On 3/11/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:
On Sat, 11 Mar 2006 15:21:03 -0500, you wrote:
Wikipedia isn't Microsoft. There's a big
difference between running a
non-profit organization and running a for-profit corporation. Even
then, Wikipedia isn't really either. Wikipedia, after all, has been
around before the foundation was even created. It is in essence a
community of people, which can and will exist with or without the
foundation. Lawsuits aren't going to tear apart Wikipedia, not unless
the community gives itself over to the foundation.
How sure are you of this? If the foundation and its assets were
closed down tomorrow, how long would it take to rebuild Wikipedia from
mirrors and rebuild the community?
Foundations with their assets don't close overnight. Maybe the
website might go down, but that'd be a government action, a foundation
(board) action, or a computer glitch - a lawsuit would take at least a
few days before an injunction was issued. That said, a replacement
site could be put up within hours. The community might become
somewhat fragmented, though, although I could see some ways in which
that is actually a good thing. In the long run a peer-to-peer system
is probably what's best for Wikipedia.
The h2g2 project never really recovered from
"Rupert", the enforced
shutdown between TDV and BBC hosting - the community changed
irrevocably.
I'm sorry that I have no idea of the facts surrounding that situation,
so I can't comment. Was h2g2 released under a free license?
It strikes me that the foundation stands between the
community and
hostile reactions to what the community says and does. I've seen at
least one case where people tried to use Wikipedia to further a
grievance, and in that case killing the content was entirely correct:
subsequent investigation showed that it bore only the most tenuous
relationship to the truth.
I understand there is an issue with the Justin Berry article right
now. People are jumping up and down over it, it seems - why? It's
only been a couple of days. It's like the whole Brian Peppers thing;
in the end life's too short to worry about the *temporary* absence of
something on Wikipedia, just go out and write an article on something
else :-)
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG