[WikiEN-l] WTF Have I Missed?

[Gordon Joly]

At 23:08 +0100 27/8/06, David Gerard wrote:
>On 27/08/06, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly at pobox.com> wrote:
>
>> 
>>http://news.com.com/Can+German+engineering+fix+Wikipedia/2100-1038_3-6108495.html
>>  A related source.... not the BBC.
>>  "We want to let anybody edit," Wales said, "but we don't want to show
>>  vandalized versions."
>
>
>Yeah. When did Jimbo first ask for this, early 2005? People pretty
>much concurred it was a fantastic idea (logged-in editors get the live
>version, anon readers get the last-non-vandal-edit version), but it
>was considered technically rather painful indeed in the then-current
>structure of Mediawiki.


I think that point Bill Thompson is make is not technical. It is that 
a wiki is open, and by allowing two classes of user in the way you 
describe, that it stops being open. The GFDL licence allows changes, 
but this model allows changes, but only by the upper class of users.

Are we heading backwards to Nupedia?


>>Nupedia was a public peer-reviewed general
>>encyclopedia created by volunteer scholars...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nupedia


>
>If it looks workable now, that's fantastic, and should help make it a
>better no. 17 website in the world *and* a good perpetual working
>draft.
>
>
>- d.


David, I disagree. If you close the system down and away from open 
edits, then somebody will take a copy of the English Wikipedia, open 
the system to edits, and issue a press release. What happens next? 
History repeating?

Gordo


-- 
"Think Feynman"/////////
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gordon.joly at pobox.com///