[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia teamwork

[Larry Sanger]

Bryce, you are quite right to be miffed.  I would be miffed if I were you.
I share your confusion, too.  I had no idea that it was such a small
operation (remember, I'm not a programmer, so you must explain things simply
and clearly to me, if you want me to understand).  There is absolutely no
*resistance* to the request--unless inertia counts as resistance...

Nupedia isn't making any money either.  In fact, Wikipedia is much closer to
the point where it might (somehow) make money for Bomis (and therefore,
potentially, for anyone else who wants to use the content for profit).

Anyway, remember, Wikipedia, like Nupedia, is a volunteer project--so it's
not surprising (though regrettable) that essential features like this should
be rooted-for and planned by volunteers.  Really, we should have done this
long ago.

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bryce Harrington" <bryce at neptune.net>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Cc: <jasonr at bomis.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 11:29 AM
Subject: Re: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia teamwork


> On Wed, 15 Aug 2001 sanger1 at nupedia.com wrote:
> > ... but, well--our programmers are very busy
> > with projects that actually make money.  :-/
>
> (And the rest of us programmers are not?)
>
> Wikipedia gains nupedia a good deal of attention.  You also have said
> that there may be articles which can go into nupedia.  I further imagine
> you will find other ways to profit off wikipedia more directly; I know
> you have expended thought in this area.
>
> The reason many people got involved (at the very least, *me*) was the
> willingness to hold the content under the GFDL.  As I see it, what folks
> are asking is simply to deliver on the promises made at the outset, and
> frankly it's rather frightening to encounter any resistance to requests
> like these.  (Like a car manufacturer refusing to do warranty work
> because their employees are busy making new sales.)
>
> This is NOT going to take anyone more than maybe an hour to do.  It
> isn't really even programming, per se; any unix sysadmin should be
> comfortable crontabbing tarballs of a website.  And it IS tied up with
> being able to continue making money; call it a marketing or legal
> requirement if nothing else.
>
> Anyway, I'm a little miffed - you said your programmers were too busy,
> and that you'd appreciate it if someone would supply code to do it.  I
> responded with some code that would do the minimum needed to comply
> (just change the paths).  I was anticipating a thank you, but instead
> "It does no good to post it here"?  Well, call me confused.  ;-)
>
>
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