[Wikipedia-l] Re: beta/stable discussion

[manning at bartlett.net]

Hi all from extremely (and fatally) hot Hyderabad, India... 1037 dead so far in 
this town alone. Anywhere else and this would be an international tragedy, here 
it barely makes the papers.

Beta-stable: In the words of Mr Horse (from Ren and Stimpy) "No Sir, I don't 
like it". One of LMS's early ideas was that when an article looked good enough 
it would get moved to Nupedia. Problem with that was that no-one ever actually 
went to Nupedia.

The same will happen here, if we create a Wikipedia that is static (can't be 
edited) then no-one will go there. Even the people who are truly only here to 
browse will gravitate to the dynamic site, simply because it is possible that 
that site "is more current". 

To prove this I'd recommend creating a one-off Static version, putting a link 
to it from the dynamic site and then monitoring web-traffic over a period of 2-
3 months. Even after the site has been around for a while I'd be willing to 
wager it would still be a very lonely place.

If I am wrong, and the site does get a lot of traffic, well then we should 
spend the time and develop a proper management and quality control system. But 
until we have proved its viability, we would just be wasting effort - effort 
better spent on creating/editing articles.

Cheers
Manning
(Back in civilisation around June 20)

*Doomsayers have successfully forecasted 35 of the last 2 problems in 
Wikipedia's
history*