that wikipedia is an arm of the western worldsystem - not that it is in itself a social movement.

I don't read military history articles at all so I can't tell you about how they look - my guess is terrible. However, if you surf around article's related to race for example you will quickly find articles clearly written from the point of view of certain anti-democratic, anti-equality social movements. I am not sure if this should be considered enriching to wikipedia's pluralism.

Speaking of category mistakes, you appear to have made the mistake of responding to something that concerns matters of which, by your own admission, you have no knowledge whatsoever (i.e. military history articles). As for WP's alleged "pluralism", I'll take that as a joke.

The esteemed WP admin Maunus, in his somewhat convoluted and illogical attempt at WP apologetics above, claims that:

In fact, as is well documented, the very concept of an encyclopedia has its historical roots in ancient Arabic, Persian and Chinese cultures, among others. WP itself has a surprisingly good article (no thanks to Maunus) on the evolution of the modern encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia

Most parts of the Western world system has at least parts of its roots in the Levant...