[Wikipedia-l] Re: Sanger's memoirs

[Andrew Lih]

On 4/20/05, lmsanger at sbcglobal.net <lmsanger at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> But seeing Jimmy's
> comment impelled me to rejoin the list, for the sole purpose of confirming
> what has been on record for five years.

Larry, welcome and might I say, how brave of you. :)

As for, "Who was co-founder of Wikipedia?" I'll wait until Jimbo responds.

However, I'd like to challenge some assertions in Part 2 of your
Slashdot memoir. You list several alternatives the project could have
taken and conclude, "These differences would not have threatened the
basic principles that made the project work, listed above." I'm
skeptical because you don't provide any proof or logical reasoning to
back up the claim, or relate it to accepted scholarship about the
nature of commons-based peer production (eg. Coase's Penguin).

These alternatives you stated:

* "For instance, radical openness, that is, being open even to those
who brazenly flouted and disrespected the project's mission, was
surely not necessary; after all, without them, the project would have
been more welcoming to the many people who felt they could not work
with such difficult people."

* "And if we had required people to sign in, that would not have made
very much difference (although it probably would have made some in the
beginning; the project wouldn't have grown as fast)."

* "Of course we didn't have to use the GNU FDL for the license."

* "The project could have officially encouraged and deferred to
experts. An article approval process could have been adopted without
threatening the principle of posting unedited content for
collaboration."

Again, your conclusion was, "These differences would not have
threatened the basic principles that made the project work, listed
above."

If any of these ideas were floated on the list today, there would be
an outcry and threats of desertion by the community. In fact
"requiring people to sign in" comes up nearly every month or so on the
list and is quashed within a day.

So I'm wondering whether you could elaborate on this, because I found
it quite hard to swallow this paragraph as a given.

-Andrew Lih (User:Fuzheado)
University of Hong Kong

Link: http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/19/1746205&tid=95&tid=149&tid=9