Anthere wrote:
Ah, and who do you think would appoint a "site owner" ??? Jimbo ?
Yes, of course. He owns the system, the name, and the machines. He is very generous and liberal, but he is the owner. If you fear that he will shut down Wikipedia, you should keep a backup copy of the GFDL contents on your own computer, but it is not self-evident that you can reuse the name "Wikipedia", since that would be regulated by U.S. trademark law. Jimmy might decide to form a non-profit organization under U.S. law or perhaps Swiss law (like the U.N.?), but as far as I know, he hasn't done this yet.
I'm not unhappy with this. I fully trust Jimmy. But I don't see the point in denying the fact that he owns the current system and trademark. If you eat in a restaurant, the restaurant has an owner, even if you pay for your food.
Maintaining the neutral point of view and avoiding copyright violations should be the easiest part of the job.
Nope, I, unfortunately, do not think so. People are not naturally neutral. That is not so bad when many people can work at the same time on an article (though...). But just *defining* neutrality is an issue on the french wiki. If you are sure it is easy, and if you speak french, come and help me please. Right now, it is on hold till courage, time and opportunity come back :-)
Sorry, I don't speak Frency, but I would be willing to help out with German, Norwegian, Danish, or Swedish. I didn't say maintaining neutrality would be easy, though, only that it would be easier than the other part of the job:
Some of us support it is also a dictionary... :-)
If the trademark Wikipedia has some meaning (NPOV, etc.), perhaps defined by some charter, that meaning should be the same for all languages. A year ago, Larry Sanger was very clear on the point that "Wikipedia is not a dictionary". So if the French Wikipedia is becoming a dictionary, somebody is breaking this rule. Either the French Wikipedia should straight up, or the rule should be revised. Since it is the trademark owner's (Jimmy's) interest to make sure the trademark keeps its meaning, he should appoint ambassadors who can help him maintain his policy in the various languages.
Is it or will there be a problem to assert authority to weed out poor contributions in the small and slow-growing non-English Wikipedias?
I rather support keeping poor contributions, they might grow better in time.
This has not been the conclusion of previous discussions on this list regarding the English Wikipedia. People are now actively deleting "stub" articles.
small number, the effect of somebody speaking loudly to challenge these "ideals" gets a lot of power, far too much power on others. I don't think a central power "asserting authority" will solve that point : some contributors just don't want to hear anything about what an english might have said on that subject
This is why I think that an appointed ambassador or governor is needed, who knows the language and has the authority (from Jimmy) to tell people what the policy is, that they can join this list if they want to discuss the policy, and if they cannot accept this policy, then they must leave and start their own project. If you eat in a restaurant or stay in a hotel, you must behave as the owner tells you.