[Wikipedia-l] spanish wikipedia

[Khendon]

On Thu, Oct 03, 2002 at 08:55:23AM -0700, Larry Sanger wrote:
> In one very attenuated
> sense, sure, he's *ultimately* responsible for the decisions about the
> projects, but that's *only* insofar as the projects happen to reside on
> his servers.

A useful (if not *entirely* accurate) analogy would be the position of
the monarch in the UK government, who has theoretically huge powers
but is restricted in their use by convention and popular opinion.

> Again, this is misleading on a number of points.  First of all, what
> Wikipedia stands for has **NOTHING** to do with the fact (if it is a
> fact--I honestly don't know) that "Wikipedia" is a commercial trademark.
> By suggesting that, Lars, you are suggesting that it is somehow quite
> important that Wikipedia policies, as promulgated so far, are bound up
> with "Wikipedia" being a trademark.  But why think that?  I'm sorry, but
> that just sounds silly.

It *is* important, in a certain sense. The name "Wikipedia" carries with
it a certain (small, but growing) reputation. To allow it to be diluted
by projects with different characteristics would be bad, I think. There
needs to be a clear sense of what Wikipedia is, and that needs to be
true of anything carrying that name.

-- 
Khendon  (Jason Williams)
khendon at khendon.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/