Re: [Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
On 20 December 2010 02:31, Noein prono...@gmail.com wrote: On 19/12/2010 23:07, Fred Bauder wrote: There can be no viable alternative to Wikipedia. What? This is a perennial thread on wikien-l. There's basically no way at this stage for someone to be a better Wikipedia than Wikipedia. So anyone else wanting to do a wiki of educational information has to either (a) vary from Wikipedia in coverage (e.g., be strongly specialised) (b) vary from Wikipedia in rules (e.g., not neutral, or allow original research) or (c) have a small bunch of people who want to do a general neutral encyclopedia that isn't Wikipedia and who will happily persist because they want to (e.g., Knowino, Citizendium). (Any cases I've missed there?) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 10:35, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: (Any cases I've missed there?) The madmen. Or is that overlaying both? :) g ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
On 19/12/2010 23:07, Fred Bauder wrote: There can be no viable alternative to Wikipedia. This is the type of thinking that sets you up to being blindsided. Marc Riddell ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
Marc Riddell wrote: On 19/12/2010 23:07, Fred Bauder wrote: There can be no viable alternative to Wikipedia. This is the type of thinking that sets you up to being blindsided. In this case, that sounds like a feature, not a bug. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
On 20 December 2010 17:15, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Marc Riddell wrote: On 19/12/2010 23:07, Fred Bauder wrote: There can be no viable alternative to Wikipedia. This is the type of thinking that sets you up to being blindsided. In this case, that sounds like a feature, not a bug. Specifically, that the only way Wikipedia will get itself any sort of viable competitor is by allowing itself to be blindsided. Fortunately, a proper blindsiding requires something that addresses structural defects of Wikipedia in such a way that others can use them. (One idea that was mooted on the Citizendium forums: a general, neutral encyclopedia that is heavy on the data, using SMW or similar. Some of the dreams of Wikidata would cover this - infoboxes on steroids at a minimum. Have we made any progress on a coherent wishlist for Wikidata?) [And has someone trademarked Wikidata yet, or a suitable similar concept if we're too late?] - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
On 20 December 2010 19:47, Noein prono...@gmail.com wrote: Is there a general consensus about achieving a monopoly as a good goal. Is this part of some public strategy? Is this the position of WMF? Of chapters? I thought I heard some weeks ago on that mail list that diversity is good. That competitors are healthy. Could we have a clarification of positions about this? I can't speak for anyone but myself - but I think, and I've seen many others who express an opinion think, that competition would be good and monopoly as *the* encyclopedia is not intrinsically a good thing. The big win would be to make proper free content licenses - preferably public domain, CC-by, CC-by-sa, as they're the most common - the *normal* way to distribute educational and academic materials. Because that would fulfill the Foundation mission statement - Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. - without us having to do every bit of it. And really, that mission statement cannot be attained unless we make free content *normal and expected*, and everyone else joins in. Furthermore, being *the* encyclopedia is mostly a headache for us. Wikipedia wasn't started with the aim of running a hugely popular website, whose popularity has gone beyond merely famous, beyond merely mainstream, to being part of the assumed background. We're an institution now - part of the scenery. This has made every day for the last eight years a very special wtf moment technically. It means we can't run an encyclopedia out of Jimbo's spare change any more and need to run fundraisers, to remind the world that this institution is actually a rather small-to-medium-sized charity. (I think reaching this state was predictable. I said a few years ago that in ten years, the only encyclopedia would be Wikipedia or something directly derived from Wikipedia. I think this is the case, and I don't think it's necessarily a good thing.) So I'd say, no - monopoly isn't a goal for us, it's something that's happened. We need to encourage everyone else to take on the goal of our mission with their own educational, scientific, academic etc materials. We can't change the world all on our own. The next question is what to do about this. Deliberately crippling Wikipedia would be silly, of course. But encouraging the propagation of proper free content licences - which is somewhat more restrictive than what our most excellent friends at Creative Commons do, though they're an ideal organisation to work with on it - directly helps our mission, for example. As I said, I can't speak for anyone else, but if anyone here disagrees I'm open to correction on any of the above. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
On 20 December 2010 09:35, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 20 December 2010 02:31, Noein prono...@gmail.com wrote: On 19/12/2010 23:07, Fred Bauder wrote: There can be no viable alternative to Wikipedia. What? This is a perennial thread on wikien-l. There's basically no way at this stage for someone to be a better Wikipedia than Wikipedia. So anyone else wanting to do a wiki of educational information has to either (a) vary from Wikipedia in coverage (e.g., be strongly specialised) (b) vary from Wikipedia in rules (e.g., not neutral, or allow original research) or (c) have a small bunch of people who want to do a general neutral encyclopedia that isn't Wikipedia and who will happily persist because they want to (e.g., Knowino, Citizendium). (Any cases I've missed there?) Have the goverment of the largest community for a given language block wikipedia for a number of years (Hudong). -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
On 20 December 2010 19:47, Noein prono...@gmail.com wrote: Is there a general consensus about achieving a monopoly as a good goal. Â Is this part of some public strategy? Is this the position of WMF? Of chapters? I thought I heard some weeks ago on that mail list that diversity is good. That competitors are healthy. Could we have a clarification of positions about this? I can't speak for anyone but myself - but I think, and I've seen many others who express an opinion think, that competition would be good and monopoly as *the* encyclopedia is not intrinsically a good thing. The big win would be to make proper free content licenses - preferably public domain, CC-by, CC-by-sa, as they're the most common - the *normal* way to distribute educational and academic materials. Because that would fulfill the Foundation mission statement - Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. - without us having to do every bit of it. And really, that mission statement cannot be attained unless we make free content *normal and expected*, and everyone else joins in. Furthermore, being *the* encyclopedia is mostly a headache for us. Wikipedia wasn't started with the aim of running a hugely popular website, whose popularity has gone beyond merely famous, beyond merely mainstream, to being part of the assumed background. We're an institution now - part of the scenery. This has made every day for the last eight years a very special wtf moment technically. It means we can't run an encyclopedia out of Jimbo's spare change any more and need to run fundraisers, to remind the world that this institution is actually a rather small-to-medium-sized charity. (I think reaching this state was predictable. I said a few years ago that in ten years, the only encyclopedia would be Wikipedia or something directly derived from Wikipedia. I think this is the case, and I don't think it's necessarily a good thing.) So I'd say, no - monopoly isn't a goal for us, it's something that's happened. We need to encourage everyone else to take on the goal of our mission with their own educational, scientific, academic etc materials. We can't change the world all on our own. The next question is what to do about this. Deliberately crippling Wikipedia would be silly, of course. But encouraging the propagation of proper free content licences - which is somewhat more restrictive than what our most excellent friends at Creative Commons do, though they're an ideal organisation to work with on it - directly helps our mission, for example. As I said, I can't speak for anyone else, but if anyone here disagrees I'm open to correction on any of the above. - d. The network effects are massive. Simply wanting doing something better doesn't work. What does work is Wikia wikis such as Lostpedia that will draw a small crowd. Fred User:Fred Bauder ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
On 20 December 2010 22:46, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: The network effects are massive. Simply wanting doing something better doesn't work. What does work is Wikia wikis such as Lostpedia that will draw a small crowd. Yeah. The small, specialist approach is clearly something that can produce tiny but sustainable communities and actually useful wikis. Finding a Wikia on a particular fictional work is generally a joy if you want a level of nerdy detail beyond what even Wikipedians can sustain. (With some exceptions.) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
http://knowino.org/wiki/Welcome! Fred User:Fred Bauder ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
Fred Bauder wrote: http://knowino.org/wiki/Welcome! Anything particularly notable about this site? It looks like another drop in the sea of Wikipedia clones. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
On 20 December 2010 01:24, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Fred Bauder wrote: http://knowino.org/wiki/Welcome! Anything particularly notable about this site? It looks like another drop in the sea of Wikipedia clones. Not vastly, except that it's actually a fork from Citizendium rather than Wikipedia. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
Fred Bauder wrote: http://knowino.org/wiki/Welcome! Anything particularly notable about this site? It looks like another drop in the sea of Wikipedia clones. MZMcBride That one is an actual wiki. We talked about it. I'm just updating. Network effects should take care of it. There can be no viable alternative to Wikipedia. Fred User:Fred Bauder ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Tendrl to Knowino
On 19/12/2010 23:07, Fred Bauder wrote: There can be no viable alternative to Wikipedia. Fred User:Fred Bauder What? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
