Re: [Foundation-l] All human knowledge, by Jimmy Wales (?)
On 09/16/11 12:38 PM, Robert Rohde wrote: On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 12:01 PM, emijrpemi...@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 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] All human knowledge, by Jimmy Wales (?)
I'm afraid it sounds a bit OT, but I'm serious, really. On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 11:25 PM, Ziko van Dijk zvand...@googlemail.com wrote: Hello, Today I read on a WMDE driven website: »Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der das gesamte Wissen der Menschheit jedem frei zugänglich ist. Das ist unser Ziel.« Jimmy Wales (Imagine a world in which the entire knowledge of mankind is freely accessible to everyone. That is our goal.) I never read that in English. Jimmy Wales actually said: ... the sum of all human knowledge. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales And I think that there is a huge difference between the sum of all... and all By the way, the traditional encyclopedias described themselves by the sum of all... But a number of Wikimedia national organizations seem to have difficulties with Jimmy's phrase. They 'translate' it to all... I did not succeed, for example, in explaining to my own national organization why it is wrong what we have on our business cards. Gibt uns hier Problem? Welche Art? Fast zwanzig Jahren war es mir Raetzel, ob Verschendung gibt zwischen das gesammte Werk (oder die gesaemmte Werken) und die Sammelung Werkes und die saemmtliches Werken. Keine Woerterbueche haben mich geholfen. Auf Japanisch liegt hier nur ein Wort so dass wir es benutzen, aber wenn Du so nett waere, bitte mal mir Erklaerungen, koenntest Du wirklich floh machen. MhG, Am I the only one seeing a problem here? Kind regards Ziko -- Ziko van Dijk The Netherlands http://zikoblog.wordpress.com/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- KIZU Naoko / 木津尚子 member of Wikimedians in Kansai / 関西ウィキメディアユーザ会 http://kansai.wikimedia.jp ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] All human knowledge, by Jimmy Wales (?)
And I think that there is a huge difference between the sum of all... and all By the way, the traditional encyclopedias described themselves by the sum of all... Can you explain this perceived difference? Is the whole more than the sum of its parts, so that the German claim is too ambitious for you, or is it less than the sum of its parts, making the German claim too modest? -- David Richfield e^(πi)+1=0 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] All human knowledge, by Jimmy Wales (?)
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. -Robert Rohde ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] All human knowledge, by Jimmy Wales (?)
Hi; Perhaps, you may want to help me compiling information about this topic and improving the estimate.[1] There is a false sensation about Wikipedia being almost complete. In the other hand, projects like WikiSource are in their infance, for example, Internet Archive hosts about 3 million public domain books,[2] how many of them are available at WikiSource? This project compile images for every square kilometre in Britain.[3] We can use this idea for Commons, and take thousands of millions of photos of all the world. : ) Regards, emijrp [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Emijrp/All_human_knowledge [2] http://www.archive.org/details/texts [3] http://www.geograph.org.uk/ 2011/9/16 Robert Rohde raro...@gmail.com 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. -Robert Rohde ___ 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
