[WikiEN-l] A future for Nupedia?

Tue Sep 7 23:45:13 UTC 2004

>>> Having an article only gives the impression to readers 
>>> that we tolerate junk.

>> Which is good.  If we give the impression to readers
>> that we tolerate only full-grown complete articles,
>> we will detract contributors who are perhaps not quite
>> as good a writer as they would like to be.

> Exactly. This is why Nupedia failed.

That may be one of the reasons why the early attempt at
Nupedia failed, but the idea behind Nupedia still lives.
Haven't many of us discussed some form of stable Wikipedia
1.0, which has some form of peer-review above the usual? 
And perhaps Nupedia was a bit premature, as we were asking
volunteers to start from zero.

Wikipedia has grown immensely in the last few years. The
number of people with serious academic credentials who have
some favorable opinion of it has probably grown by an order
of magnitude as well. Now that a huge amount of open-source
material is already available here, it should be easier to
re-kindle the Nupedia project today.  The idea would be
much more attractive this time around, as (on many
subjects) people wouldn't have to start from scratch.
Contributors could take a series of Wikipedia articles (if
they wished) and use this text as a launching pad for their
own work.

Like Larry Sanger, I am still concerned about the long-term
prestige of Wikipedia. As long as many contributors don't
reference their claims, and don't rely on published
authorities (at least to some extent), then many people in
academic won't take our articles seriously. But using
Wikipedia as an open-source feeder for growing Nupedia
articles leverages everyone's efforts; the whole could be
much greater than the sum of its parts.

Nupedia might not have worked then. But one or two years
from now it might be the perfect idea.

Robert (RK)

=====
I’m astounded by people who want to "know" the universe when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown. - Woody Allen

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