Greetings,
I am writing a book on the history of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement, focusing on its 'history of ideas'. Would any Wikipedians be prepared to be interviewed for this? Obviously long-standing Wikipedians would be a focus but I am interested in anyone who is involved in the movement because of passionately held convictions or 'ideology'.
A general question: is there a Wikipedian ideology? What is it? In particular, how does the current ideology, if there is one, compare with the ideology which inspired its founding fathers. And mothers - many of the founding editors of Wikipedia were women, I don't know how many people know that.
Edward
On 23 October 2011 09:16, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
Edward
Is "Edward" Peter Damian, or someone else?
- d.
On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 10:16 AM, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.comwrote:
A general question: is there a Wikipedian ideology? What is it? In particular, how does the current ideology, if there is one, compare with the ideology which inspired its founding fathers. And mothers - many of the founding editors of Wikipedia were women, I don't know how many people know that.
I think I'll quote Jimmy on that:
*Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.* That's what we're doing.
All knowledge should be available freely to everyone. That's the Wikipedian ideology, I say.
Peter Damian wrote:
I am writing a book on the history of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement, focusing on its 'history of ideas'. Would any Wikipedians be prepared to be interviewed for this? Obviously long-standing Wikipedians would be a focus but I am interested in anyone who is involved in the movement because of passionately held convictions or 'ideology'.
A general question: is there a Wikipedian ideology? What is it? In particular, how does the current ideology, if there is one, compare with the ideology which inspired its founding fathers. And mothers - many of the founding editors of Wikipedia were women, I don't know how many people know that.
What license(s) will the book be released under?
MZMcBride
What license(s) will the book be released under? MZMcBride
Very funny :)
I have just completed my book on Scotus, which will be submitted to the Catholic University Assocation Press next week. Assuming it gets through their lengthy approval process,it will be published under whatever license they use - I imagine the 'evil' one.
So to for the Wikipedia book, but it is early days to approach a publisher.
If you ask why, I reply that no method has yet been devised to give attribution to the author of a work in a way that advances their career. I will earn little or no money from either work, I imagine. Note that Andrew Lih's book, which I have ordered from Waterstone's, is also under a standard copright license. At least I assume - I paid good money for it, because it was not available any other way.
However, I do publish material on my own website, the Logic Museum. I fund this myself, and the translation work such as here
http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Authors/Ockham/Summa_Logicae
is published under a 'free' license. http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/The_Logic_Museum:Copyrights
I don't get any formal recognition for this. I do it because I want this material, which is very hard to get access to, even for subject matter experts, to be freely available to everyone on the planet.
Edward
On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 1:58 PM, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
If you ask why, I reply that no method has yet been devised to give attribution to the author of a work in a way that advances their career. I will earn little or no money from either work, I imagine. Note that Andrew Lih's book, which I have ordered from Waterstone's, is also under a standard copright license. At least I assume - I paid good money for it, because it was not available any other way.
There is a fundamental difference between publishing a book and publishing an article (or part thereof) on an encyclopedia. When you publish a book, your name is on the cover, you are clearly indicated as the author (or one of the authors). When you write an article for an encyclopedia, your name is not necessarily at the end of the article, it could be in the credits somewhere, and in any case the article will be attributed to the encyclopedia Xyz. Note that this is independent of the license. A publisher and an author may have a very good reason to reserve rights and refuse a free license - we all need to pay our bills. Cruccone
On 23 October 2011 09:16, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
Greetings,
I am writing a book on the history of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement, focusing on its 'history of ideas'. Would any Wikipedians be prepared to be interviewed for this? Obviously long-standing Wikipedians would be a focus but I am interested in anyone who is involved in the movement because of passionately held convictions or 'ideology'.
You know it would in most cases have been considered an act of good faith to mention your long standing antipathy to wikipedia. But perhaps I'm just old fashioned.
----- Original Message ----- From: "geni" geniice@gmail.com
On 23 October 2011 09:16, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
Greetings,
I am writing a book on the history of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement, focusing on its 'history of ideas'. Would any Wikipedians be prepared to be interviewed for this? Obviously long-standing Wikipedians would be a focus but I am interested in anyone who is involved in the movement because of passionately held convictions or 'ideology'.
You know it would in most cases have been considered an act of good faith to mention your long standing antipathy to wikipedia. But perhaps I'm just old fashioned.
I'm assuming that this is the Peter Damian who is also
knol.google.com/k/edward-buckner/edward-buckner/2u2a5qlvdgh8h/1#
since he signs as "Edward", rather than a troll seeking to impersonate the banned Wikipedia editor of the same name, for nefarious purposes. In either case, I have little confidence that this book would achieve an audience sufficient to make the effort worthwhile, except on an extremely personal basis. Sometimes it's good to write things down if only to let off steam, but to expect an audience in this case seems to be a triumph of hope over experience.
By all means, write your book. But don't expect Wikipedia to crash to the ground as a result of your revelations. I, for one, have no interest in participating, not least because the OP wasn't to wp-en-l but to the Foundation list, and that smacks of a desperate, if limp, attempt at some sort of improper meta-leverage.
KillerChihuahua wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "geni" geniice@gmail.com
On 23 October 2011 09:16, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
Greetings,
I am writing a book on the history of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement, focusing on its 'history of ideas'. Would any Wikipedians be prepared to be interviewed for this? Obviously long-standing Wikipedians would be a focus but I am interested in anyone who is involved in the movement because of passionately held convictions or 'ideology'.
You know it would in most cases have been considered an act of good faith to mention your long standing antipathy to wikipedia. But perhaps I'm just old fashioned.
You know it would in most cases have been considered an act of good
faith to mention your long standing antipathy to wikipedia. But perhaps I'm just old fashioned. <<
I'm sorry about that - I assumed everyone knew who 'Peter Damian' was. I don't understand what you mean about 'antipathy to Wikipedia'. There are many things I am critical about, of course. I support the core vision of what *I* regard as the Wikipedia ideology, which is that knowledge should be free to all.
What is the origin of *Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.* ?
Are there any other aspects to the 'Wikipedia ideology'? Richard Stallman, who I will be interviewing early in November, has a lot to say about 'community'.
Edward
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org