[WikiEN-l] Eschatology and Wikipedia

[Ray Saintonge]

On 12/21/10 1:12 PM, David Gerard wrote:
>
> 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.

I can't agree more.  To this end, Wikipedia should be encouraging forks, 
encouraging other sites to copy articles into other wikis which in turn 
could edit them into something consistent with the new site's 
philosophies.  Being the sole arbiter of NPOV can lead to very 
un-neutral results.  Where other sites have been copying and developing 
articles in their own way, WP could even have interwiki links to these 
other sites.
> 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.

I don't see licensing as a big barrier.
> 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.

The initiative must still come from those who would run those sites.  
Perhaps Sanger could have succeeded if he had put more chips in his site 
than on his shoulder.  For many, seeing the kind of budget that the WMF 
finds necessary can also be an intimidating factor. They could start 
with a narrower topic-specific project, but all still need to come to 
terms with the realities of financing their own site.
> 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.)

It's in the nature of institutions to seek uninhibited growth without 
the need to say so. Business strives for a bigger market share as an 
indicator of success.  Since the total market share is always 100% that 
can only come at the expense of others.

> 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.

One of the most vibrant things that still happens is the independent 
development of other language Wikipedias without the need to have an 
exact copy of what appears in a dominant language.

Media-wiki software is fully available to these other sites.

Instructions on "How to start your wiki" could also be helpful.

Ec