From: fun@thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard)
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050913 07:38]:
From: fun@thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard)
I reiterate my suggestion: suspend the deletion mechanism (keep CSD for
our
remaining sanity) for a month working out a deletion mechanism that
won't
drive people away
Have people been driven away?
I refer you again to the two examples that have been brought up repeatedly: Memory Alpha and Comixpedia. We're not getting those volunteers back, and in the former case we can't ever heal the fork because they chose a different licence. Those forks were a stupid and bad idea. And if you disagree on that, please explain what good they do Wikipedia, both in themselves as forks and as bad examples frustrated contributors may follow in the future.
As Angela has pointed out, Memory Alpha was not a fork. But even if it were, I think we have to accept that Wikipedia will not be the only encyclopedia on the internet, and also that this is not necessarily a bad thing. Wikipedia is a general purpose encyclopedia, and the level of detail is appropriate for the general reader. There will always be special purpose areas of knowledge for restricted audiences which will delve into areas in considerably more depth. That's the way it is with printed encyclopedias as well.
In addition, special purpose encyclopedias will almost certainly have editing policies which differ from Wikipedia's, particularly around issues such as NPOV and Original Research. I can easily imagine, for example, various religious groups setting up Wikis for areas of specialized knowledge, which would both have far more detail than Wikipedia, but also their own rules for content, and I don't think this is a bad thing.
Finally, competition is good; it makes us produce a better product than if we were a monopoly. I don't think we should strive to be the *only* encyclopedia on the internet, but instead strive to be the *best* one out there.
Jay.