[Wikipedia-l] Fork within a language

[Jimmy Wales]

Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Forgive me if this gets philosophical, and not very practical.

No, I think it is very interesting!

> There are, of course, already other Wikis.  http://c2.com/ (the
> original Wiki, founded in 1994) has the Portland Pattern Repository,
> devoted to object-oriented software development and eXtreme
> Programming.  Some of the information there might overlap with
> Wikipedia, but most of it would be considered too non-encyclopedic if
> it was suddenly copied to Wikipedia.

Also, I don't think their content is released under an open license.

> Could a Wiki devoted to history have a place outside of Wikipedia?
> When describing London, it would focus on the city's historic
> features, not on the facets of today's London.  Then again,
> Wikipedia's entries on many things are focused on history.  It is
> almost as if Wikipedia is that history Wiki.  History, after all, is
> so much more in line with the contents of an encyclopedia than is
> object-oriented software development.

Right.  But imagine a travel-guide wiki.  The information would not necessarily
be NPOV as in an encyclopedia -- it could be and probably should be quirky and
opinionated.  Such a guide might use wikipedia content as a foundation, but we
probably wouldn't (due to our NPOV interests) be able to use much of what they
generated.  No problem.

> Could a leftist-point-of-view Wiki exist side by side with Wikipedia?
> It would carefully point out any misuse of power, and list activist
> and political groups.  Its logotype could be a hammer-and-sickle or
> simply a red star on white background.  (There is already a leftist
> encyclopedia (non-Wiki) in Danish on http://www.leksikon.org/)

Boy, I personally find it very funny to imagine a
leftist-point-of-view wiki pointing out "any misuse of power".  :-)
Perhaps that should say "any misuse of power not sanctioned by
leftists".

> A youth culture Wiki might list all the hot dance clubs in London, but
> forget the British Museum.  (Does Wikipedia list any clubs at all?)
> The entire Wiki could be white text on black background.
> 
> I think target groups, focus, design, logotypes would be different
> for each one of these Wikis.  Just like websites are different today.
> Some titles (like "London") would exist in several of them, but with a
> different slant.  Some titles (like "British Museum") might only exist
> in Wikipedia.
> 
> If all of these Wikis existed side by side, how would Wikipedia best
> take advantage of this expanded network?  Should Wikipedia be its
> backbone, or try to be self-sufficient, ignoring the outside world?
> 
> Just to be clear: I'm not suggesting a fork of Wikipedia.

Right.

I think that we have to stick to our central mission: the encyclopedia.  The idea
of "encyclopedia" is one that we all understand, and I think it has been miraculous
in terms of letting people from possibly wildly different viewpoints work together.
It gives us a simple test for whether or not something belongs here.

But by no means do I think this exhausts the possibilities for vibrant wiki communities.

--Jimbo