On 26/06/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry, I meant to reply to it. I like it as a slogan,
and it's very
descriptive of an important thing about us. The amount of community
buy-in that would be needed to effect the change strikes me at first
impression as infeasible, but calling it "a living encyclopedia" is a
useful way to describe this important difference between wiki-based
encyclopedias and how the previous generation (Britannica, Brockhaus
et al) did it with the "get a bunch of smart guys to write it" model.
Because I seriously think no-one will ever start a general
encyclopedia again on that model, and even specialist encyclopedias
written on the "bunch of smart guys" or "one smart guy" haven't a
hope
against the wiki model - wikis, and the MediaWiki software in
particular, are a natural for the task of gathering the knowledge of
enthusiasts.
And I should say I'd prefer keeping the current "The Free
Encyclopedia", as in free content - because that's an important thing
distinguishing us from one failed past Internet collaborative
knowledge-gathering exercise, the [[Open Directory Project]] - which
is not quite dead but is largely moribund, because when the
corporation no longer cared much and the community failed it was
impossible to fork and start over. Wikipedia will survive its
community or corporate organisation failing, even if not in
particularly good health.
- d.