[WikiEN-l] Eschatology and Wikipedia

[Fred Bauder]

> 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

I'm not available for serious sustained work on any fork but Wikinfo, but
I can help people get set up. There has to be a vision though, of
something better. Maybe something that is an actual wiki, quick and easy,
rather than the template coding hell Wikipedia's turned into.

Fred Bauder