[Wikipedia-l] Re: Why the free encyclopedia movement needs to be more like the free

[Michael R. Irwin]

Daniel Mayer wrote:
> 
> On Saturday 31 August 2002 10:54 pm, Larry wrote:
> > The problem is that, with several notable exceptions, highly-educated
> > people aren't drawn to Wikipedia.
> 
> I don't know about everyone else but I think that statement was a bit
> insulting.

I commented at length elsewhere.

> 
> > So I don't propose we touch Wikipedia--but we have Nupedia.  What I hope
> > is that Nupedia can be changed and rearranged, somehow, to create an elite
> > board of bona fide experts that is ultimately in charge of "releases" of
> > free encyclopedia content.
> 
> Or we can simply revisit the idea of Beta/Stable; whereby some type of
> process validates an article. Having another level of validation through
> Nupedia would also be a good thing. In that way Nupedia would be a
> distribution of Wikipedia in the same way as Red Hat is a distribution of
> Linus' Linux and the GNU tools.

A one way pass up seems reasonable.  Commercial distribution
seems cool too, even if Wikipedia is not ready, Nupedia may be
able to add, delete, massage appropriately.

I am leary of any "editorial boards" or "validated" material 
coming back from Nupedia to Wikipedia automatically.   It would seem 
appropriate to me for all inputs to Wikipedia to be conducted manually 
by community members or anonymous guests in accordance with community
policies if it is merging into or overwriting existing material.

I would dislike intensely any implication that Wikipedia
material was/is routinely trumped and replaced by credentialism
rather than normal editing and consensus building or discussion.
I think it would be very detrimental to the potential quality of the
content as a direct result of the reduced diversity of participation.

regards,
Mike Irwin