[Wikipedia-l] Do we really need a Sifter project?

[Ulrich Fuchs]

Am Sonntag, 27. Juli 2003 06:51 schrieb Daniel Mayer:
> We can use Erik's idea for adding neat features to the Brilliant prose page
> as a start. Then that page can act as a queue for articles that Nupedia can
> take-up and then put through a simplified Nupedia polishing process by area
> experts. The Sifter software can be used to make this easy but it is not
> really needed.
>
> But a stable distribution vetted by area experts (at the very least by
> people with baccalaureate degrees in the subject area) /is/ a very
> important thing for us to have.
>

I do not beleive that this is a very good idea. You can do this, of course, 
the GNU FDL allows it. However, I feel like Wikipedia should be cannibalized 
that way, sorry. 

I agree that stable and accepted articles are important to have (for quoting 
and so on). I do not agree that defining those versions must be done by 
"people with baccalaureate degrees in the subject area". It would be far more 
important to get these experts *Writing* instead of editing.

I am not in favour of a system where a lot of people drive thousands of 
articles to a certain (excellent) state, and a few experts get the merits by 
selecting the articels, making some smaller copyedits and then calling that 
the "real" encyclopaedia, implicitly stating that the Wikipedia is not 
serious at all.

Uli