[WikiEN-l] Eschatology and Wikipedia

[Carcharoth]

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 3:07 AM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> 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.

<snip>

> The initiative must still come from those who would run those sites.

Indeed. Just out of interest, how many people here would consider
devoting the time and energy and resources into setting up a Wikipedia
fork? I know some active Wikipedians have done so, but sustaining such
forks can be very difficult. What practical steps can be taken to
encourage a diversity of useful and sustainable forks that demonstrate
what is and is not possible? Or is th etime better spent improving WMF
projects?

Carcharoth