[Wikipedia-l] Re: Sanger's memoirs

[Fred Bauder]

Larry should be given credit for staying on as a volunteer for a long as he
did and for advocating his positions in good faith.

There was a poisonous athmosphere which surrounded Larry as he tried to whip
us into shape. Part of the problem is that he was breaking rules (assume
good faith, be courteous, avoid personal attacks) at the same time he was
enforcing them (no personal research (in my case at least)).

It is not surprising that he lost patience, most of us have at one point or
another.

I can remember having real fear that he would manage to put in some
authoritarian system that would destroy the openness of the project.

I guess, bottom line, if you think that sort of stuff works, you should go
and do it.

But of course it does work, it is called academia and is very well funded,
but generally lacks an internet presence. There is no Harvard or Yale or
even Oxford encyclopedia. Perhaps there ought to be. But how do you
translate the undoubted expertise of $200,000 a year professors into freely
accessible knowledge?

It is academia which dropped the ball, we just found it laying out on the
highway.

Fred

> From: Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 23:37:44 -0500
> To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Sanger's memoirs
> 
> Equally curiously, it took you a few years yourself to
> change from leaving because you weren't getting paid anymore to leaving
> because of a poisonous social atmosphere.