[Foundation-l] [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia]

[Delirium]

George Herbert wrote:
> On 9/16/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>   
>> Sanger is out for payback. I just can feel this, and a wounded ego --
>> this is just IMHO, but it feels that way. Something built
>> on negative emotions is destined for failure from the start.
>>     
>
>
> Larry is far from the only person who thinks that anonymity is
> ultimately a net negative for Wikipedia, or that having more experts
> openly involved is a good thing.
>
> That said, I hope that you're wrong, but I can see why you might be right.
>   

It's less what he says than how he seems to go about saying it.  Based 
on seeing his comments over the years and some subtle undertones of most 
of what he writes, I'd agree with Jeffrey that Larry appears to have a 
vendetta of sorts.  The ideal situation would be that he had a vision 
for how to improve Wikipedia, and is starting a fork because Wikipedia 
hasn't taken it up and he feels he can do better.  I don't get quite 
that sort of vibe, though---there's definitely an active *dislike* of 
Wikipedia, and also, I would venture, a desire that it be replaced by a 
project headed by Larry Sangers, PhD.

There has been plenty of opportunity for Larry to participate 
constructively to change Wikipedia over the years, but he has never made 
an effort.  In fact he has never, since he stopped being paid to do so, 
participated at all.  He could have subscribed to the mailing list and 
made constructive proposals to improve Wikipedia, or made comments on 
one of the wikis, or propose some concrete changes, preferably in 
increments.  As far as I can tell he has never done anything like 
that---his sole involvement has been writing two (three?) articles to 
post on Slashdot and Kuro5hin, and then not even participate much in the 
follow-up discussion (he does seem, to his credit, to be participating 
much more in the Slashdot discussion of his new project).

Perhaps he has pure motives and really wants to improve the way 
open-content encyclopedias are produced, but after years of not ever 
seeing him show up *anywhere*, I'm skeptical.  That said, I'll be happy 
to welcome any positive contributions, either in content or methodology, 
that his project may produce.

-Mark