[Foundation-l] Forking the Wiki

[Andre Engels]

Wikipedia and Wikimedia were once created to start an encyclopedia.
Now we have more, we have wikis for dictionaries, books, source
material, citations, multimedia files, biological species, victims of
9/11... Why?

The positive way to say it would be to state that we are extending our
reach. But is that the case? Looking at the history, I have the
feeling they are all weak compromises between deletionists and
inclusionists. Some wanted to delete dictionary definitions, others
wanted to keep them. No agreement. So we make a special wiki for that,
and both can be happy. They are not deleted, and they are not kept in
Wikipedia. Some want to delete source files, others don't. Another
Wiki. Some want to include how-tos and such, others don't. Another
Wiki. Some want to include all 9/11 victims, others don't. And indeed.

Is this good? From one point of view it is. We have two parties, and
we find a compromise. From another point of view, it just shows that
we cannot make any real decisions. I guess it's the wiki way. We are
good at making compromises, we are totally incapable at making
decisions.

What am I saying here? I don't really know. But I do want to have said
it. Do your advantage with it, or throw it away. Whatever.

Andre Engels