[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia teamwork

[Jimmy Wales]

Jan Hidders wrote:
> Because the GFDL allows you to download everything and start your own
> server. With some Perl magic you could request all edit-pages and dowload
> the pre-formatted text, you could even use the same Wiki software, and I'm
> sure we can trust Bomis enough to warn us in advance.

Absolutely.  It's really me, personally, who would make any decision of
any kind, and at the present time, I have no reason to want to change
anything.  :-)

> The success of Wikipedia is due to the cloud of enthusiasts and
> volunteers that hangs around it. Larry has worked very hard to
> create that cloud, and I'm sure he knows that if he would "come in
> and ..." the cloud might dissapear or move to an alternative server.
> However, Larry is doing an excellent job and I see no sign that this
> is going to change. So setting up an alternative server would not
> only be a bit silly, but also higly unthankful, considering the
> wonderful opportunity they have given us.

I agree with all of this!  :-)  I do encourage anyone who likes to do
so to mirror the data, but I encourage people to do so in a "read only"
way, to keep the central community working here on the main server.

If Larry did anything that was contrary to the wishes of the community
at large, I trust that you would all start screaming loudly.  My own
personal view is that I have a vision for this project (it's an
encyclopedia, not a joke book or collection of antique texts, for
example), and so long as the community agrees with that very broad
vision, well, everything that happens is up to us all, through our
usual process of friendly consensus.


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