On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 09:00:57AM -0700, Alec Conroy wrote:
One *big* problem we have now is: Wikipedia has won. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone actually consults, ever. Wikipedia now defines what an "encyclopedia" is in popular conception.
So we don't have any tail-lights to chase. What sets our direction?
Well, this is now completely and utterly off topic, but since I'm here... I _think_ maybe I've known the answer for several years now, but I still don't really know how to communicate it. But since you asked---
The most exciting thing I've heard of is kinda hard to explain in English-- at least it's hard for me to explain it. It can be described in geekspeak by saying "How would Wikimedia be different if it had been made after Git?" Go ask the Free Software people that question and watch their faces light up with possibilities. To other people you can say "What if Wikimedia projects were less like a website and more like the internet itself?" and they'll get very interested, even if they don't know precisely what you mean.
Our "business model" is to take the lessons of Free Software and apply them to the challenges traditionally faced by librarians and educators.
Since 2002, literally some of the best minds on the planet have been working on the question of how large groups of strangers can work together to create documents when they don't all want the exact same finished product. The lessons they've learned, and the tools they've created, are truly mindblowing.
Imagine if virtually every editor's computer had copies of whole chunks of Wikimedia projects, starting first and foremost with your own contributions to the projects.
<snip cool stuff> Such a wiki is inevitable, I just hope we can be the ones to develop it.
Would Ward Cunningham be ok?
See http://wardcunningham.github.com/
He's working on the "Smallest Federated Wiki". :-D
sincerely, Kim Bruning