[Foundation-l] mirroring a portion of the wikipedia

[Nathan]

On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 1:30 PM, David Levy <lifeisunfair at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> But what's the point of duplicating the entire structure (including
> talk pages) instead of simply referring these experts to Wikipedia?
> Even if everything could be made seamless, what would be the
> advantage?
>

It's simple, really. First, there are a number of beneficial interface
changes that could be made when dealing with a group of experts in a
specific field - embedded tools to common references, additional methods of
communication, etc. It might encourage field experts to contribute if they
can do so through a site they already use, particularly if they don't have
to leave most of the elements of that site behind.

Also, of course, it would be possible for these people to generate free
content while also benefiting the referring site. I understand that having
anyone draw any benefit from anything related to Wikimedia is something that
a number of people reflectively object to, but such is life and I find its
easier to ignore that line of thinking entirely. Such benefits encourage
referrers or partners to encourage contributions to our projects, which is
obviously what we want.

Plus, and particularly if the experts on arthistory (or sites with
arrangements similar to those contemplated by the original poster) are
academic... We always gain when we increase our penetration among content
experts.

So the question really should be, what of this would be to our disadvantage?


Nathan

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