[Foundation-l] The Perl Wiki, or Perl-Wikipedia

Wed Jul 5 19:38:53 UTC 2006

Hello to The Wikimedia Foundation,

I'm a Systems Engineer in Pennsylvania, USA.  "Shalom" to Shlomi, in Israel, 
at http://iglu.org.il, and a "Good Day" to Jacinta, in Australia, at 
http://perl.net.au.

I don't know if Shlomi or Jacinta have read my very enthusiastic response to 
Shlomi's post on the perl.advocacy usenet, but I've begun to research my idea 
on Wikipedia, towards the creation of Perl-Wikipedia, "The Free Encyclopedia 
of Perl."

I've just joined the <foundation-I at wikimedia.org> mailing list, and I'd like 
to start a discussion with The Wikimedia Foundation on their mailing list, 
and I'm also asking my two fellow Perl advocates to participate in this 
discussion with me.

Shlomi and Jacinta both have valuable Wiki development expertise and their own 
excellent perspectives on this matter of creating "The Perl Wiki," or 
Perl-Wikipedia as I see it.

Shlomi Fish wrote in the perl.advocacy usenet:

> While I may be invoking Joel's Quarreling Kids Rule here[1], I think a
> central wiki for Perl may be a good idea, not only as a way to consolidate
> all these specialised wiki's, but also to be "The Perl Wiki" which
> everyone will refer to. We can have http://wiki.perl.org/ for easy linking
> and good Google Juice.
> 

I responded to Shlomi:

	I believe that this http://wiki.perl.org, "The Perl Wiki," is an absolute
	requirement, not an option, and I'm fully available to contribute to its
	making.  Let's add a Wiki link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl, right
	under the Website link to http://www.perl.org, and let's do it.

	I've learned a lot from Wikipedia, and I've also learned a lot about
	Wikipedia, and I just see this "The Perl Wiki" as a normal extension of
	Wikipedia, creating the Perl-Wikipedia, "The Free Encyclopedia of Perl."

	I've learned what happens on Wikipedia, where "Over 94% of all vandalism is
	removed within ten minutes" [1].  That's a very good statistic, and I've
	actually seen it happen.

	There are so many good things to come from this great idea.

	I'm in.

I'm an advocate of three global topics:

	1. The Religion called Christianity (PERSONAL TRUTH)
	2. The Free Encyclopedia called Wikipedia (PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE)
	3. The Programming Language called Perl (PERSONAL POWER)

I personally believe in and use, all three of them, all of the time.

As a result of my personal decision to commit to this next good public thing, 
I've begun to learn what I need to learn, in order to make this great idea of 
Shlomi's happen, for the sake of our global community.

Today I reviewed what I could find in Wikipedia, The Wikimedia Foundation, and 
the new project policy at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_project_policy.

I want to help create a new global topic, or a new Wikipedia subtopic, called 
The Free Encyclopedia of Perl, "'The Perl Wiki' that everyone will refer to," 
and I need everyone's help to decide how to engineer it "The Right Way."

What is "The Right Way" to create, establish or begin the foundation of "The 
Free Encyclopedia of Perl?"

Should we simply expand upon Wikipedia's Perl entry already established at 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl, opening the door to exponential growth and 
the possibly rapid consumption of The Wikimedia Foundation's valuable 
resources, or should we add an external Wiki link in Wikipedia pointing out 
to http://wiki.perl.org as "The Perl Wiki," which may or may not eventually 
become Perl-Wikipedia in the future.

Whatever solution is found, I want "The Free Encyclopedia of Perl" to be 
highly integrated with "The Free Encyclopedia," called Wikipedia, to get the 
maximum synergy of out two very good things put together for the public good.

I've come to ask the people of The Wikimedia Foundation for their expert 
opinions and guidance.  From what I've read today, advancing a new Wikimedia 
Foundation project called Perl-Wikipedia to fruition could take years, so I 
know that besides having this initial discussion, the external hosting of 
http://wiki.perl.org, "The Perl Wiki," is probably the first stage of the 
development towards my thoughts of Perl-Wikipedia, "The Free Encyclopedia of 
Perl."

I look forward to all of your valuable contributions to this discussion.

Eric R. Meyers
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