--- Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)bomis.com> wrote: I don't think I agree. A name is a name is a name. It is what the name represents that matters. Coke and Dell are recognized and brand names, but not because in and of themselves the names are descriptive or "cute". They have come to represent great products as well as dynamic and innovative companies. The W is getting great name recognition already (dang, even my wife knew of it), so I think at this point, changing the name of the product would be detrimental to the project and to its potential impact. Some people are sticklers for terminology, and that is good in science and engineering, but marketing is a different beast. Take the example of Linux. What a crappy name in and of itself... What does it mean? Hard to figure how to pronounce. Hard to write if you just hear it. Yet, in the last 13 years, it's become the talk of the e-town. I would rather have a unique name that clearly lets the product stand out than a catchy name that becomes generic. ===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan(a)yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell http://www.christophermahan.com/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com

Claudine Chionh wrote: This suggests that GNU would be happy with our using the name "GNUpedia" -- and other comments by Jimmy suggest the same. It seems that there are /Wikipedians/, however, who aren't so happy with such a relationship. OTOH, perhaps they're merely anticipating others' unhappiness? Does anyone claim unhappiness on their own part? (Not that the English list is a survey of everybody, far from it.) -- Toby

Toby- Do they? Which comments are you referring to? Even so, Jimmy has already said that he would prefer to use the name Nupedia for a separate sifter project. The GNU project is very fixated on use and abuse of the right and wrong terms. See, e.g., http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/linux-gnu-freedom.html You're not supposed to say "Linux" (they tell you it's OK for the kernel, but they also frequently object in that context), you're not supposed to say "intellectual property", you're not supposed to say "open source". If we call our sifter sister "Gnupedia" they will be constantly on our back and watching that we don't do something that's not compatible with the GNU way of life. Will Richard Stallman send us threatening mails to withdraw his support and create http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gnupedia-is-not-free.html if we continue to have the main article about "Linux" under the title "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux", as he nowadays demands in virtually every interview he gives? Yes, I do anticipate that others will be uncomfortable with such a name, but I'm uncomfortable with it myself. Regards, Erik

Toby Bartels wrote: Actually, I'm one of them. The GNU people have their own agenda, and we have ours. They quite happily overlap a lot, but we aren't in any sense at all a sub-project of GNU, and so we shouldn't adopt their name. Another factor here is that the GNU people prefer people to say GNU/Linux rather than just Linux, and the reason is that a huge proportion of the code in Linux, esp. for utilities that are not in the kernel itself, is GNU/FSF code. There's no parallel here. Almost everything in wikipedia is native wikipedian. And the GNU/FSF people have contributed nothing directly, other than the license and of course the genius concept in the first place. :-) --Jimbo

tarquin wrote: Then let's make this happen! How about this: * Each article gets a pointer to its "stable" version. * A new site (NuNupedia;-) is set up with the wiki software, using the same database, with two differences: ** No editing, for noone ** Instead of displaying the current article, it displays the "stable" version * On wikipedia, a link "make this the stable version" appears for editors We'll just have to find a way to determine the editors. That aside, would that be a viable concept? I ask because it'd be dead easy to code ;-) Magnus

Magnus Manske wrote: I basically agree with y'all (Magnus, mav, and Erik). But I question this one point. The problem is, it allows only one Sifter project. That's all that we'll have to start with, and maybe that's all that we ever want, period. But in the past, we've discussed several projects -- a stable version, a peer-reviewed version, a safe-for-kids version. Allowing all of these works easiest if it's the Sifter site, not the Wikipedia site itself, where people pick versions. The true beauty of this is that somebody that hates our Sifters is now free to set up their own Sifter using our Sifter software, and choose Wikipedia articles according to their own judgements. (Let a hundred Sifters bloom.) That's good to know. Would /this/ be as easy to code: * No new links on Wikipedia (except links to the Sifter site[s], of course). * From within a Sifter site, an /editor only/ can view all Wikipedia versions, even though ordinary readers can view only the stable/safe/reviewed versions. * Again from /within/ the Sifter site, an editor viewing a Wikipedia version can choose that version to be the Sifter site's new version. * To really sweeten the deal, editors of a Sifter site can edit a Wikipedia article from within the Sifter site -- this works because the Sifter site performs the same GET and POST commands as any ordinary user would when editing the Wikipedia site. The Sifter site can even have its own log in and be registered like bots are. -- Toby

Later this week, probably on Saturday or Sunday, I'll be releasing my own vision of our roadmap to 1.0. This will not be a policy decree or the law, but just a set of personal milestones that's subject to community input and revision. But, I think people will mostly like it, because I'm going to leave all the controversial stuff out. :-) (Controversial stuff means stuff like an actual methodology for sifting/certifying. We'll do it somehow, but I'm not going to decree it this week!) Magnus Manske wrote: