I grew up in a house that was ~250 years old. It and many others in the area were designated as historic sites. As you say, the effect of such a designation is to protect it from being updated.
More often than not, the regulations would "protect" the house from home owners who wanted to perform renovations. There were many kinds of improvements that the owner of the house might like to make, but wouldn't be allowed.
I think this parallels the Wikipedia thing pretty well. Becoming preserved in this way cedes much authority to a third party, who can then dictate the kinds of changes that you may (or even must) make.
In the hands of an entity like the UN, I might even worry that steps might be taken to ensure that the resource that is Wikipedia be usable by all people -- and therefore needs to be sanitized of offensive content.
This will never happen, but if it did, the answer is simple. Abandon Wikipedia and make a new one.
Unlike real estate, we will never run out of empty websites to build encyclopedias on. And, unlike a house, once you own a "free encyclopedia", you've invested nothing and can abandon it at any time.
If the world governments want to make a sanitized uneditable copy of Wikipedia, great. Nobody will use it, but it will make them happy. And that's what's great about the Internet.
More often than not, the regulations would "protect" the house from home owners who wanted to perform renovations. There were many kinds of improvements that the owner of the house might like to make, but wouldn't be allowed.
I think this parallels the Wikipedia thing pretty well. Becoming preserved in this way cedes much authority to a third party, who can then dictate the kinds of changes that you may (or even must) make.
In the hands of an entity like the UN, I might even worry that steps might be taken to ensure that the resource that is Wikipedia be usable by all people -- and therefore needs to be sanitized of offensive content.