On Thu, Oct 03, 2002 at 08:55:23AM -0700, Larry Sanger wrote:
In one very attenuated sense, sure, he's *ultimately* responsible for the decisions about the projects, but that's *only* insofar as the projects happen to reside on his servers.
A useful (if not *entirely* accurate) analogy would be the position of the monarch in the UK government, who has theoretically huge powers but is restricted in their use by convention and popular opinion.
Again, this is misleading on a number of points. First of all, what Wikipedia stands for has **NOTHING** to do with the fact (if it is a fact--I honestly don't know) that "Wikipedia" is a commercial trademark. By suggesting that, Lars, you are suggesting that it is somehow quite important that Wikipedia policies, as promulgated so far, are bound up with "Wikipedia" being a trademark. But why think that? I'm sorry, but that just sounds silly.
It *is* important, in a certain sense. The name "Wikipedia" carries with it a certain (small, but growing) reputation. To allow it to be diluted by projects with different characteristics would be bad, I think. There needs to be a clear sense of what Wikipedia is, and that needs to be true of anything carrying that name.