[WikiEN-l] "Wikipedia Empire Based on Open Source Worst Practices?"

[Steve Bennett]

On 8/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Can anyone extract useful ideas from this blog entry:
>
> http://thomas-lord.blogspot.com/2006/08/wikipedia-empire-based-on-open-source.html

I got confused by a few comments like "The Wikipedia community, such
as it is" - what, there is no real Wikipedia community?

Also, "It is certainly true that, at the highest levels, Wikipedia is
thoroughly centralized." - another bizarre remark. "Power at the
highest level is concentrated amongst a few people" - yes...isn't that
the definition of "highest level"?

This "An article squatter is someone who is ingratiated to the central
Wikipedia authority and who monitors, in more or less real-time, all
changes made to the article. " is simply nonsense. I don't think such
article squatters have any standing amongst the "central authority" at
all, and I doubt the "central authority" as such is even aware of
their existence.

If I understand his proposal at all, he would want us to have several
possible different versions of each article "competing" against each
other. But I don't really get it, to be honest.

Oh, and his concluding line is also odd: "Instead, Jimmy carved
himself a kingdom. And with One Laptop Per Child, His Kingdom is about
to become an empire. This can't be good." - why? Because all power is
bad?

Steve