[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia moderators and moral authority (was Re: Repost: clear guidelines and the power to enforce)

[Lars Aronsson]

Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> What it comes down to is a tough choice between two choices:
> (1) We are building a free encyclopedia. Therefore, we use Wiki
> software.
> (2) We are maintaining a Wiki community. If we make some good
> encyclopedia articles, that's nice too.
>
> Which is it going to be, people?

Wikipedia is clearly of type 1.  I don't see how there can be any
doubt about that.  But it is still an interesting issue.

I think you can say that http://susning.nu/ (in Swedish) is of type 2,
which is one of several differences between my project and Wikipedia.
I consider individual self regulation (as opposed to enforcement of
rules) to be an important part of the wiki concept, but when I'm in
Wikipedia I follow Wikipedia's rules.  I feel no need to rebel.

I think there is still room to create another large, general purpose
wiki (type 2) in English, which doesn't have the ambition to create an
encyclopedia, and where people can go that don't like Wikipedia's
rules.  From Wikipedia's position, this would mean walking in the
opposite direction of Larry's sifter project.  Starting this would be
a big project, and I doubt that anybody has the energy to do it.  If
it was a GFDL project, it could start out with a copy of the current
Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is the combination of a free encyclopedia (an old idea, as
Axel Boldt can tell you) and the wiki concept.  This combination can
be problematic for those who don't already know both components, which
is the case in many non-English languages where the Wikipedia is the
first wiki that people see.  Maybe this is a problem for many English
Wikipedia newcomers as well.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/