[Foundation-l] Social networking (was: Analysis of lists statistics: community in decline)

[Milos Rancic]

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 4:20 PM, Brianna Laugher
<brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/11/4 Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod at mccme.ru>:
>> Do we actually WANT people use it? The argument goes that the more they
>> (we) use it, the less they (we) have time for writing articles.
>
> I think that is a false argument. If people don't want to write
> articles, they won't write articles, regardless of whether or not you
> take away their toys. Cracking the whip doesn't mean much to
> volunteers. I also think such people are far less likely to make it to
> meta, compared to a large Wikipedia project. If you know about meta, I
> would say odds are extremely good that you are a Wikimedian.
>
> And it does depend if you consider them "toys" or "communication
> tools". If you don't want to use them in a "frivolous" way (or at all)
> then fine, don't. None of your time will be wasted.

I agree with Brianna. Besides that, it may open a lot of space for
making really good applications for reading and contributing to
Wikipedia. For example, MW/WM may open its API for external (free
software) applications (at which point we are near to the question of
using AGPL instead of GPL; but, please open other thread if you
[plural] want to discuss about that :) ), or an easier way how to
program and upload something which would be useful.

For example, Wikipedia would be the most useful place for keeping
bibliographies and personal scientific work. Such feature would gather
around Wikipedia a lot of scientists.