[Foundation-l] Projekt: OpenCritics (let's free subjective content, too!!)

[Sage Ross]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 5:10 AM, Delirium<delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Sage Ross wrote:
>> Hence the desirability of creating a free alternative to Amazon's
>> reviews.
> I buy this, but my main question would be: why Wikimedia? It doesn't
> seem to have a lot to do with collaborative editing, wikis, knowledge
> production, or any of our other core areas. My guess for what the
> software would look like makes it not seem to overlap very much with any
> of our existing software, either.
>

I agree, it's something of a departure in being not directly
collaborative and not well-suited for the standard wiki approach.  I
think it does have to do with knowledge production--it collects
first-hand knowledge of how well goods function and what their
shortcomings are, for example.

The reason I think Wikimedia might ought to get involved in this area
is because--in terms of public recognition and infrastructural
stability--Wikimedia is becoming a cornerstone of the free culture
ecosystem.  So it makes sense to me to start
supporting/mirroring/organizing/structuring useful free content that's
being created within smaller, possibly financially unsustainable
projects, and to make it possible for such projects to continue even
if their original venues shut down.

-Sage