On 04/07/11 2:29 PM, David Gerard wrote:
On 7 April 2011 21:56, MuZemikemuzemike@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps I'm missing the point, but isn't that what we have been doing so far (i.e. with all the other sister Wikimedia projects)?
Yes, but also other niches Wikipedia leaves. Wikia, for example, started to form wikis of any sort, but has rapidly taken over the niche of fansite wikis.
An who can complain about that?
The sister projects began by filling in important niches. The first, Meta, provided a way in which we discuss activities and ideas about ourselves and policy that was not inherently encyclopedic. Wiktionary was a response to "Wikipedia is not a dictionary." etc. A fork could easily start with copied material which from that moment would evolve differently. They may choose to abandon NPOV. Having several sites that freely and independently do this would in fact put our own NPOV in a broader perspective. Another may choose to be more aggressive in the treatment of copyright. They would assume the risks at a level which makes them comfortable, but in the longer term we too would benefit from their efforts to free data.
They need to be willing limit the growth of their projects to match their funding. A project that tries to duplicate everything on Wikipedia is dooming itself to starvation. Subject specialization is the most evident criterion for this. From the Wikipedia side we need to link to these projects for alternative views. They are not our enemies.
Ec