thousands, yes. Even conservapedia has thousands. But millions? I have no objection to working for a profit making enterprise. But when I do, I want my share of the money.
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 7:48 PM, Tim Starling <tstarl...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > On 10/05/10 20:51, Delirium wrote: >> That isn't really true, though. He recruited volunteers with the promise >> of the free-content license for sure, and with a sort of implicit >> promise of a generally free-culture / volunteer-run encyclopedia. If he >> had *not* promised anything, he would have had many more troubles >> recruiting volunteers. > > Perhaps, but the lack of a free license didn't stop IMDB or Yahoo > Answers, did it? > >> You do remember that GNUpedia was gearing up to >> serve as a competitor, and only backed down because Jimmy gave them >> enough assurances that Wikipedia was such a free-culture encyclopedia >> that their efforts would be redundant? > > No, I remember that GNUpedia was a tiny non-wiki encyclopedia project, > I don't remember it gearing up to be a competitor. > > But I'll admit that the content license was the most essential to > Wikipedia's success of the three elements I'm talking about. I think > the case is much stronger that it could have succeeded with a > for-profit stance, and with a closed-source software stack. > > Even the bulk of the open-source community doesn't mind contributing > to websites that run on a closed-source stack, look at Sourceforge or > GitHub. And for-profit organisations which commercialise > community-developed open-source projects have become the norm. > >> In short, Jimmy could not have gone the for-profit or non-free-culture >> route, because he would have been left more pitiful than Citizendium: a >> project with no contributors. > > Wikipedia collected thousands of articles while it had an FAQ that read: > > "Q. Why is wikipedia.org redirected to wikipedia.com and not the other > way around?" > > "A. I'm afraid it's for precisely the reason you fear: the people who > are organizing this view it partly, from their point of view, as a > business. They hope to recoup their costs, at the very least (certain > Wikipedia members are actually paid to help!)--by placing unobtrusive > ads, someday in the possibly-distant future. It would, thus, be > dishonest of them to use .org. Of course, if you don't like this, it > will be possible to export all the contents of Wikipedia for use > elsewhere, since the contents of Wikipedia are covered by the GNU Free > Documentation License." > > It's complete nonsense to claim that with a for-profit stance, > Wikipedia would have been "more pitiful than Citizendium". It was > bigger than Citizendium while it *had* a for-profit stance. > > Of course some contributors would have left, that's partly my point. > The policies Jimmy imposed on Wikipedia caused an accumulation of > like-minded people, and that's why Wikipedia's culture today is what > it is. > > -- Tim Starling > > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l