On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 10:35 PM, robert_horning@netzero.net robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:

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There was a time when the Wikimedia Foundation, or rather those involved with the various sister projects, were interested in some leading edge and bleeding edge stuff.  Considerable experimentation was encouraged and some amazing things happened that pushed ideas and concepts to some pretty interesting extremes.

Much of what we know today as Wikipedia certainly wouldn't exist today.  I got started in this whole mess back in the days when Gnupedia was rolled into Nupedia and those two communities merged together.  I remember numerous discussions on even trying to come up with how to edit content, what sort of raw standards ought to be invoked, and how to get participants to show up and contribute what they knew.  Using a wiki in a democratic fashion was actually a rather novel concept, and in fact brought in a whole new group of users.  Seriously, with this sort of attitude, Wikipedia would have never even been tried in the first place.  I am so glad this particular mindset was not in place back in those days.

I've also been involved in working on the various sister projects, and even helped to get Wikiversity going in the first place.  Indeed, one of the founding missions of Wikiversity was explicitly to try out new technology, to "conduct original research" on various levels.  Yes, I know that was a sticking point with the board of trustees when Wikiversity was started too, so it wasn't entirely without controversy.  Still, there are various sorts of original research that has been happening that is tied to the Wikimedia community... some of which are directly supported by the Foundation and others that are instead in the periphery and more side projects of a sub-set of the larger community.  Some are rather well known, and others are much more obscure.

Fine, I'll admit this is more of a research project to see if anything could be done here, and there is no guarantee that much may come from this.  I'm not even suggesting that the WMF ought to give even modest support in the form of server space for experimentation on this concept or even permitting a wiki page that would act as a central community message board and idea center for something like this.  That is something that can or can't happen, but it sort of seems rough that the idea is dismissed completely out of hand before it is even started in the first place.  It is also unfortunate that even discussion about what sorts of ideas might be useful under such a project is shut down before the discussion starts at all.

-- Robert Horning

I'm not sure discussion has been shut down... No one who has posted speaks for anyone but themselves. I think there are some key differences that contribute to the reaction aside from what you see as an attitude problem. The reality is that websites with limited traffic are cheap, and the potential costs are limited. Supporting a virtual MMO world is expensive, with intense resource requirements. More importantly, an MMO world related to the WMF's mission is a much greater inventive leap (in my opinion) than an openly editable web reference.

At the same time, I think you're probably right that some or even most of the entrepreneurial spirit has leached out of the Wikimedia community. This isn't necessarily surprising or even negative - as the projects mature, needs change, and incremental improvements are appropriately favored over radical experimentation. The WMF itself is still in the process of maturing into a stable organization sturdy enough to last for the long term, and it's rightly skeptical about proposed initiatives that could divert focus away from its core mission.

Having said that, I would be very happy to see Milos' prediction about MMORPG-style general Internet navigation come true. If anyone does make a go of an encyclopedia in a virtual world, they can expect my support.

Nathan