[Foundation-l] "All human knowledge", by Jimmy Wales (?)

[Ray Saintonge]

On 09/16/11 12:38 PM, Robert Rohde wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 12:01 PM, emijrp<emijrp at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> I think that the phrase meaning refered to Wikipedia is "the sum of all
>> human knowledge which is notable and encyclopedic".
>>
>> Not ALL, ALL, ALL human knowledge. MySpace discarded.
> When you look back to when that quote was issued (at least 2004), I
> think I tend to see it as broader and more aspirational.  Wikipedia
> was already the biggest project, but we still imagined ourselves
> making a statement with Wikinews and Wiktionary and everything else.
> Back in the day, I can certainly imagine Wikimedia wanting to
> encompass all forms of human knowledge, including projects going far
> beyond the confines of what we now see as notable and encyclopedic.
> We have retreated from that quite a lot.  Even within Wikipedia our
> notions of what was acceptable and what was not were far more fluid.
>
> The projects have accomplished an incredible amount, and we should all
> be very proud and amazed at what we have done.  However, I do think we
> have lost some of that early dream.  Back in the day, it was easy to
> imagine that we would eventually encompass all human knowledge, and
> now we tend to draw our goals more narrowly.  In part, I think our
> perceptions of that famous quote have been evolving alongside our
> perceptions of what Wikimedia and Wikipedia have become.
>

Strictly speaking, "the sum of" is a redundancy, but its English 
idiomatic use tends to emphasize comprehensiveness. For those of us who 
saw the dream earlier on being "notable and encyclopedic" was never part 
of the dream, and still isn't. A literal interpretation of "the sum of 
all human knowledge" is still impossible; it's simply too big and 
constantly growing. It still warns us to avoid restrictive 
preconceptions about what is notable and encyclopedic.

Ray