[Foundation-l] Advertisements?

Robert Rohde rarohde at gmail.com
Thu Mar 20 23:17:01 UTC 2008


On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 3:42 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 20/03/2008, Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> >  During the next 3-10 years I expect to see Wikipedia's monopoly on
> >  collaboratively written internet encyclopedias to be significantly
> eroded by
> >  serious competitors.  In my opinion, a commercial fork is a likely
> avenue
> >  for such competition (though not the only one).
>
> > I don't think that Wikipedia would ever be
> >  wiped out by competitors, but it isn't that hard for me to imagine
> scenarios
> >  in which Wikipedia loses the bulk of the traffic and importance it has
> >  today.
>
>
> I'd say such an outcome wouldn't actually be a bad thing in terms of
> our mission. It would spread knowledge better than we can do on our
> own.



I agree with you there, at least up to a point.  If the mission is "to
empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop
educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to
disseminate it effectively and globally", then spawning imitators and
competition is for the most part a good thing.  Though such competitors may
have a number of motives other than altruism so that their mission may not
be quite the same.

More than that though, for me personally, I think it is also important that
we always strive to be the best possible resource for creating and
distributing that knowledge.  If the marketplace ultimately decides that one
or more other internet encyclopedias are better sources of information, then
in some sense we've failed to live up to our potential.  We are the best at
what we do today, and I think it is important that we put the structures and
organization in place that will allow us to carry forward as the best into
the future.  Part of that is resolving nagging details like stable funding
for an adequate staff of professionals.

-Robert Rohde


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