[WikiEN-l] Just to throw this out there...

[Stevertigo]

> Believe me, I'm sympathetic to that viewpoint.  But it *is* a
> viewpoint, a viewpoint which we should not let manifest itself in
> ramming our own ideas down other people's throats.

This is precisely the issue - how does WP "ram anything down people's
throats?"
They have a choice - If schools want to use Britannica - because they have
content filtering...( or no content needing filtering....). The last point
raises the issue - in order for Britannica to keep all of its content in
like - it needs a heirachical command structure - entirely antithetical to
WP's purported system of consensus.
This is precisely the reason why I raised the issue of captainship a long
timme ago.

To enforce these kind of constraints on a truly free encyclopedia is
unfeasible - and therefore the WP belongs in a different niche than
Britannica - and it should not concern itself with competing with Britannica
for its marketshare.

The real issue is that to some of us "radical libertarians" - this smacks of
a change in direction of the WP as a whole - from Open content, anyone can
edit, (come on in the waters fine..) to one where "hey, I feel like this a
success, and now I want to mass market this not just to Freewheeling Bob,
but to Cautious Nancy and Self-Righteous Richard, too!  Its like watching a
favorite rock band go sour after winning a grammy.

Respectfully,
Steven MacGrieves