Erik wrote:
In my opinion, Wikipedia should be the unstable version of Nupedia, a bit like Debian has a permanent unstable section. Things in Wikipedia can be complete nonsense, but they are always up to date.
I agree completely except for the name of the "stable" Wikipedia distribution; that, IMO, should be the slightly different "GNUpedia." Of course the GNU people esp RMS would have to sign off on our use of the "GNU" brand. If they do not feel comfortable with that then we can use Nupedia. My reasoning is simple; Nupedia is/was a very different project and we should have a different name if possible (and Wikimedia already owns both gnupedia.org and gnupedia.com).
I also like the "gnu" because it emphasizes the open content nature of such a project (since that would be the most prominent difference between it and any other static encyclopedia; the most prominent feature of Wikipedia, however, is that it is a wiki).
We may add a team certification model to Wikipedia eventually, but I'd be happy to see a simple Sifter solution as envisioned by Magnus (without the limit to certified experts as reviewers which I think is what Larry wanted). IMHO it would make perfect sense to use the Nupedia name and domain for that project.
Like I've said before; Sifter, team certification and a "stable" distribution of Wikipedia are all basically the same thing in that they are trying to accomplish similar goals. To be viable we should make one project that encompasses the best aspects of all three ideas.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Daniel-
Erik wrote:
In my opinion, Wikipedia should be the unstable version of Nupedia, a bit like Debian has a permanent unstable section. Things in Wikipedia can be complete nonsense, but they are always up to date.
I agree completely except for the name of the "stable" Wikipedia distribution; that, IMO, should be the slightly different "GNUpedia." Of course the GNU people esp RMS would have to sign off on our use of the "GNU" brand. If they do not feel comfortable with that then we can use Nupedia.
Even if they do (which I somewhat doubt unless we more openly endorse or participate in the GNU project), this would link us strongly to the GNU philosophy. That is a somewhat controversial move, since some contributors do not agree with that philosophy, at least not entirely, or with the organization which represents it. GNU also carries connotations of openness and collaborative development, much like wiki, but we want to distinguish the two. The Nupedia name has the benefit of neutrality, and is already associated with the connotation of quality.
Jimbo should have the final word on this. My vote goes to Nupedia.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Jimbo should have the final word on this. My vote goes to Nupedia.
I agree with Erik's reasons, mostly, but my only concern is that we don't want to offer anything that seems like a slight against or lack of respect for Wikipedians.
Overall, I think that 'Nupedia' is a much better name than 'Wikipedia', and I sort of wish now that we had simply opened Wikipedia under the name 'Nupedia wiki'.
One advantage of doing a 'drive to 1.0' under the Nupedia brand is that it instantly dispels likely concerns on the part of Wikipedians that we're going to eliminate the openness and so on and turn inward with a cabal of 'credentialed experts'.
I'm not sure which of these concerns is really valid, since I think people shouldn't worry about such things in the first place. :-)
--Jimbo
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
Overall, I think that 'Nupedia' is a much better name than 'Wikipedia', and I sort of wish now that we had simply opened Wikipedia under the name 'Nupedia wiki'.
I don't think I agree.
A name is a name is a name. It is what the name represents that matters. Coke and Dell are recognized and brand names, but not because in and of themselves the names are descriptive or "cute". They have come to represent great products as well as dynamic and innovative companies. The W is getting great name recognition already (dang, even my wife knew of it), so I think at this point, changing the name of the product would be detrimental to the project and to its potential impact.
Some people are sticklers for terminology, and that is good in science and engineering, but marketing is a different beast.
Take the example of Linux. What a crappy name in and of itself... What does it mean? Hard to figure how to pronounce. Hard to write if you just hear it. Yet, in the last 13 years, it's become the talk of the e-town.
I would rather have a unique name that clearly lets the product stand out than a catchy name that becomes generic.
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Erik Moeller wrote in response to Daniel:
I agree completely except for the name of the "stable" Wikipedia distribution; that, IMO, should be the slightly different "GNUpedia." Of course the GNU people esp RMS would have to sign off on our use of the "GNU" brand. If they do not feel comfortable with that then we can use Nupedia.
Even if they do (which I somewhat doubt unless we more openly endorse or participate in the GNU project), this would link us strongly to the GNU philosophy.
Just to throw something in to the discussion:
See http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/
Our idea for a free encyclopedia is described in The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource.
Just as we were starting a project, GNUpedia, to develop a free encyclopedia, the Nupedia encyclopedia project adopted the GNU Free Documentation License and thus became a free commercial project. So we decided to merge GNUpedia project into Nupedia. Now, the Wikipedia encyclopedia project has adopted the philosophy of Nupedia and taken it even further. We encourage you to visit and contribute to the site.
Cheers Claudine
Claudine Chionh wrote:
Just to throw something in to the discussion: See http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/
This suggests that GNU would be happy with our using the name "GNUpedia" -- and other comments by Jimmy suggest the same. It seems that there are /Wikipedians/, however, who aren't so happy with such a relationship.
OTOH, perhaps they're merely anticipating others' unhappiness? Does anyone claim unhappiness on their own part? (Not that the English list is a survey of everybody, far from it.)
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Claudine Chionh wrote:
Just to throw something in to the discussion: See http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/
This suggests that GNU would be happy with our using the name "GNUpedia" -- and other comments by Jimmy suggest the same. It seems that there are /Wikipedians/, however, who aren't so happy with such a relationship.
OTOH, perhaps they're merely anticipating others' unhappiness? Does anyone claim unhappiness on their own part? (Not that the English list is a survey of everybody, far from it.)
I can attest from personal experience that dancing a little too closely with RMS has its downsides (*figuratively*, folks, figuratively :-) ). He is a great moral crusader, but weak on tactics and personal relationships. Everybody knows about the GNU/Linux vs Linux thing, but he's stuck his oar into a lot of lesser issues, for instance the details of wording and content of GNU documentation, and he's alienated many of his own devoutest supporters. Extrapolating from past incidents, it's even possible that after studying Wikipedia, he could decide he's against the NPOV policy and would start an effort to change Wikipedia content to reflect his long-term goal of making all software free.
So my advice is to think hard about what real advantages one hopes to get from the GNU connection (keeping in mind that few outside the computing world have heard of GNU) that are not available otherwise, before jumping in.
Stan
Toby-
Claudine Chionh wrote:
Just to throw something in to the discussion: See http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/
This suggests that GNU would be happy with our using the name "GNUpedia" -- and other comments by Jimmy suggest the same.
Do they? Which comments are you referring to? Even so, Jimmy has already said that he would prefer to use the name Nupedia for a separate sifter project.
The GNU project is very fixated on use and abuse of the right and wrong terms. See, e.g.,
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/linux-gnu-freedom.html
You're not supposed to say "Linux" (they tell you it's OK for the kernel, but they also frequently object in that context), you're not supposed to say "intellectual property", you're not supposed to say "open source".
If we call our sifter sister "Gnupedia" they will be constantly on our back and watching that we don't do something that's not compatible with the GNU way of life. Will Richard Stallman send us threatening mails to withdraw his support and create
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gnupedia-is-not-free.html
if we continue to have the main article about "Linux" under the title "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux", as he nowadays demands in virtually every interview he gives?
Yes, I do anticipate that others will be uncomfortable with such a name, but I'm uncomfortable with it myself.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote at last:
Yes, I do anticipate that others will be uncomfortable with such a name, but I'm uncomfortable with it myself.
Thanks, that answers my question!
I won't respond to anything that you said in detail, unless you ask me to do so specifically, because I wanted to define the terms of the debate more than actually press a particular opinion. (That is, there are two groups whose comforts to consider, and is the discomfort from our group only anticipatory.)
But now I'll join the debate a bit and ask you: When GNU and RMS say that you shouldn't say "open source": Is this just RMS' personal preference, or will they enforce it? Because I think that we should /definitely/ say "open source"; it's widely recognised, and it means something (which is not quite the same as "free", of course).
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
This suggests that GNU would be happy with our using the name "GNUpedia" -- and other comments by Jimmy suggest the same. It seems that there are /Wikipedians/, however, who aren't so happy with such a relationship.
Actually, I'm one of them. The GNU people have their own agenda, and we have ours. They quite happily overlap a lot, but we aren't in any sense at all a sub-project of GNU, and so we shouldn't adopt their name.
Another factor here is that the GNU people prefer people to say GNU/Linux rather than just Linux, and the reason is that a huge proportion of the code in Linux, esp. for utilities that are not in the kernel itself, is GNU/FSF code.
There's no parallel here. Almost everything in wikipedia is native wikipedian. And the GNU/FSF people have contributed nothing directly, other than the license and of course the genius concept in the first place. :-)
--Jimbo
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Like I've said before; Sifter, team certification and a "stable" distribution of Wikipedia are all basically the same thing in that they are trying to accomplish similar goals. To be viable we should make one project that encompasses the best aspects of all three ideas.
Yup.
I see it as a collection of "pointers" to particular revisions in Wikipedia -- at least while we're working online.
tarquin wrote:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Like I've said before; Sifter, team certification and a "stable" distribution of Wikipedia are all basically the same thing in that they are trying to accomplish similar goals. To be viable we should make one project that encompasses the best aspects of all three ideas.
Yup.
I see it as a collection of "pointers" to particular revisions in Wikipedia -- at least while we're working online.
Then let's make this happen! How about this: * Each article gets a pointer to its "stable" version. * A new site (NuNupedia;-) is set up with the wiki software, using the same database, with two differences: ** No editing, for noone ** Instead of displaying the current article, it displays the "stable" version * On wikipedia, a link "make this the stable version" appears for editors
We'll just have to find a way to determine the editors. That aside, would that be a viable concept? I ask because it'd be dead easy to code ;-)
Magnus
Magnus-
<snip>
We'll just have to find a way to determine the editors. That aside, would that be a viable concept? I ask because it'd be dead easy to code ;-)
Speaking of code, would you mind finishing the article categorization code before starting a new project? ;-)
Regards,
Erik
Magnus Manske wrote:
Then let's make this happen! How about this:
- On wikipedia, a link "make this the stable version" appears for editors
I basically agree with y'all (Magnus, mav, and Erik). But I question this one point.
The problem is, it allows only one Sifter project. That's all that we'll have to start with, and maybe that's all that we ever want, period. But in the past, we've discussed several projects -- a stable version, a peer-reviewed version, a safe-for-kids version. Allowing all of these works easiest if it's the Sifter site, not the Wikipedia site itself, where people pick versions. The true beauty of this is that somebody that hates our Sifters is now free to set up their own Sifter using our Sifter software, and choose Wikipedia articles according to their own judgements. (Let a hundred Sifters bloom.)
We'll just have to find a way to determine the editors. That aside, would that be a viable concept? I ask because it'd be dead easy to code ;-)
That's good to know. Would /this/ be as easy to code:
* No new links on Wikipedia (except links to the Sifter site[s], of course). * From within a Sifter site, an /editor only/ can view all Wikipedia versions, even though ordinary readers can view only the stable/safe/reviewed versions. * Again from /within/ the Sifter site, an editor viewing a Wikipedia version can choose that version to be the Sifter site's new version. * To really sweeten the deal, editors of a Sifter site can edit a Wikipedia article from within the Sifter site -- this works because the Sifter site performs the same GET and POST commands as any ordinary user would when editing the Wikipedia site. The Sifter site can even have its own log in and be registered like bots are.
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Allowing all of these works easiest if it's the Sifter site, not the Wikipedia site itself, where people pick versions. The true beauty of this is that somebody that hates our Sifters is now free to set up their own Sifter using our Sifter software, and choose Wikipedia articles according to their own judgements.
And it doesn't clutter up our user interface. I'm all for it.
Kurt
Later this week, probably on Saturday or Sunday, I'll be releasing my own vision of our roadmap to 1.0. This will not be a policy decree or the law, but just a set of personal milestones that's subject to community input and revision. But, I think people will mostly like it, because I'm going to leave all the controversial stuff out. :-)
(Controversial stuff means stuff like an actual methodology for sifting/certifying. We'll do it somehow, but I'm not going to decree it this week!)
Magnus Manske wrote:
Then let's make this happen! How about this:
- Each article gets a pointer to its "stable" version.
- A new site (NuNupedia;-) is set up with the wiki software, using the
same database, with two differences: ** No editing, for noone ** Instead of displaying the current article, it displays the "stable" version
- On wikipedia, a link "make this the stable version" appears for editors
We'll just have to find a way to determine the editors. That aside, would that be a viable concept? I ask because it'd be dead easy to code ;-)
Magnus
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