On Saturday, December 20, 2003, at 09:12 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Peter Jaros wrote:
OK,
let's make this quick:
What we need is a non-editable subset of wikipedia, correct?
Hold up. Do we? Is this to be a paper or electronic encyclopedia?
Or
both? Or am I talking about two different proposals? It seems a
shame
to me to freeze and de-wikify entries if not for the sole purpose of
inscribing it on a medium that can't be edited (ie., paper). I would
much prefer a tagging system which allows us to mark entries as
complete. Note that 'complete' is not the same as 'finished'. No
entry should ever be finished. But some entries have achieved
completion, where the need only adjustment; think opposite of stub.
Furthermore, these entries rarely devolve from their complete status,
though if they did for some reason the tag could be quickly removed
(or, preferably, the entry re-completed :) ).
2. instead, "tagging" particular versions as "good enough" is what
we
want. I like the "good enough" terminology rather than either
"complete" or "finished". Basically a "good enough"
article is one
which someone could print on paper and distribute in a bookstore
without feeling too stupid.
I like the term 'good enough'. It's definitely better than my
'complete' (why I basically tried to redefine 'slightly' to become
it's
own antonym) and I like its connotations better than those of
'sufficient'. 'Good enough' is reminiscent of 'zarro boogs'.
-----
Imagine this scenario -- a publisher says to the Wikimedia Foundation,
"We are prepared to distribute your encyclopedia worldwide in
bookstores for 1/10th the price of a new Britannica, and pay royalties
to the foundation to pay for new servers and whatnot, all you have to
do is send us a complete extract of articles that are good enough."
We'd like to be able to do that, without having to laboriously go over
the database _one last time_, because we'd like to already have
flagged some 60,000-100,000 "good enough" articles.
Exactly
Let's say an article is flagged "good
enough". Then it gets edited.
That edit should, in some cases, not automatically result in the new
version also being tagged "good enough", because it might be an act of
vandalism that takes place just moments before I run the 'extract'
command to send the files to the printer.
This is a sticky point. I'm divided between your point above and this
question: If any edit removes the tag to protect against vandalism,
will we ever have enough articles tagged? Also, who is tagging the
articles? Can't a vandal tag? Or is it safe enough to limit it to
registered users?
Peter
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