Why would we want to merge? It seems like an excellent project with its own merits which might provide both opportunities and information to us over time. Fred At 01:41 PM 1/9/03 +0000, you wrote:

I guess I don't know what an ENPF is. Anyway, it has been my experience that alternative ways of doing things generally work out real good for everyone. I know when I want to buy something or look something up trying several sources works better than going to just one place. If Sam Walton had not "reinvented the wheel" we'd still be paying $4 for a tube of toothpaste. (At least here where I live). To get back to the original issue. Open-site seems to be a much more controlled environment than wikipedia, kind of like Nupedia or the sort of thing that Larry is always advocating. It will work out different (actually I think it will fail dismally, but that is a different matter). If they wanted a more free-wheeling situation they could have choosen that but they didn't. If we merge then I suppose we could tighten up our operation or they could loosen theirs, but then both choices are lost and we just have an "elephant" (the animal built by a committee). We are actally very early in the evolution of on-line reference. There is no reason not to try different things out and see how they work. Fred

Because they may be better. Because it is fun. It's my way or the highway that is not healthy, not competition. Variety is the spice of life. Fred

Ah, but the conditions are not the same. On open-site one applies to be an editor and in a specific area. God knows what the criteria are. On wikipedia the article can be expanded or changed by anyone, even an anonymous editor (or perhaps cannot be changed if someone is strongly defending it). On open-site only an approved editor can change it and who knows how the interaction between editors would be structured. Two varieties Depends on his needs and the importance of the lookup. We'd be back to the "encyclopedia google", eventually ;-) Under the gnu licence that's where were going anyway. True Fred

Open-site.org has almost no content. Let's let them go their way and we go ours. Let a thousand flowers bloom (or wither). Tom Parmenter Ortolan88 |From: Magnus Manske <magnus.manske(a)epost.de> |X-Accept-Language: de-de, en-us, en |Sender: wikipedia-l-admin(a)wikipedia.org |Reply-To: wikipedia-l(a)wikipedia.org |Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2003 19:34:24 +0100 | |Fred Bauder wrote: | |>>Why should I waste an afternoon researching an article, if someone at |>>this other project might have done the same already? |>>Why should someone at that project put time into writing articles from |>>scratch, when we already have them? |>> |>>I do not think that competition is necessarily healthy. |>> |>> |> |>Because they may be better. |> |>Because it is fun. |> |>It's my way or the highway that is not healthy, not competition. |> |>Variety is the spice of life. |> |> |Variety is good, but I don't see a point in just *writing* an article on |a topic if there's already an article somewhere else, available under |the same (?) conditions, that can be changed or expanded. Two varieties |of the same topic would also be bad for the user, because he'd have to |look up both. We'd be back to the "encyclopedia google", eventually ;-) | |Where variety would be useful is in the *presentation* and |*reliability*. That's why I suggested the merge of that new project with |the not-really-existing Sifter. | |Magnus | |_______________________________________________ |Wikipedia-l mailing list |Wikipedia-l(a)wikipedia.org |http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l |