On 15 Nov 2005, at 02:16, Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
No the primary goal is to make a free encyclopaedia. It will be the best one as a byproduct.
I think that by definition an encyclop[a]edia _needs_ to be pretty good, or what good is it? If making a _good_ encyclopedia is only a byproduct, we will find in the end that we do not have an encyclopedia at all.
But getting the process right is the important thing rather than what it ways now.
So long as we have a process that leads to improvement it doesnt matter to us if a few planes crash for a few months (as I try to tell people in revert wars; they have to live with each other because the process is there going on; in some ways a 1.0 stream will make dealing with difficult people who care about particular revisions harder). The encyclopaedia is a result of the process and it being free is a vital part of that. If you just want the best one just throw money at it. A lot more than Jimbo threw at nupedia. You can work out how much you need by looking at how you would scale Brittanica to be like wikipedia. If you want the best one by the WP process it being free is vital.
Justinc