[Wikipedia-l] Potential forking of Wikipedia

[Hannes Hirzel]

On Mon, 2 Sep 2002, Magnus Manske wrote:

> Let me try to summarize:
> 1. Articles are written by experts, or are copied from "free
> encyclopedia sources"
> 2. They get checked and maybe expanded by experts
> 3. They are stored in a "safe" place where every change, if any, is
> controlled
> 4. These modified articles are a "free encyclopedia source" again
> 5. As a result, these articles (or parts of them) can be integrated into
> the "free encyclopedia sources" from #1
>
> So, Wikipedia could be the basis for Nupedia (which is no problem in
> itself; I could open up "Magnuspedia" today, based on Wikipedia, and
> declare it expert-edits only, and noone could stop me). But, whatever
> the experts at Nupedia will come up with, it will probably be better
> than the corresponding Wikipedia article it is based on. Wikipedia can
> only profit from such edits, as they can be used in turn.
> There's one thing Wikipedia will always beat Nupedia in: Growth. At the
> moment, that is growth in the number of articles. Bu, at some point, it
> will be growth of individual articles. Many articles I originally
> submitted to Nupedia have been growing enormously on the fertile soil of
> Wikipedia. Articles can grow on Wikipedia, be proof-read in Nupedia, and
> gan then grow further on Wikipedia again.
> What I'm trying to say is Wikipedia and Nupedia won't be a fork, because
> they're not really competition; they could both benefit from a symbiosis

Magnus


I consider this to be a very good proposition. So the Nupedia articles
will acutally be edited snapshots of wikipedia articles done by experts in
the field from time to time. I think this is a good thing to save results
of successful wikipedia articles. It would be something like a quality
label and would perhaps attract one or the other expert.

At the moment nupeida is actually a dead project, perhpas this might lead
to its ressurection.

Another idea would be that universities just do edited snapshotsf of
certain wp articles with link back to wp, edit them an put them on their
website.

Hannes