On 17 Sep 2011, at 09:41, Ray Saintonge <sainto...@telus.net> wrote: > On 09/16/11 12:38 PM, Robert Rohde wrote: >> On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 12:01 PM, emijrp<emi...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> I think that the phrase meaning refered to Wikipedia is "the sum of all >>> human knowledge which is notable and encyclopedic". >>> >>> Not ALL, ALL, ALL human knowledge. MySpace discarded. >> When you look back to when that quote was issued (at least 2004), I >> think I tend to see it as broader and more aspirational. Wikipedia >> was already the biggest project, but we still imagined ourselves >> making a statement with Wikinews and Wiktionary and everything else. >> Back in the day, I can certainly imagine Wikimedia wanting to >> encompass all forms of human knowledge, including projects going far >> beyond the confines of what we now see as notable and encyclopedic. >> We have retreated from that quite a lot. Even within Wikipedia our >> notions of what was acceptable and what was not were far more fluid. >> >> The projects have accomplished an incredible amount, and we should all >> be very proud and amazed at what we have done. However, I do think we >> have lost some of that early dream. Back in the day, it was easy to >> imagine that we would eventually encompass all human knowledge, and >> now we tend to draw our goals more narrowly. In part, I think our >> perceptions of that famous quote have been evolving alongside our >> perceptions of what Wikimedia and Wikipedia have become. >> > > Strictly speaking, "the sum of" is a redundancy, but its English > idiomatic use tends to emphasize comprehensiveness. For those of us who > saw the dream earlier on being "notable and encyclopedic" was never part > of the dream, and still isn't. A literal interpretation of "the sum of > all human knowledge" is still impossible; it's simply too big and > constantly growing. It still warns us to avoid restrictive > preconceptions about what is notable and encyclopedic. > > Ray
"sum" is a representation of the total value of a sequence. Similarly the sum of all knowledge is the representation of our sequence of knowledge. So we take a large body of disorganised information and collate it into something of greater value. Statements like that are not so much about size or scope; but about value. Tom _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l