[WikiEN-l] NuNotNuPedia (again)

Mon Oct 24 10:21:06 UTC 2005

Charles Matthews wrote:
>David Gerard wrote

>>There's probably a happy medium between Wikipedia and Nupedia,
>>actually. I can easily picture something using MediaWiki or a variant
>>with a workflow something like Wikinews. Get academics to write and
>>sign articles. Release the results under GFDL and maybe CC-by-sa.
>>Source Wikipedia articles (under GFDL only, of course) that pass
>>muster. It could be quite complementary to Wikipedia.

>From where I sit, surveying the mathematics coverage, there are a few
>reasons for doubting the scenario:
>1. A moderated site, PlanetMath, has done good work, without attracting
>people as good as WP-en has
>2. Their articles are worthy but easy to improve with freer editing
>3. We are beginning to get more articles about current research, the real
>USP for a hot site

ooh, I didn't consider that one. That would be straddling the edge of
No Original Research, of course ...

>Academics who even consider doing pro bono expository work have of course a
>free choice.  They all have departmental web space; if they just want to
>write surveys and essays, they can post there easily.

Yes, but so few do ... Wikipedia somehow motivates them to start, but
then to get annoyed when people ruin their beautiful prose. I'd
actually like them to do so more, because then the pages would be more
useful as references!

- d.