Jimmy Wales wrote:
Not yet, but I hope that such will exist someday sooner
rather than
later. But to move from our current format to print is a big
undertaking, and I'm not sure we're ready yet to devote a lot of
energy to it.
Jesse Alter wrote:
>Does the Wikipedia have an annual print edition, or something similar? I
>am assuming that it almost definately does not. The reason I ask is that
>a History professor would not allow me to cite the Wikipedia on the
>grounds that there was no print edition available, grouping it right in
>with fobidden Geocities sites.
>
It seems to me that the professor is the one that is narrow and offside
here. There are many things that are on paper that are just as
incredible as some of the things that are on the Net.
A paper edition would be a terribly expensive undertaking, and I don't
know if we can create enough of a market to make it self-sustaining. I
forsee the CD version as a more practical goal. If these were sold for
production costs + shipping costs + a small markup to keep the project
capitalized it could be reasonably priced to the public. CD's are of no
use in the third world where very few people have computers, but once
established they may become a marketting tool for the paper edition.
A published version (whether print or CD) should also have a favourable
effect in protecting copyrights. I've mentioned before that I see the
biggest long term problem around copyrights will not be about
Wikipedians who copy material belonging to others, but about others who
(over the next 95 years) try to copyright Wikipedia material as if it
were their own. Some version published outside the Net could be used as
evidence that it was published when it was published in that medium.
One of the difficulties faced by projects which put material directly
into the public domain or into any kind of open licensing (however that
may be most broadly defined) is that nobody has enough of a vested
interest to defend the material over an extended period of time.
Altruism often withers in the face of determined self-interest.
Eclecticology