[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time

Wed Mar 16 15:44:04 UTC 2005

Matt wrote:

> The problem with a fork is that you'd leave most of the
> community behind, and the community is A) large, B) full
> of experts in obscure topics, and C) knowledgable about
> the state of existing WP articles.
> 
> Having "stable-development" branches for articles seemed
> an excellent idea, and would effectively be an "in-
> project" fork...is this still under consideration?

I prefer the idea of "branching": we're writing
encyclopedia articles, not computer software. I don't
want to leave the community behind at all.

The foundation plans to hire professional editors and
writers. They'll create, say, an additional 4,000
articles (on lofty topics, no doubt ;-) and also
choose a subset of the half million Wikipedia articles
to whip into shape.

But I'm recommending to the foundation that any
articles it revises be posted back to Wikipedia
immediately - as opposed to waiting until their
publication day. (I don't know the legal niceties; is
prompt re-publication a requirement, or can they hang
on to their version in-house till the last minute?)
BOTH projects would surely benefit from this cross-
pollination.

I'd like to do whatever I can to reduce the 'forkiness' of 
the foundation's project and increase the 'give-and-take-iness' 
of it. Collaboration has been the key of Wikipedia's success; 
let's not change horses in midstream.

Ed Poor