[Wikipedia-l] Proposed fork of Wikipedia

[Thomas Larsen]

Hi all,

I'm very pleased - and somewhat shocked - at the raw percentile amount
of support that I've received for Wikipendium. I think this indicates
that the community as a whole is sick and tired of Wikipedia's
problems and frustrated that they continue unfixed after years.

I'd like to clarify on a few points.

Firstly, when I stated that Wikipendium would be a fork of Wikipedia,
I intended it to be more of a social fork than a content fork - i.e.,
I'm not intending to use any Wikipedia content in Wikipendium. Perhaps
the purpose of Wikipendium, you might say, is to provide a valid
social alternative to Wikipedia with higher social and content
standards.

_Some_ ways in which Wikipendium will differ from Wikipedia include:

- simplicity and clarity of rules - there will be only three policies,
a "fundamental policy" (basically a constitution), a "content policy"
(essential content standards such as neutrality and verifiability),
and a "community policy" (essential community standards such as
respect and pleasantness);
- a simple governance structure - there will be a Council (basically a
less bureaucratic equivalent of the WMF Board of Trustees) which will
serve as "project leader", "constables" who will serve as maintainers
of social standards, and, of course, the general community;
- people in positions of authority will, except in rare cases, be
required to use their real names as their account names, thereby
increasing accountability of authority and helping avoid abuse.

About me ... well, I'm very flattered that some of my essays and edit
counts were brought up. Let me explain ...

- The PWTELW essay lists just _some_ of the problems I see with the
English-language Wikipedia. Feel free to read it.
- The CWQ essay was badly written; ignore it.
- The RARC essay was a replacement of CWQ, and was written in a better
way. Feel free to read it.
- About my edit counts - I edit Wikipedia infrequently nowadays (no
home Internet connection at the moment) and I have spent most of my
time on Wikipedia since late last year trying to fix the fundamental
problems. So forgive me, but I've had no time to contribute _content_;
I've been trying to make my contribution, and that of others,
worthwhile.

Best and friendly regards,

Thomas


-- 
Thomas H. Larsen
thomashlarsen.wmf at gmail.com
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thomas_H._Larsen