[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia subset proposal

[Larry Sanger]

You can regard this as a follow up to
http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-September/thread.html#start
"Why the free encyclopedia movement needs to be more like the free
software movement."

I want to make a proposal to make a new website that contains just a
subset of Wikipedia articles.  Please, if you want to comment on this
proposal, read it twice or three times; I have the strange effect on
people of seeming to say one thing when really, I said the exact opposite,
or something quite different, anyway.

Wikipedia is open content, so strictly speaking, I don't have to ask
anybody's permission to do this, and in fact (see below), I think the new
website should be entirely independent of Wikipedia.  But I *do* *really*
want the approval of this community.  I want you, or many of you, behind
the idea.  I want to start us all out on the right foot here.

------

In view of the facts that Wikipedia has grown tremendously; that we have
lost several of our most overeducated, overqualified participants due to
disgust with having to deal with a few difficult, uncooperative
participants; and above all, that there is a vast body of *hundreds* of
highly educated and willing free encyclopedia participants waiting idle
due to the dormancy of Nupedia; I propose the following:

(1) We--whether Bomis or someone else--should set up another website.  It
should definitely not live at the Wikipedia.com domain.

(2) The purpose of the new website will be to *select* and *post*
Wikipedia articles that are up to a certain standard.

(3) The only participants in the new website will be those that meet the
Nupedia requirements in their particular fields, or some other similarly
stringent requirements.

(4) Either I, or a small group of trusted people, will be responsible for
approving participants.

(5) The website will be *read only*.  No one will be able to edit it
directly, including its participants.  This means it *won't* be a wiki.

(6) Any participant will have to go to Wikipedia to make any edits to an
article.

(7) Participants will save *particular versions* of articles, not the
current article, whatever it happens to be.  There should be a link to
"the most current version" of a given article on Wikipedia, as well.

(8) Implementing the website should not require *any* changes to
Wikipedia.  I want to leave Wikipedia alone completely.  The only thing
that *might* make sense is to add a link (which should be optional!) to a
corresponding "subset" website article, if it exists.  In particular,
"subset" participants should **not** be regarded as Wikipedia editors with
any particular, special status on Wikipedia.  And "subset" policy,
whatever it might turn out to be, should **not** be regarded as Wikipedia
policy.

(9) Also, I don't think we should host this website on Nupedia.com.  Too
many Nupedians will want to have nothing to do with it.

Caveats:

I realize that I and others have made similar sorts of suggestions in the
past.  That's great.  Now let's do something.

The above is just a proposal.  I might be persuaded to get behind
something quite different.

Another leading approval process idea, one that I have supported in the
past, is the idea that *anyone* could approve *any* articles, and then
users could make list of "approved approvers," i.e., people whose opinions
on articles they trust.  I still think that's an intriguing idea, but I
also don't think it's one that will attract the many Nupedia participants
who want to be working on a free encyclopedia project.  Elitism leaves a
bad taste in my mouth as it does for many, but we *need* a *going* project
that will attract some of the most educated, knowledgable, intelligent,
clearest-thinking people to the overall task of building a free
encyclopedia.  The point is obviously *not* to *be* elitist; it is to make
a project that participants can see there are adequate safeguards that
their time will not be wasted by any yahoo who can just come along and
ruin their work.

There's nothing to stop us from implementing *both* proposals, by the way.
(Someone made this point before, too, I remember.)

But I intend to get behind the proposal articulated in (1)-(7) above.  And
I'd like to get any interested programmers behind it ASAP, and I'll be
only too happy to collaborate on some of the basic policy and mission
statements of the website.

Then we can get Julie and Michael back, perhaps, and put to work people
like G. B. Lane, Gaytha Langlois, Michael Witbrock, Munawar Anees, Ruth
Ifcher (of course!), and all the other smart and wonderful people I worked
with on Nupedia.  Maybe this will be a way to get Nupedia itself
kick-started again.

--Larry