[Foundation-l] On Wikinews

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 5:23 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 6:53 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 16:46, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> In my book I described Nupedia, and how that system of having a paid
>>>> head
>>>> didn't work out (namely, Larry Sanger as editor in chief).
>>>
>>> While I don't like Sanger, it shouldn't be forgot that he was
>>> responsible for building the initial system on Wikipedia itself.
>>> Wikinews, unlike Wikipedia, requires larger care; not just setting up
>>> very initial rules.¨
>>
>> Not so, and not so. I don't square with either of your interpretation´of
>> the history...
>>
>> The fact that Larry Sanger did not pan out as an editor in chief had
>> nothing to do with the fact that he was paid for his work. He could
>> have worked for peanuts or completely gratis, and what we would
>> have had would have been a premature Citizendium.
>>
>> As for "building" the initial system of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger fought
>> the building of it tooth and nail to the last, until Jimbo realized he
>> was
>> doing more harm than good.
>>
>>
>> --
>> --
>> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
>
> Were you editing back then? My memory is quite different. He says on his
> user page, "I named it, crafted much of the policy that now guides the
> project, and led the project for its first year." which accords with my
> memory.
>
> If you look at his early edits I think an accurate picture could be
> reconstructed, although the mailing lists played a much more significant
> roll back then.
>
> https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&offset=20010615133804&limit=500&target=Larry+Sanger
>


Haha, no, I wasn't editing tnen, but since quite a few years after that time,
and definitely up to the time when I started, you couldn't delete revision by
revision, a person curious like myself was able to get a reasonably
non-distorted
view of the history. Arguably The Cunctator has a much larger claim to having
shaped the ethos of Wikipedia in those early days than Sanger. Certainly The
Cunctators vision reigned supreme until these latter disturbing times when
it seems Sangers vision is re-asserting itself over Wikinews and sad to say
over Wikipedia too. Do you recall Sangers obsession about how wikipedia
should be "family friendly"?


-- 
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]