Mike, I'm extremely sympathetic to the concern about letting the wiki process at Wikipedia continue unimpeded. But do you understand that the proposal on the table is to save, to a separate "namespace," approved versions of articles--letting Wikipedia continuing on pretty much the same way it did before? There wouldn't be any (or very few) links from the regular namespace and the "approved" namespace. It's just that, if one wanted to see approved articles, one could go to the "approved" namespace.
There are numerous complications associated with simply sending articles to be approved to Nupedia--the main one being that, despite our already having encouraged that greatly, either directly or via the Chalkboard, it ain't happening. There just isn't a significant payoff for Wikipedians to get their articles in Nupedia. The other significant consideration is that it takes forever and a day for an article to get through Nupedia. If we had a relatively simple approval process (two or three relevant area reviewer approvals, and it's in), the Wikipedia approval process might be much simpler.
What we might do, though, is make all Nupedia reviewers and editors automatically Wikipedia reviewers, and ask them to do the honors. This, too, might not work very well, because many, probably most, Nupedia reviewers think Wikipedia is a joke. Farther down the road, however--when Wikipedia has left Nupedia in the dust in terms of the amount of approved high-quality content--I think more Nupedians will be amenable to the idea.
Before we set up any approval process, Magnus (and people who would like to help him!!!) is going to have to finish the new software. I imagine this is going to take awhile...but not too long, I hope.
Larry
On Fri, 14 Sep 2001 mikedill@nupedia.com wrote:
I dont agree that wikipedia should have frozen pages. My thought is that all of the 'approved' articles be copied to Nupedia, where you can have a fixed reference.
At Nupedia, they can then undergo peer review, and then published as 'qualified' articles. I know that the current review cycle would have some problems with the amount of change that wikipedia generates, but Nupedia is the place where stable, if not the greatest in the world articles should be referenced.
A suggestion: Perhaps it means that nupedia will have to change a bit and show 'non-reviewed' articles, but it would let the wiki process at wikipedia continue.
mike dill0