[Foundation-l] The Perl Wiki, or Perl-Wikipedia

[James Hare]

Welcome to the mailing list, Mr. Meyers

If you were to go through with this wiki, you aren't allowed to call it
Perl-Wikipedia, seeing as "Wikipedia" is a registered trademark.

--James

On 7/5/06, Eric R. Meyers <ermeyers at adelphia.net> wrote:
>
> Hello to The Wikimedia Foundation,
>
> I'm a Systems Engineer in Pennsylvania, USA.  "Shalom" to Shlomi, in
> Israel,
> at http://iglu.org.il, and a "Good Day" to Jacinta, in Australia, at
> http://perl.net.au.
>
> I don't know if Shlomi or Jacinta have read my very enthusiastic response
> to
> Shlomi's post on the perl.advocacy usenet, but I've begun to research my
> idea
> on Wikipedia, towards the creation of Perl-Wikipedia, "The Free
> Encyclopedia
> of Perl."
>
> I've just joined the <foundation-I at wikimedia.org> mailing list, and I'd
> like
> to start a discussion with The Wikimedia Foundation on their mailing list,
> and I'm also asking my two fellow Perl advocates to participate in this
> discussion with me.
>
> Shlomi and Jacinta both have valuable Wiki development expertise and their
> own
> excellent perspectives on this matter of creating "The Perl Wiki," or
> Perl-Wikipedia as I see it.
>
> Shlomi Fish wrote in the perl.advocacy usenet:
>
> > While I may be invoking Joel's Quarreling Kids Rule here[1], I think a
> > central wiki for Perl may be a good idea, not only as a way to
> consolidate
> > all these specialised wiki's, but also to be "The Perl Wiki" which
> > everyone will refer to. We can have http://wiki.perl.org/ for easy
> linking
> > and good Google Juice.
> >
>
> I responded to Shlomi:
>
>         I believe that this http://wiki.perl.org, "The Perl Wiki," is an
> absolute
>         requirement, not an option, and I'm fully available to contribute
> to its
>         making.  Let's add a Wiki link to
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl, right
>         under the Website link to http://www.perl.org, and let's do it.
>
>         I've learned a lot from Wikipedia, and I've also learned a lot
> about
>         Wikipedia, and I just see this "The Perl Wiki" as a normal
> extension of
>         Wikipedia, creating the Perl-Wikipedia, "The Free Encyclopedia of
> Perl."
>
>         I've learned what happens on Wikipedia, where "Over 94% of all
> vandalism is
>         removed within ten minutes" [1].  That's a very good statistic,
> and I've
>         actually seen it happen.
>
>         There are so many good things to come from this great idea.
>
>         I'm in.
>
> I'm an advocate of three global topics:
>
>         1. The Religion called Christianity (PERSONAL TRUTH)
>         2. The Free Encyclopedia called Wikipedia (PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE)
>         3. The Programming Language called Perl (PERSONAL POWER)
>
> I personally believe in and use, all three of them, all of the time.
>
> As a result of my personal decision to commit to this next good public
> thing,
> I've begun to learn what I need to learn, in order to make this great idea
> of
> Shlomi's happen, for the sake of our global community.
>
> Today I reviewed what I could find in Wikipedia, The Wikimedia Foundation,
> and
> the new project policy at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_project_policy.
>
> I want to help create a new global topic, or a new Wikipedia subtopic,
> called
> The Free Encyclopedia of Perl, "'The Perl Wiki' that everyone will refer
> to,"
> and I need everyone's help to decide how to engineer it "The Right Way."
>
> What is "The Right Way" to create, establish or begin the foundation of
> "The
> Free Encyclopedia of Perl?"
>
> Should we simply expand upon Wikipedia's Perl entry already established at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl, opening the door to exponential growth
> and
> the possibly rapid consumption of The Wikimedia Foundation's valuable
> resources, or should we add an external Wiki link in Wikipedia pointing
> out
> to http://wiki.perl.org as "The Perl Wiki," which may or may not
> eventually
> become Perl-Wikipedia in the future.
>
> Whatever solution is found, I want "The Free Encyclopedia of Perl" to be
> highly integrated with "The Free Encyclopedia," called Wikipedia, to get
> the
> maximum synergy of out two very good things put together for the public
> good.
>
> I've come to ask the people of The Wikimedia Foundation for their expert
> opinions and guidance.  From what I've read today, advancing a new
> Wikimedia
> Foundation project called Perl-Wikipedia to fruition could take years, so
> I
> know that besides having this initial discussion, the external hosting of
> http://wiki.perl.org, "The Perl Wiki," is probably the first stage of the
> development towards my thoughts of Perl-Wikipedia, "The Free Encyclopedia
> of
> Perl."
>
> I look forward to all of your valuable contributions to this discussion.
>
> Eric R. Meyers
>
>
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