Mailing List Archive: [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia]

[Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia]

anthere at wikimedia

Sep 16, 2006, 10:53 AM

Post #1 of 30 (1248 views)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from
online encyclopedia Wikipedia
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 16:14:39 +0200
From: Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler@gmail.com>
Reply-To: Communications Committee <wmfcc-l@mail.wikimedia.org>
To: Communications Committee <wmfcc-l@mail.wikimedia.org>

WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY

September 18, 2006 Monday

INTERNATIONAL

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL

LENGTH: 187 words

Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia
Wikipedia, said Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia's founders. Sanger,
dir.-collaborative projects for the Digital University Foundation,
spoke last week at the Wizard of OS (Open Source) Conference in
Berlin. Wikipedia is committed to anonymity; Citizendium will stress
personal responsibility for content, pushing for higher quality, he
said, noting that Wikipedia's anonymity draws troublemakers. On
Citizendium, content will be reviewed by editors who, while
self-selecting, will have to substantiate their expertise. If
Wikipedia had been admitting its problems, Sanger said, "I would have
been much less motivated to go on with Citizendium." Martin Haase, a
Wikipedia board member in Germany, said Wikipedia is working on
quality. Soon, the encyclopedia will have its own means of validation
and some editorial control, he said. Citizendium and Wikipedia can
coexist, Sanger said. His role in Wikipedia was called into question
years ago by fellow Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, spurring Sanger to
quit his position as "chief organizer" of Wikipedia. -- ME

LOAD-DATE: September 15, 2006

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newsletter

Copyright 2006 Warren Publishing, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
_______________________________________________
Wmfcc-l mailing list
Wmfcc-l@mail.wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wmfcc-l

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia [ In reply to ]

sabine_cretella at yahoo

Sep 16, 2006, 11:14 AM

Post #2 of 30 (1239 views)

Copying my answer to the com-com list also here:

Does it sound strange to you that at the beginning of this year I said
to a friend of mine that my feeling told me that someone will take over
the contents of Wikipedia and create a separate project. When I said
this, I was thinking of a different "person", or better a company all of
us know well. Ok, it is not them now, but ...

I don't believe Citizendium will be able to take over Wikipedia, but you
never know - it would definitely be much better to have scientists work
on Wikipedia.

It is time to build the "the original" image of Wikipedia ... (remember
the CocaCola/Pepsi Cola marketing campaigns?) - I mean "Wikipedia" -
the only original of all collaborative wikipedias (plus all the
advantages must come over).

How's the German stable version thingie going? (That is something I
would like to see on nap.wikipedia as well - for other reasons than on
de - connected to "standard and not standard nap") - Somthing tells me
that this feature together with the co-operation of scientists will be
the solution.

Thanks, Sabine

Florence Devouard schrieb:
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from
> online encyclopedia Wikipedia
> Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 16:14:39 +0200
> From: Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler@gmail.com>
> Reply-To: Communications Committee <wmfcc-l@mail.wikimedia.org>
> To: Communications Committee <wmfcc-l@mail.wikimedia.org>
>
>
>
> WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY
>
> September 18, 2006 Monday
>
> INTERNATIONAL
>
> SECTION: INTERNATIONAL
>
> LENGTH: 187 words
>
> Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia
> Wikipedia, said Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia's founders. Sanger,
> dir.-collaborative projects for the Digital University Foundation,
> spoke last week at the Wizard of OS (Open Source) Conference in
> Berlin. Wikipedia is committed to anonymity; Citizendium will stress
> personal responsibility for content, pushing for higher quality, he
> said, noting that Wikipedia's anonymity draws troublemakers. On
> Citizendium, content will be reviewed by editors who, while
> self-selecting, will have to substantiate their expertise. If
> Wikipedia had been admitting its problems, Sanger said, "I would have
> been much less motivated to go on with Citizendium." Martin Haase, a
> Wikipedia board member in Germany, said Wikipedia is working on
> quality. Soon, the encyclopedia will have its own means of validation
> and some editorial control, he said. Citizendium and Wikipedia can
> coexist, Sanger said. His role in Wikipedia was called into question
> years ago by fellow Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, spurring Sanger to
> quit his position as "chief organizer" of Wikipedia. -- ME
>
> LOAD-DATE: September 15, 2006
>
> LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
>
> PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newsletter
>
>
> Copyright 2006 Warren Publishing, Inc.
> All Rights Reserved
> _______________________________________________
> Wmfcc-l mailing list
> Wmfcc-l@mail.wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wmfcc-l
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia] [ In reply to ]

jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup

Sep 16, 2006, 11:45 AM

Post #3 of 30 (1249 views)

Sanger will fail for all the same reasons Wikipedia has hit a wall of
late on growth of articles. Wikipedia has reached critical mass
of information and it's "good enough" in most peoples minds. Beyond
translation activities and divergence into Wikiversity type of programs,
and incremental updates of content, it will hover around 1.4 million
articles until it gets another massive infusion of content from some
other source. There's also the glaring fact the 2% of the community
create 98% of the content on average (based on Slashdot study published
last month). And these 2% usually become inactive after they drop
content into the project. I see a lot of activitiy in recent edits, but
growth has been stagnant for several months and quality has been
improving dramatically.

Without a new information source or innovative technology play, Sanger
will fail.

Jeff

>-------- Original Message --------
>Subject: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from
>online encyclopedia Wikipedia
>Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 16:14:39 +0200
>From: Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler@gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Communications Committee <wmfcc-l@mail.wikimedia.org>
>To: Communications Committee <wmfcc-l@mail.wikimedia.org>
>
>
>
>WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY
>
>September 18, 2006 Monday
>
>INTERNATIONAL
>
>SECTION: INTERNATIONAL
>
>LENGTH: 187 words
>
>Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia
>Wikipedia, said Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia's founders. Sanger,
>dir.-collaborative projects for the Digital University Foundation,
>spoke last week at the Wizard of OS (Open Source) Conference in
>Berlin. Wikipedia is committed to anonymity; Citizendium will stress
>personal responsibility for content, pushing for higher quality, he
>said, noting that Wikipedia's anonymity draws troublemakers. On
>Citizendium, content will be reviewed by editors who, while
>self-selecting, will have to substantiate their expertise. If
>Wikipedia had been admitting its problems, Sanger said, "I would have
>been much less motivated to go on with Citizendium." Martin Haase, a
>Wikipedia board member in Germany, said Wikipedia is working on
>quality. Soon, the encyclopedia will have its own means of validation
>and some editorial control, he said. Citizendium and Wikipedia can
>coexist, Sanger said. His role in Wikipedia was called into question
>years ago by fellow Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, spurring Sanger to
>quit his position as "chief organizer" of Wikipedia. -- ME
>
>LOAD-DATE: September 15, 2006
>
>LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
>
>PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newsletter
>
>
>Copyright 2006 Warren Publishing, Inc.
>All Rights Reserved
>_______________________________________________
>Wmfcc-l mailing list
>Wmfcc-l@mail.wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wmfcc-l
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l@wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia] [ In reply to ]

mathias.schindler at gmail

Sep 16, 2006, 11:49 AM

Post #4 of 30 (1226 views)

On 9/16/06, Florence Devouard <anthere@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>

> WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY

Hi Anthere.

What you did was violating the copyright in most of the states (anyone
shouting "fair use! fair use!" here?). Foundation-l gets archived
publicly, as far as I know. You are responsible for this incident and
I would like you to

1. remove this message from the archive before the owner of the
copyright DMCAs you, me and the Foundation.
2. try not to repeat this.

As a board member, respecting copyright of third parties should not be
an optional skill :)

Thanks,
Mathias
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia] [ In reply to ]

Anthere9 at yahoo

Sep 16, 2006, 12:10 PM

Post #5 of 30 (1232 views)

Mathias Schindler wrote:
> On 9/16/06, Florence Devouard <anthere@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>
>>WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY
>
>
> Hi Anthere.
>
> What you did was violating the copyright in most of the states (anyone
> shouting "fair use! fair use!" here?).

Oh ?

You mean that's why much of the interesting discussions are right now
taking place on the comcom list where very little people have access ?

Okay. I'll forward them to internal instead.

Foundation-l gets archived
> publicly, as far as I know. You are responsible for this incident and
> I would like you to
>
> 1. remove this message from the archive before the owner of the
> copyright DMCAs you, me and the Foundation.
> 2. try not to repeat this.

Right. You know where I live, if it is necessary, just tell them I am
the guilty one. They can sue me, I own so little they won't make much :-)

> As a board member, respecting copyright of third parties should not be
> an optional skill :)
>
> Thanks,
> Mathias

I think my role as a board member is increasingly becoming extremely
boring and useless... I oscillate between being told to be a nice
girly/pompom girl. And being a watch dog crying wolf. I look forward for
someone else holding this roles with me.

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia] [ In reply to ]

jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup

Sep 16, 2006, 12:12 PM

Post #6 of 30 (1222 views)

Mathias Schindler wrote:

>On 9/16/06, Florence Devouard <anthere@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>>WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY
>>
>>
>
>Hi Anthere.
>
>What you did was violating the copyright in most of the states (anyone
>shouting "fair use! fair use!" here?). Foundation-l gets archived
>publicly, as far as I know. You are responsible for this incident and
>I would like you to
>
>1. remove this message from the archive before the owner of the
>copyright DMCAs you, me and the Foundation.
>2. try not to repeat this.
>
>As a board member, respecting copyright of third parties should not be
>an optional skill :)
>
>Thanks,
>Mathias
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l@wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
Looks like it was an email distributed article. If so, fair usewould
apply to discussions of it here, unless we were using it "for profit".
Removing it from the archive is prudent since this would be posting it
on a website. The email discussion is probably ok.

:-)

Jeff
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia [ In reply to ]

geniice at gmail

Sep 16, 2006, 12:24 PM

Post #7 of 30 (1245 views)

On 9/16/06, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella@yahoo.it> wrote:
> Does it sound strange to you that at the beginning of this year I said
> to a friend of mine that my feeling told me that someone will take over
> the contents of Wikipedia and create a separate project. When I said
> this, I was thinking of a different "person", or better a company all of
> us know well. Ok, it is not them now, but ...
>

Wikinfo did that quite a long time ago.

> I don't believe Citizendium will be able to take over Wikipedia, but you
> never know - it would definitely be much better to have scientists work
> on Wikipedia.
>

Err we do.

> It is time to build the "the original" image of Wikipedia ... (remember
> the CocaCola/Pepsi Cola marketing campaigns?) - I mean "Wikipedia" -
> the only original of all collaborative wikipedias (plus all the
> advantages must come over).
>

An internet project and you are prepared to risk being seen as
backwards looking. Realisticaly I can't see any other project
atchiveing our critical mass for the time being.

--
geni
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia [ In reply to ]

sabine_cretella at yahoo

Sep 16, 2006, 12:33 PM

Post #8 of 30 (1226 views)

geni schrieb:
>> I don't believe Citizendium will be able to take over Wikipedia, but you
>> never know - it would definitely be much better to have scientists work
>> on Wikipedia.
>>
>>
>
> Err we do.
>
I know, there is a small group of scientists working on Wikipedia, but
this is not seen by the public. And that is what has to change

>
>> It is time to build the "the original" image of Wikipedia ... (remember
>> the CocaCola/Pepsi Cola marketing campaigns?) - I mean "Wikipedia" -
>> the only original of all collaborative wikipedias (plus all the
>> advantages must come over).
>>
>>
>
> An internet project and you are prepared to risk being seen as
> backwards looking. Realisticaly I can't see any other project
> atchiveing our critical mass for the time being.
>
>

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean here. I am talking about
marketing for the future and not the past.

Thanks, Sabine
Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia [ In reply to ]

Sep 16, 2006, 12:42 PM

Post #9 of 30 (1249 views)

Sabine Cretella wrote:
> Does it sound strange to you that at the beginning of this year I said
> to a friend of mine that my feeling told me that someone will take over
> the contents of Wikipedia and create a separate project.

That's entirely normal in the course of events, and only one of many such
projects; Wikipedia has an open-content license precisely to allow these sorts
of projects.

> I don't believe Citizendium will be able to take over Wikipedia, but you
> never know - it would definitely be much better to have scientists work
> on Wikipedia.

It's not about "taking over", but about taking useful resources and doing
additional things with them. We of course celebrate and applaud any serious
undertaking to make use of Wikipedia content.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia [ In reply to ]

geniice at gmail

Sep 16, 2006, 1:04 PM

Post #10 of 30 (1239 views)

On 9/16/06, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella@yahoo.it> wrote:
> I know, there is a small group of scientists working on Wikipedia, but
> this is not seen by the public. And that is what has to change
>

The average member of wikipedia seems to try and avoid being
identified. Anyway rather a lot of our science articles are written by
people who know the area (you can tell because they tend to be written
in jargon rather than English).

> Sorry, I don't understand what you mean here. I am talking about
> marketing for the future and not the past.

Yes but your marketing strategy would involve looking back.

--
geni
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia [ In reply to ]

sabine_cretella at yahoo

Sep 16, 2006, 1:32 PM

Post #11 of 30 (1242 views)

geni schrieb:
> On 9/16/06, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella@yahoo.it> wrote:
>
>> I know, there is a small group of scientists working on Wikipedia, but
>> this is not seen by the public. And that is what has to change
>>
>>
>
> The average member of wikipedia seems to try and avoid being
> identified. Anyway rather a lot of our science articles are written by
> people who know the area (you can tell because they tend to be written
> in jargon rather than English).
>
We should then give the aveage member of Wikipedia a reason why it would
make sense to be identified ... future will tell :-)
>
>
>> Sorry, I don't understand what you mean here. I am talking about
>> marketing for the future and not the past.
>>
>
> Yes but your marketing strategy would involve looking back.
>
>
See it like this: Wikipedia is only what it is today because of its past
- if there hadn't been that handful of people that at the beginning
started to edit just "for fun" and that went ahead even if the project
was not so popular, today it would not be there.

Wikipedia is built of several milestones - and the very beginning must
be there - without a past you don't have a present, without a present
you don't have a future. Everything is connected.

Wikipedia can only be the first freely editable Encyclopaedia if you
consider the past.

So building an image that bases on "the only true one, the only
original" of course is a connection to the past and describes all that
has been achieved by now and tells people where it wants to go in the
future. Many trademarks are built like this - why is Xerox Xerox? Whis
is Mercedes Mercedes? Why is Wikipedia Wikipedia? Because of certain
values, because of their past and will to be there also in future.

You can optimize the values, but you cannot take them away. You can
introduce new developments and you will see that they are always based
on the "original". Certain values may not be touched and these values
were created at the beginning - the so called core values. Being
editable by anyone and openness are two of them as much as I recall.

Ciao, Sabine

Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia [ In reply to ]

delirium at hackish

Sep 16, 2006, 3:22 PM

Post #12 of 30 (1225 views)

Brion Vibber wrote:

>>I don't believe Citizendium will be able to take over Wikipedia, but you
>>never know - it would definitely be much better to have scientists work
>>on Wikipedia.
>>
>>
>
>It's not about "taking over", but about taking useful resources and doing
>additional things with them. We of course celebrate and applaud any serious
>undertaking to make use of Wikipedia content.
>
>
I agree with that (I'm a big proponent of the idea that producing free
content is Wikipedia's main reason for existing), but forking
open-content projects can have both positive and negative effects. The
best case is where a project splits into two projects that are doing
mostly orthogonal things---serving different needs from a common
starting point. The worst case is where a project splits into two
projects that are essentially duplicates of each other due to leadership
conflicts (e.g. the emacs/xemacs fiasco).

I'm not sure Citizendium's goals and methods are different enough from
Wikipedia's to make a fork a good thing for free content in general. I
think the best outcome would be to see them as a prod to Wikipedia to
adopt some of their better methods (if we identify any as such) and
manage to keep the main content-production centralized in the Wikipedia
projects. From that perspective the main good that could come out of it
is a laboratory of ideas; the worst would be basically two parallel
encyclopedia projects largely doing the same thing with added overhead
from having to constantly copy stuff back and forth and keep efforts
synchronized---or worse, end up with unsynchronized but more or less
equivalent efforts, rather than some sort of sum of the parts.

-Mark

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia [ In reply to ]

messedrocker at gmail

Sep 16, 2006, 5:12 PM

Post #13 of 30 (1218 views)

Citizendium is serious business. We should be appreciating the efforts.

Due to the licensing choice of Wikipedia, Citizendium will also be licensed
under the GFDL. Imagine that -- an expert-ran knowledge tank that's usable
under the same license as Wikipedia! That means when they produce a
high-quality piece of something, we can take it and use it on Wikipedia.
Maybe then will we get closer to the 100,000 featured articles that is
currently a pipe dream of the really hopeful.

I hope a cycle of forking between the two projects will result in better
stuff for all.

On 9/16/06, Delirium <delirium@hackish.org> wrote:
>
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>
> >>I don't believe Citizendium will be able to take over Wikipedia, but you
> >>never know - it would definitely be much better to have scientists work
> >>on Wikipedia.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >It's not about "taking over", but about taking useful resources and doing
> >additional things with them. We of course celebrate and applaud any
> serious
> >undertaking to make use of Wikipedia content.
> >
> >
> I agree with that (I'm a big proponent of the idea that producing free
> content is Wikipedia's main reason for existing), but forking
> open-content projects can have both positive and negative effects. The
> best case is where a project splits into two projects that are doing
> mostly orthogonal things---serving different needs from a common
> starting point. The worst case is where a project splits into two
> projects that are essentially duplicates of each other due to leadership
> conflicts (e.g. the emacs/xemacs fiasco).
>
> I'm not sure Citizendium's goals and methods are different enough from
> Wikipedia's to make a fork a good thing for free content in general. I
> think the best outcome would be to see them as a prod to Wikipedia to
> adopt some of their better methods (if we identify any as such) and
> manage to keep the main content-production centralized in the Wikipedia
> projects. From that perspective the main good that could come out of it
> is a laboratory of ideas; the worst would be basically two parallel
> encyclopedia projects largely doing the same thing with added overhead
> from having to constantly copy stuff back and forth and keep efforts
> synchronized---or worse, end up with unsynchronized but more or less
> equivalent efforts, rather than some sort of sum of the parts.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia] [ In reply to ]

wikilegal at inbox

Sep 16, 2006, 5:36 PM

Post #14 of 30 (1225 views)

On 9/16/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> Sanger will fail for all the same reasons Wikipedia has hit a wall of
> late on growth of articles.

>From what little information has been released, I think you're right.
Taking Wikipedia articles and forking them is in most instances *not*
a good way to produce the type of quality academic work that Sanger
expects. In some instances Wikipedia is already there, of course, but
where it isn't I just don't see what real work can be saved by
starting from a Wikipedia article as opposed to starting from scratch.

Now maybe I'm just misunderstanding Sanger's plan. If the plan is to
take Wikipedia articles, and use them as a sort of rough draft for a
new work, which is written pretty much from scratch, then maybe this
will succeed. And if so, I don't think this will hurt Wikipedia in
any way. In fact, I think if anything it'll help Wikipedia, as it'll
allow Wikipedians to focus on places where Wikipedia *hasn't* hit a
brick wall.

> Wikipedia has reached critical mass
> of information and it's "good enough" in most peoples minds.

The best articles are "good enough" in my mind. Others are more like
"barely adequate" but yet they've still hit a brick wall in terms of
quality (think popular politicians). Then there's the other 90% or
more articles, which just haven't had enough eyes on them yet. This
is the place where Wikipedia will shine, and Sanger's project will
hopefully not even bother to venture for the first 5-10 years or more.

> Beyond
> translation activities and divergence into Wikiversity type of programs,
> and incremental updates of content, it will hover around 1.4 million
> articles until it gets another massive infusion of content from some
> other source. There's also the glaring fact the 2% of the community
> create 98% of the content on average (based on Slashdot study published
> last month). And these 2% usually become inactive after they drop
> content into the project. I see a lot of activitiy in recent edits, but
> growth has been stagnant for several months and quality has been
> improving dramatically.
>
> Without a new information source or innovative technology play, Sanger
> will fail.
>
> Jeff

I think there's still potential for a lot of growth in terms of
numbers of articles left for Wikipedia. It may have hit a plateau,
but I'd say it's only a temporary one. In order to get the *next* 1.4
million articles Wikipedia is going to have to think about how to open
itself up more though. 2% of the community creating 98% of the
content, if it's a true figure, is far too low to meet this goal. How
can Wikipedia be more encouraging to those 98% of people? Maybe Larry
Sanger's project can help take away some of the people who want
Wikipedia to be an exclusionary club.

Anthony
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia [ In reply to ]

geniice at gmail

Sep 16, 2006, 5:39 PM

Post #15 of 30 (1217 views)

On 9/17/06, James Hare <messedrocker@gmail.com> wrote:
> Citizendium is serious business. We should be appreciating the efforts.
>

Putting out a press release?

The shear size of wikipedia means that even mentaining it takes a lot
of resources. The result of this is that forks are unlikely to suceed.

--
geni
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia [ In reply to ]

messedrocker at gmail

Sep 16, 2006, 5:40 PM

Post #16 of 30 (1220 views)

Well if they do things right they'll set their priorities -- focus on core
topics and leave "List of banned episodes of Pokémon" for another day. (Or
another century.)

On 9/16/06, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/17/06, James Hare <messedrocker@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Citizendium is serious business. We should be appreciating the efforts.
> >
>
> Putting out a press release?
>
> The shear size of wikipedia means that even mentaining it takes a lot
> of resources. The result of this is that forks are unlikely to suceed.
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia [ In reply to ]

wikilegal at inbox

Sep 16, 2006, 5:41 PM

Post #17 of 30 (1224 views)

On 9/16/06, James Hare <messedrocker@gmail.com> wrote:
> Citizendium is serious business. We should be appreciating the efforts.
>
> Due to the licensing choice of Wikipedia, Citizendium will also be licensed
> under the GFDL. Imagine that -- an expert-ran knowledge tank that's usable
> under the same license as Wikipedia! That means when they produce a
> high-quality piece of something, we can take it and use it on Wikipedia.
> Maybe then will we get closer to the 100,000 featured articles that is
> currently a pipe dream of the really hopeful.
>
> I hope a cycle of forking between the two projects will result in better
> stuff for all.
>
I hope Wikipedia will adopt a policy of adhering to the GFDL which
allows this. Perhaps most importantly that means listing 5 of the
primary authors along with the title.
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia] [ In reply to ]

jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup

Sep 16, 2006, 6:14 PM

Post #18 of 30 (1246 views)

Anthony wrote:

>On 9/16/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Sanger will fail for all the same reasons Wikipedia has hit a wall of
>>late on growth of articles.
>>
>>
>
>>From what little information has been released, I think you're right.
>Taking Wikipedia articles and forking them is in most instances *not*
>a good way to produce the type of quality academic work that Sanger
>expects. In some instances Wikipedia is already there, of course, but
>where it isn't I just don't see what real work can be saved by
>starting from a Wikipedia article as opposed to starting from scratch.
>
>
Yep.

>Now maybe I'm just misunderstanding Sanger's plan. If the plan is to
>take Wikipedia articles, and use them as a sort of rough draft for a
>new work, which is written pretty much from scratch, then maybe this
>will succeed. And if so, I don't think this will hurt Wikipedia in
>any way. In fact, I think if anything it'll help Wikipedia, as it'll
>allow Wikipedians to focus on places where Wikipedia *hasn't* hit a
>brick wall.
>
>
Sanger's plan is "I'll show you" based on the energy I sense from his
posting and
statements.

>
>
>>Wikipedia has reached critical mass
>>of information and it's "good enough" in most peoples minds.
>>
>>
>
>The best articles are "good enough" in my mind. Others are more like
>"barely adequate" but yet they've still hit a brick wall in terms of
>quality (think popular politicians). Then there's the other 90% or
>more articles, which just haven't had enough eyes on them yet. This
>is the place where Wikipedia will shine, and Sanger's project will
>hopefully not even bother to venture for the first 5-10 years or more.
>
>
The quality is getting very good. The last dump had far too many tags in
the articles
on neutrality, etc. Which indicates too much disagreement. This means
the work load
is running low and people have too much idle time. The "green plants"
creating the content
have realy dropped in recent months.

>
>
>>Beyond
>>translation activities and divergence into Wikiversity type of programs,
>>and incremental updates of content, it will hover around 1.4 million
>>articles until it gets another massive infusion of content from some
>>other source. There's also the glaring fact the 2% of the community
>>create 98% of the content on average (based on Slashdot study published
>>last month). And these 2% usually become inactive after they drop
>>content into the project. I see a lot of activitiy in recent edits, but
>>growth has been stagnant for several months and quality has been
>>improving dramatically.
>>
>>Without a new information source or innovative technology play, Sanger
>>will fail.
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>>
>
>I think there's still potential for a lot of growth in terms of
>numbers of articles left for Wikipedia. It may have hit a plateau,
>but I'd say it's only a temporary one.
>

I don't think so, need to get some fresh folks on the site, and the
number of admins has
become excessive and may be contributing to this trend. I notice a lot
of folks get run off
before they can put down roots. This needs to be addressed.

>In order to get the *next* 1.4
>million articles Wikipedia is going to have to think about how to open
>itself up more though. 2% of the community creating 98% of the
>content, if it's a true figure, is far too low to meet this goal. How
>can Wikipedia be more encouraging to those 98% of people?
>

Get rid of abusive and trolling admins and cut back the ability to block and
dissuade new editors. I see too many folks run off the site because of
their
views, not their behavior.

>Maybe Larry
>Sanger's project can help take away some of the people who want
>Wikipedia to be an exclusionary club.
>
>
Sanger is out for payback. I just can feel this, and a wounded ego --
this is just IMHO, but it feels that way. Something built
on negative emotions is destined for failure from the start.

Jeff

>Anthony
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l@wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia] [ In reply to ]

george.herbert at gmail

Sep 16, 2006, 7:58 PM

Post #19 of 30 (1233 views)

On 9/16/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Sanger is out for payback. I just can feel this, and a wounded ego --
> this is just IMHO, but it feels that way. Something built
> on negative emotions is destined for failure from the start.

Larry is far from the only person who thinks that anonymity is
ultimately a net negative for Wikipedia, or that having more experts
openly involved is a good thing.

That said, I hope that you're wrong, but I can see why you might be right.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert@gmail.com
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia] [ In reply to ]

gerard.meijssen at gmail

Sep 16, 2006, 11:44 PM

Post #20 of 30 (1225 views)

Anthere wrote:
> Mathias Schindler wrote:
>
>> On 9/16/06, Florence Devouard <anthere@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY
>>>
>> Hi Anthere.
>>
>> What you did was violating the copyright in most of the states (anyone
>> shouting "fair use! fair use!" here?).
>>
>
> Oh ?
>
> You mean that's why much of the interesting discussions are right now
> taking place on the comcom list where very little people have access ?
>
> Okay. I'll forward them to internal instead.
>
> Foundation-l gets archived
>
>> publicly, as far as I know. You are responsible for this incident and
>> I would like you to
>>
>> 1. remove this message from the archive before the owner of the
>> copyright DMCAs you, me and the Foundation.
>> 2. try not to repeat this.
>>
>
> Right. You know where I live, if it is necessary, just tell them I am
> the guilty one. They can sue me, I own so little they won't make much :-)
>
>
>> As a board member, respecting copyright of third parties should not be
>> an optional skill :)
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Mathias
>>
>
>
> I think my role as a board member is increasingly becoming extremely
> boring and useless... I oscillate between being told to be a nice
> girly/pompom girl. And being a watch dog crying wolf. I look forward for
> someone else holding this roles with me.
Hoi,
I hope there will be a video. I hope it will be for me to see :) ..
Think about this fairy tale about this girly with a red riding hood..
She may have been eaten by the wolf but it was the wolf that ended up
down in the well with a belly full of stones.

A board member of a foundation has a responsibility to perform his/her
role When people are stupid enough to suggest a board member to be a
"girly/pompom girl", they do not understand the role and responsibility
of a board member and as sadly their own role. I would expect that much
of these "suggestions" happen because of a lack of communication and
miscommunication. From a community point of view, the observation that
one community board member leaves prematurely and another community
board member tells us that she is suggested to be a "girly/pompom girl"
makes me feel really upset about the current state of the Wikimedia
Foundation.

The suggestion that there is a lot of miscommunication is the
friendliest way of saying "who the fuck do you think you are" to the
people making such suggestions. A board member cannot be a watch dog
calling wolf. It is to a board member to ensure that the necessary
action is taken when wolfs are spotted. It is up to the organisation and
it's personnel to ensure that the board members are properly informed
and that appropriate and agreed upon measures are taken to keep the
wolves at bay. In this it is the organisation and it's personnel that
need board approval not the other way round.

Thanks,
GerardM

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia] [ In reply to ]

delirium at hackish

Sep 17, 2006, 12:35 AM

Post #21 of 30 (1207 views)

George Herbert wrote:
> On 9/16/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>> Sanger is out for payback. I just can feel this, and a wounded ego --
>> this is just IMHO, but it feels that way. Something built
>> on negative emotions is destined for failure from the start.
>>
>
>
> Larry is far from the only person who thinks that anonymity is
> ultimately a net negative for Wikipedia, or that having more experts
> openly involved is a good thing.
>
> That said, I hope that you're wrong, but I can see why you might be right.
>

It's less what he says than how he seems to go about saying it. Based
on seeing his comments over the years and some subtle undertones of most
of what he writes, I'd agree with Jeffrey that Larry appears to have a
vendetta of sorts. The ideal situation would be that he had a vision
for how to improve Wikipedia, and is starting a fork because Wikipedia
hasn't taken it up and he feels he can do better. I don't get quite
that sort of vibe, though---there's definitely an active *dislike* of
Wikipedia, and also, I would venture, a desire that it be replaced by a
project headed by Larry Sangers, PhD.

There has been plenty of opportunity for Larry to participate
constructively to change Wikipedia over the years, but he has never made
an effort. In fact he has never, since he stopped being paid to do so,
participated at all. He could have subscribed to the mailing list and
made constructive proposals to improve Wikipedia, or made comments on
one of the wikis, or propose some concrete changes, preferably in
increments. As far as I can tell he has never done anything like
that---his sole involvement has been writing two (three?) articles to
post on Slashdot and Kuro5hin, and then not even participate much in the
follow-up discussion (he does seem, to his credit, to be participating
much more in the Slashdot discussion of his new project).

Perhaps he has pure motives and really wants to improve the way
open-content encyclopedias are produced, but after years of not ever
seeing him show up *anywhere*, I'm skeptical. That said, I'll be happy
to welcome any positive contributions, either in content or methodology,
that his project may produce.

-Mark

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia [ In reply to ]

jwales at wikia

Sep 17, 2006, 12:38 PM

Post #22 of 30 (1213 views)

Brion Vibber wrote:
> It's not about "taking over", but about taking useful resources and doing
> additional things with them. We of course celebrate and applaud any serious
> undertaking to make use of Wikipedia content.

Totally. If Larry is able to produce quality information derived from
Wikipedia content, then we can easily make use of it... that is the
whole point of the copyleft license.

--Jimbo

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia] [ In reply to ]

adhair at gmail

Sep 17, 2006, 5:50 PM

Post #23 of 30 (1203 views)

On 9/17/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Think about this fairy tale about this girly with a red riding hood..
> She may have been eaten by the wolf but it was the wolf that ended up
> down in the well with a belly full of stones.

The Dutch must tell a different version of this story; the one I grew
up with ends with a woodsman laying the wolf open with an ax. (The
wolf in our version was also a communist.)

Austin
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia] [ In reply to ]

kelly.lynn.martin at gmail

Sep 17, 2006, 5:51 PM

Post #24 of 30 (1222 views)

On 9/16/06, Anthere <Anthere9@yahoo.com> wrote:
> You mean that's why much of the interesting discussions are right now
> taking place on the comcom list where very little people have access ?
>
> Okay. I'll forward them to internal instead.

Another list to which very few people have access.

Kelly
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia [ In reply to ]

dgerard at gmail

Sep 18, 2006, 4:12 AM

Post #25 of 30 (1207 views)

On 16/09/06, Brion Vibber <brion@pobox.com> wrote:
> Sabine Cretella wrote:

> > Does it sound strange to you that at the beginning of this year I said
> > to a friend of mine that my feeling told me that someone will take over
> > the contents of Wikipedia and create a separate project.

> That's entirely normal in the course of events, and only one of many such
> projects; Wikipedia has an open-content license precisely to allow these sorts
> of projects.

Yes. Though we're notably lacking in forks that are actively edited;
Wikinfo is the only one I know of. Other than that it's pretty much
static mirror sites with Google ads.

> > I don't believe Citizendium will be able to take over Wikipedia, but you
> > never know - it would definitely be much better to have scientists work
> > on Wikipedia.

> It's not about "taking over", but about taking useful resources and doing
> additional things with them. We of course celebrate and applaud any serious
> undertaking to make use of Wikipedia content.

One thing which Stevevertigo pointed out on wikien-l in discussing
Citizendium was that no-one *really* knows how Wikipedia works.
There's got to be more ways to do this than the ways the various
Wikipedias do it.

And more open content is good for everyone.

- d.
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l