[Foundation-l] Wikipedia and sustainable development

Sat Oct 2 14:39:56 UTC 2004

(just going through my mail, finally)

I think participating in tic21 is a good idea.  Even if it is only to
have a minimal
booth on the floor, to hand out wikimedia flyers; it would be worth
the cost (800
Eu, all told?) to have those contacts... and a simple target for
small-scale fundraising.

The general principles of copyleft, reusability, and preserving the
information in fields where people have expertise from their everyday
lives -- these are all  very
much in the spirit of sustainable development, so I do not think it is
a stretch to
say that Wikimedia projects strive towards those goals.

On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 01:29:15 -0700 (PDT), Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> A second newsletter will be send to all participants soon.  This newsletter will include a collection of texts written by several implicated actors, such as french administration, french academics, France Telecom, Unesco, Fing, Agora21, local committee 21 etc...
> I have been asked to participate to it for Wikipedia.
> The organiser of the meeting suggested that I explained how the website www.planetecologie.com and Wikipedia could collaborate together (an idea on which we have been working before summer), and how and if collective intelligence could possibly be useful within sustainable development.

What I would say to this is, that collective intelligence is essential
for developing
a robust social and technological infrastructure.  

There are advantages to mass production, specialization, and high
technology.  If you want these advantages without the risk of losing
the ability to recreate the tools that you use (if the wrong
specialist dies, the wrong library burns down, the wrong factory
collapses), you need a repository for collective intelligence.

If you want to be able to quickly pass on your knowlege of how to
perform certain tasks, how to create a certain social or environmental
equilibrium, you again need a repository for collective intelligence.

> However, I would love being *much* more practical, and give REAL examples of our work :
> 
> * my pet topic, the ecoregions project
> * the brand new wikispecies and the tree of life
> * the Gemet

I wish I knew more about all three of these.
Wikispecies seems to be progressing slowly; ToL is still active and
probably receptive to posts on their project talk page.
 http://species.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikispecies%3AVillage_pump
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk%3AWikiProject_Tree_of_Life
 http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion_Wikip%C3%A9dia%3AProjet%2C_Arbre_de_la_Vie

the Gemet... well, I still have no idea what that is all about.

+sj+