kpjas@tau.ceti.pl writes:
Hello all,
Wikipedia is naturally collaborative.
I think you've hit the nail on the head here. Groups seem to organise themselves '''naturally''', and really don't need formal structures, or at least not those that they can't figure out for themselves. If you feel that you can and want to organise a "Tiger Team" for some topic or organise collabaration between the various international wikis, fantastic, go ahead, you certainly don't need offical blessing.
I for one can prefer the freewheeling edit-what-I-like-when-I-like wikipedia as it is. As long as we respect each other opinions, and work toward NeutralPointOfView, we don't need any more formal layers of bureaucracy beyond the occasional stern telling off by Larry :)
On 08-08-2001, Gareth Owen wrote thusly :
Wikipedia is naturally collaborative.
Can it be more collaborative ?
I think you've hit the nail on the head here. Groups seem to organise themselves '''naturally''', and really don't need formal structures, or at least not those that they can't figure out for themselves. If you feel that you can and want to organise a "Tiger Team" for some topic or organise collabaration between the various international wikis, fantastic, go ahead, you certainly don't need offical blessing. I for one can prefer the freewheeling edit-what-I-like-when-I-like wikipedia as it is. As long as we respect each other opinions, and work toward NeutralPointOfView, we don't need any more formal layers of bureaucracy beyond the occasional stern telling off by Larry :)
Are we missing the guarding angel ? ;-)
That's another point. Maybe I am a little paranoid but I feel that while wikipedia is doing so great I'm anxious what will it be in the future. How can we be sure that they won't shut down the server or make it payable. This is a commercial company after all, not the FSF.
The freewheeling edit-what-I-like-when-I-like attitude is only illusory anarchic kind of freedom because LS comes in and ...
Best regards, kpj.
On Thu, Aug 09, 2001 at 04:48:45PM +0200, Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
That's another point. Maybe I am a little paranoid but I feel that while wikipedia is doing so great I'm anxious what will it be in the future. How can we be sure that they won't shut down the server or make it payable. This is a commercial company after all, not the FSF.
Because the GFDL allows you to download everything and start your own server. With some Perl magic you could request all edit-pages and dowload the pre-formatted text, you could even use the same Wiki software, and I'm sure we can trust Bomis enough to warn us in advance.
The freewheeling edit-what-I-like-when-I-like attitude is only illusory anarchic kind of freedom because LS comes in and ...
The success of Wikipedia is due to the cloud of enthusiasts and volunteers that hangs around it. Larry has worked very hard to create that cloud, and I'm sure he knows that if he would "come in and ..." the cloud might dissapear or move to an alternative server.
However, Larry is doing an excellent job and I see no sign that this is going to change. So setting up an alternative server would not only be a bit silly, but also higly unthankful, considering the wonderful opportunity they have given us.
Kind regards,
-- Jan Hidders
Jan Hidders hidders@win.tue.nl writes:
Because the GFDL allows you to download everything and start your own server.
Well the GFDL also wants transparent copy to be easily available. I don't consider spidering wikipedia to be an option open to the "man from the street".
So someone at wikipedia.com should /really/ implement periodic snapshots of the wiki database. Technicalities can't be a problem, just add something like
18 04 * * * tar czf /webspace/wikipedia-`date +%Y%m%d`.tar.gz /wikidir 16 04 * * * find /webspace -maxdepth 1 -name wikipedia-* -mtime +7 | xargs rm
(2 lines) to an appropriate crontab. Pretty please?
With some Perl magic you could request all edit-pages and dowload the pre-formatted text, [...]
Sure, and perhaps I'll do that some day. But it puts much more workload on the server than providing a snapshot, so I'd rather avoid it. And if more people exercise their rights in this manner, it will only get worse. A snapshot is much lighter on bandwidth and CPU, can be mirrored via standard software.
you could even use the same Wiki software, and I'm sure we can trust Bomis enough to warn us in advance.
For me its not so much a question about trusting Bomis than of convenience and "taking your own license seriously".
However, Larry is doing an excellent job and I see no sign that this is going to change. So setting up an alternative server would not only be a bit silly, but also higly unthankful, considering the wonderful opportunity they have given us.
Setting up a read-only mirror would certainly be useful, and not in the least unthankful in my mind. Free licenses are about the *freedom* to route around the original originators/maintainers/creators of a piece of work. Witness that in the free software scene, such forks are quite rare. Maintaining something is work, and nobody takes that likely on themselves (and if they do, they usually give up pretty quickly).
On 14-08-2001, Robert Bihlmeyer wrote thusly :
Jan Hidders hidders@win.tue.nl writes:
Because the GFDL allows you to download everything and start your own server.
Well the GFDL also wants transparent copy to be easily available. I don't consider spidering wikipedia to be an option open to the "man from the street". So someone at wikipedia.com should /really/ implement periodic snapshots of the wiki database. Technicalities can't be a problem, just add something like 18 04 * * * tar czf /webspace/wikipedia-`date +%Y%m%d`.tar.gz /wikidir 16 04 * * * find /webspace -maxdepth 1 -name wikipedia-* -mtime +7 | xargs rm (2 lines) to an appropriate crontab. Pretty please?
With some Perl magic you could request all edit-pages and dowload the pre-formatted text, [...]
Sure, and perhaps I'll do that some day. But it puts much more workload on the server than providing a snapshot, so I'd rather avoid it. And if more people exercise their rights in this manner, it will only get worse. A snapshot is much lighter on bandwidth and CPU, can be mirrored via standard software.
you could even use the same Wiki software, and I'm sure we can trust Bomis enough to warn us in advance.
For me its not so much a question about trusting Bomis than of convenience and "taking your own license seriously".
A very good suggestion with a downloadable copy of Wikipedia. It would certainly add more credibility... and freedom.
However, Larry is doing an excellent job and I see no sign that this is going to change. So setting up an alternative server would not only be a bit silly, but also higly unthankful, considering the wonderful opportunity they have given us.
[snip]
Regards, kpj.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2001 at 09:56:47AM +0200, Robert Bihlmeyer wrote:
Jan Hidders hidders@win.tue.nl writes:
Because the GFDL allows you to download everything and start your own server.
Well the GFDL also wants transparent copy to be easily available. I don't consider spidering wikipedia to be an option open to the "man from the street".
FWIW I certainly agree with that, and there should certainly be an easy way to download the complete Wikipedia. So you can also add my "pretty please" :-)
-- Jan Hidders
Robert Bihlmeyer wrote:
So someone at wikipedia.com should /really/ implement periodic snapshots of the wiki database. Technicalities can't be a problem, just add something like
18 04 * * * tar czf /webspace/wikipedia-`date +%Y%m%d`.tar.gz /wikidir 16 04 * * * find /webspace -maxdepth 1 -name wikipedia-* -mtime +7 | xargs rm
(2 lines) to an appropriate crontab. Pretty please?
Yes, this can be done, or something similar.
The main thing a person should be able to do is download all the data, untar it, and launch their own competing site.
What we'd *really* like, though, of course, and I think I'm not just speaking for myself but for the consensus of the community, is for people who are unhappy with our work to talk about it within the community. So far, we've been pretty good about working on accomodation, at least for those who agree with the central concept of an 'encyclopedia'.
So what we should probably do is distribute an easy-to-download database (which is, ironically, a more transparent format than raw ascii, although we could distribute that too, I suppose) AND we should distribute a version of the wiki software that is "read only". That is, we make it easy for people to set up mirrors that point back to here for edit purposes.
In this way, we let other people mirror the data (for example, wouldn't it be sweet if Yahoo or Google did so?) but we also encourage them not to establish a competing community. (Though we can't stop them if they really want to do that.)
Sure, and perhaps I'll do that some day. But it puts much more workload on the server than providing a snapshot, so I'd rather avoid it. And if more people exercise their rights in this manner, it will only get worse. A snapshot is much lighter on bandwidth and CPU, can be mirrored via standard software.
Oh, yes, absolutely. Indeed, if someone started spidering the whole site to provide a mirror, I'd ask them to stop and to work with me on something more sensible! Spidering is very inelegant, when I've got the data files right here for the asking. :-)
For me its not so much a question about trusting Bomis than of convenience and "taking your own license seriously".
Right!
Setting up a read-only mirror would certainly be useful, and not in the least unthankful in my mind. Free licenses are about the *freedom* to route around the original originators/maintainers/creators of a piece of work. Witness that in the free software scene, such forks are quite rare. Maintaining something is work, and nobody takes that likely on themselves (and if they do, they usually give up pretty quickly).
Yes!
Jan Hidders wrote:
Because the GFDL allows you to download everything and start your own server. With some Perl magic you could request all edit-pages and dowload the pre-formatted text, you could even use the same Wiki software, and I'm sure we can trust Bomis enough to warn us in advance.
Absolutely. It's really me, personally, who would make any decision of any kind, and at the present time, I have no reason to want to change anything. :-)
The success of Wikipedia is due to the cloud of enthusiasts and volunteers that hangs around it. Larry has worked very hard to create that cloud, and I'm sure he knows that if he would "come in and ..." the cloud might dissapear or move to an alternative server. However, Larry is doing an excellent job and I see no sign that this is going to change. So setting up an alternative server would not only be a bit silly, but also higly unthankful, considering the wonderful opportunity they have given us.
I agree with all of this! :-) I do encourage anyone who likes to do so to mirror the data, but I encourage people to do so in a "read only" way, to keep the central community working here on the main server.
If Larry did anything that was contrary to the wishes of the community at large, I trust that you would all start screaming loudly. My own personal view is that I have a vision for this project (it's an encyclopedia, not a joke book or collection of antique texts, for example), and so long as the community agrees with that very broad vision, well, everything that happens is up to us all, through our usual process of friendly consensus.
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
That's another point. Maybe I am a little paranoid but I feel that while wikipedia is doing so great I'm anxious what will it be in the future. How can we be sure that they won't shut down the server or make it payable. This is a commercial company after all, not the FSF.
Just so you know... at the present time, I see no really promising way to make a lot of money from wikipedia, but at the same time the expenses are quite low. If wikipedia were to become wildly successful, in terms of web traffic, then it would be easy to introduce just enough (and hopefully non-intrusive) advertising to continue to cover expenses. If wikipedia were to continue as a thriving small community, it doesn't really cost anything substantial to keep it running.
So, although this is a commercial company, you should really think of it more as my own personal project.
There are plans afoot to spin off Nupedia and Wikipedia into a non-profit organization. This is by no means certain, but I think that there is much to recommend it.
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org