[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia more popular than Britannica!

Wed Aug 6 17:54:33 UTC 2003

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Oliver Pereira wrote:
>
>>Since I've only just heard of these people, I may be getting this wrong,
>>but it seems from what I've been reading that there are two different
>>Safras being discussed here. The chap who died in the fire was Edmond
>>Jacob Safra (August 6, 1931 or 1932 - December 3, 1999), while the chap
>>who bought the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" is his nephew Jacob Safra (born
>>c. 1950), who as far as I can tell is still alive...
>>
>
>Ah, this warrants further investigation, then.
>
>Perhaps Jacob could get excited about much cheaper philanthropy to
>generate a superior result.  He could close the operation of
>Britannica, give the Wikimedia Foundation 1/10th of what he expects to
>lose, and authorize us to use the name.
>
>I'll be the new Mortimer Adler, it'll be fun.
>
Admittedly, I didn't look too deeply into the possibility that there 
would be two Jacob Safras.  As long as my idea remained in the realm of 
speculation it didn't matter much.   There are two kinds of ideas that 
can succeed: little conservative ones where with a lot of hard work you 
might beat them out for a single, and the hairbrained ones full of 
chutzpah that you knock right out of the park. A takeover of EB would 
clearly fall in the latter.

Whichever Safra is involved it seems clear that his takeover of EB was 
more than just a money making venture.  A great deal of prestige, 
idealism and philanthropy went into that equation.  The key to our 
winning EB could lie in how we appeal in those terms to the Safra family.  

Looking into this subject leads me into all sorts of interesting 
observations. In http://slate.msn.com/id/1003924/ there is some analysis 
of EB's failings, with suggestions that even the likes of Disney are 
salivating for EB's scraps.  But there is another observation to be 
made:  This is an msn site, and although it mentions how Encarta was 
given the encyclopedia market on a silver platter, nowhere in the 
article or in the frame is there a link to Encarta!  

Our NPOV policy and our openness are a great competitive advantage, and 
maintaining principles through periods of rapid growth will be a test 
yet to come.  I don't think that the big players in the encyclopedia 
publishing game have yet fully grasped the importance of the revolution 
in concepts of intellectual property.  Many of them may be too concerned 
with protecting fat salaries.  The information has always belonged to 
the people, and it's only the way that it is expressed that is 
copyrightable.  Until recently the people could be kept from that 
information because they did not have the means to reproduce and store 
it easily.  Before Gutenberg only the very rich and the churches had 
complete acess to knowledge, and that acess was closely guarded.  The 
churches, by guarding access to knowledge could control what knowledge 
you would be permitted.  I believe that the growth of electronic media 
allows us to go one step further.

Anyway, to get my idle speculation back on track.  I can see the 
possibility, at least initially, of EB as a separate project functioning 
as a subsidiary of Wikimedia.  It could be a profit making subsidiary, 
but it would be extremely difficult to be sure of this without knowing 
its full finacial picture, including copyright arrangements for its 
existing material.  It is conceivable that its noteworthy contributors 
may have insisted on retaining copyright as a condition of being 
published in EB.  

Asking the Safras for 1/10 of their losses is interesting, but I don't 
know if it would be necessary.  They will of course be able to take a 
big tax loss, and making sure that what we get is free from any debt 
load would be a handy feature.  An understanding that we would give a 
share of the profit to one of their favorite charities (of their choice) 
could be a convincing argument. We already have a Wikipedian who works 
for the Holocaust Museum.

It's fun to muse about these things. :-)   Do we have anybody who has 
personal contact with the Safras?

Eclecticology