Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) [050205 09:24]:
I think there is a good deal of substance in Larry
Sanger's and Robert
McHenry's criticism. They are correct as long as they describe the
problem they see. However, the outsider's perceived anti-elitism
doesn't necessarily originate from an intentional anti-elitism in the
community. And since it isn't intentional, it is quite impossible to
"abandon" this anti-elitism, so Larry fails provide a solution. He
suggests a fork of the project. Yes, maybe he should try this.
He specifically didn't suggest a fork, as far as I can see - he wanted to
change *this* project's working methods.
The thing is, it's blindingly obvious that Wikipedia is going to be THE
encyclopedia. Wikipedia, not some other open-content web-based
encyclopedia, will have the brand identification Britannica had in the 20th
century. We are it. We are the one. Anyone else catching up is as unlikely
as FreeBSD taking over market share from Linux, even as its fans swear by
it.
The annoying aspect of this is that (a) the POV warriors have a point: this
is the popular one they need to hit to push their POV as NPOV; (b) people
annoyed at Wikipedia don't form a fork with different policies, they're
going to try to change this project instead. So Larry Sanger doesn't talk
about forming another project with policies to his liking - he talks about
how to put a spanner in the works of this one before it's too late.
- d.