[Foundation-l] Re: New Proposal: WikiMemory (17 reasons)

[Anthere]

Poe, Marshall wrote:
> More pitch.  Just tell me if this is horribly annoying (or ignore it)... Best, Marshall.  
> 
> 17 Reasons Why I Think WikiMemory is a Good Idea
> 
> 1. When you die, all your memories vanish.  That's a boatload of lost information.
> 2. It's good to know about the past, and this would help (not us, maybe, but the future).
> 3. People see and do really interesting stuff; I'd like to read about it (and so would a lot of others).
> 4. Some people have seen what I've seen; I'd like to get their POV.
> 5. Some people lie (especially politicians), and this might be a way to stop them, a little.
> 6. People are basically honest; they aren't going to lie, especially when there is no reason to.
> 7. Readers aren't stupid--they'll know to take any memoir about a very controversial issue with a grain of salt.
> 8. If you carefully compare accounts of the same event, you often can determine which one is more accurate.
> 9. If you check the proported facts in an account against some other source, you can often determine if the writer
>  knows what the hell he is talking about.
> 10. And you can always ask someone who was there. Just email them.
> 11. Besides, even if they lie, the way they lie will tell future historians something about them.  That's valuable info.
> 12. Journalists know that they should check their sources (at least the good ones do).
> 13. There is some great undiscovered memoir writer out there, and I'd like to find him or her.
> 14. In a hundred years, historians everywhere will use this site, and praise us (alas, we'll be dead...)
> 15. Nothing like this exists.
> 16. Nothing like this has ever existed.
> 17. For the first time in human history, we could pass our very memories on to future generations.  Wow.
> 
> Marshall Poe


Sorry, but as for 15, 16 and 17, there are things like books or personal 
journals which do the job. Some personal journals became pretty famous 
and well distributed in the past century.

But even without books, there are places where an oral history exist and 
is very strong. People, even if they do not read, tell stories to others 
over and over in their life, till the stories are well known enough for 
younger people to remember them. The younger people then become story 
tellers themselves. Some stories have crossed the centuries this way.

But well...

Ant