I only discovered PlanetMath when I heard it mentioned on this mailing list. I've participated in Wikipedia for a while now, though I've only had a quick look at PlanetMath.
PlanetMath and Wikipedia have similar goals -- they both seek to produce a free, GNU FDL encyclopedia. PlanetMath aims to cover only Mathematics, while Wikipedia aims to cover just about everything.
PlanetMath is like Nupedia in that articles are clearly owned by authors, while in Wikipedia the authorship is much more collective.
PlanetMath also appears to have much better support for mathematics in its software. (Articles are written in LaTeX).
Now, I was wondering about the potential relationship between Wikipedia and Planetmath. Maybe we could establish some way of encouraging content from Planetmath to be added to Wikipedia, or vice versa?
I also thought for a moment about some form of merger between the two projects, or removing all the maths content from Wikipedia and sending it to PlanetMath, or something similar. I don't think these are good ideas, since the two projects seem to be quite different in culture (author-centric vs. anyone can edit).
On the other hand, maybe some form of integration between PlanetMath and Nupedia might be a good idea? Maybe PlanetMath could be rolled into Nupedia, or PlanetMath could become the maths section of Nupedia? (Just a thought -- I don't participate in Nupedia, and discussion of that sort of stuff really belongs on nupedia-l)
Simon J Kissane
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Simon Kissane wrote:
Now, I was wondering about the potential relationship between Wikipedia and Planetmath. Maybe we could establish some way of encouraging content from Planetmath to be added to Wikipedia, or vice versa?
Unfortunately, our wiki software doesn't give us any "firm" way to credit them properly with the author history. We could put that stuff directly *in* the article, but to some extent that's problematic because later editors might delete something that we legally need to be there.
I don't think this is an insurmountable objection, but something we should consider before wholesale copying starts.
I also thought for a moment about some form of merger between the two projects, or removing all the maths content from Wikipedia and sending it to PlanetMath, or something similar. I don't think these are good ideas, since the two projects seem to be quite different in culture (author-centric vs. anyone can edit).
Yes, and one of the great things about open projects is that because we can ultimately share our content, non-proprietary competition benefits us all. (Just as Linux and FreeBSD often benefit from aspects of each others codebase.)
On the other hand, maybe some form of integration between PlanetMath and Nupedia might be a good idea? Maybe PlanetMath could be rolled into Nupedia, or PlanetMath could become the maths section of Nupedia?
Certainly, Nupedia could quickly borrow all the Planet Math content! Nupedia, unlike wikipedia, can easily accomodate author-centricity.
There shouldn't be any major impediment to that, other than the Nupedia culture of incredibly slow thorough academicness. (Which I praise and damn simultaneously, mind you! :-))
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