I would personally like to see the capability of
creating "custom"
encyclopedias, similar to college books where the
teacher of the
particular course can decide which chapters to
include and which not
to.
For Example:
"Wikipedia On the Middle Ages" vs "Wikipedia on
20th century Pop
Culture"
Isn't this what the Wikibooks fork is supposed to be about?
Exactly. You can have any non-fiction book in wikibooks, not just textbooks.
This would be a lot easier to produce than an
actual "paper"
encyclopedia, would be available to anyone with a
fast printer, would
drastically reduce time-to-market, and would
"paper" users to update
particular sections instead of relying on the
addendums.
If we're talking about specific articles anybody can print out as many as he wants.
This would also allow "enterprising folks" (us or
them) to make a
quick buck printing and delivering decent "actual
paper" books
without involving the Ws (Wikipedia and Wikimedia)
into the whole
publiching business, because it can be nasty and is
fraught with
potential loss.
Hmmm! I wonder about the ethics of individuals who use the efforts of hundreds of Wikipedians just to make a buck for themselves.
No, it would be of great benefit to Wikipedia if someone printed it. I hate to invoke Objectivism, but in this case, everyone acting in their own self-interest will create the greatest benefit for all in this case. Wouldn't a printed version of wikipedia be great, even if we didn't have an opertunity to make money off of it?
(ever figured out what one could do with 80,000
extra
copies of the "Lun-Mag" 2004 volume?).
I hope we're a little more level headed than to start with print runs of 80,000!
Ec
LDan
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