Just to lay out what *I* think are going to be the biggest hurdles to creating a print Wikipedia A) Articles in en.wikipedia must not be frozen (or this would kil the Wikipedia project), but must be stable enough that they can be verified a print-ready. B) Weblinks and interlinks have to be removed from our print articles, but not from our regular database. C) While Wikipedia is not paper, a printed version is. Wikipedia doesn't have to be concise, but a printed version does. By the same token, electronic Wikipedia doesn't have to define terms very precisely when interlinks can be used, but a paper encyclopedia, to a larger degree, should. So we absolutely cannot just copy the articles as they exist in the en database. D) Forks, with the inevitable loss of effeciency that occurs from repeated efforts, are always bad.
To summarize the ideas presented regarding the print version: 1) Some people argue that we should create a print Wikipedia project (ala the simple english project). 2) Others argue that we should do it behind the scenes, by changing our markup language or using a hidden flag 3) My idea was to create a talk-page like "Print version" page
I'm sorry to repeat myself, but I still think my idea is the best. Getting a full, printed version of Wikipedia is going to require a LOT of effort. IMO, those side projects fall short of it by orders of magnitude. Plus, it would mean that users would have to keep track of two seperate Wikipedia namespaces - not something that most people are going to do.
Meanwhile, the do-it-behind-the-scenes idea falls apart completely on point C, (and point B to a lesser extent).
My idea of a talk-page like structure is distinct from the normal Wikipedia articles that it doesn't require major changes to the markup langugage, but not too far removed as to cause ineffeciency. Changes to the printed version would show up in the watchlist, just like changes to talk pages do. The print-version page could, in many cases, simply be the first paragraph of the main article.
--Mark Pellegrini User:Raul654
On Saturday 28 February 2004 12:03, mapellegrini@comcast.net wrote:
print-ready. B) Weblinks and interlinks have to be removed from our print articles, but not from our regular database.
Why would weblinks have to be removed? Well, certainly some of them, but some should stay (for example: in an article about a book, a link to on-line edition of the book). Imagine article about Google without having Google's URL ;)))
I'm sorry to repeat myself, but I still think my idea is the best. Getting a full, printed version of Wikipedia is going to require a LOT of effort. IMO, those side projects fall short of it by orders of magnitude. Plus, it would mean that users would have to keep track of two seperate Wikipedia namespaces - not something that most people are going to do.
I agree, and it probably wouldn't require big changes to the software. Just the ability to set the access rights to the articles, and (not absolutely neccesary) automatic announcing on articles' pages about existence of print versions.