Denis Diderot

This is a work that cannot be completed except by a society of men of letters and skilled workmen, each working separately on his own part, but all bound together solely by their zeal for the best interests of the human race and a feeling of mutual good will (Diderot 1755/2001, p. 283).

H.G. Wells

There is no practical obstacle whatever now to the creation of an efficient index to all human knowledge, ideas and achievements, to the creation, that is, of a complete planetary memory for all mankind… [It] will supply the humanity of the days before us, with a common understanding and the conception of a common purpose and of a commonweal such as now we hardly dare dream of. And its creation is a way to world peace… (Wells 1937).

Jimmy Wales

Our mission is to give freely the sum of the world’s knowledge to every single person on the planet in the language of their choice, under a free license, so that they can modify, adapt, reuse, or redistribute it, at will. And, by “every single person on the planet,” I mean exactly that, so we have to remember that much of our target audience is not yet able to access the Internet reliably, if at all. (Wales 2004)

Advice subs

• adopted a practice from NSF and “Ask Me Anything” subreddits
• pseudonymous Redditors can get flairs for their offline credentials or online contributions
  • r/AmItheAsshole has a ranking system
  • r/legaladvice has “Quality Contributors”
  • r/AskDocs has verified health practitioners