[Wikipedia-l] Do we really need a Sifter project?

Sun Jul 27 11:58:55 UTC 2003

Erik wrote:
>I know, but what's the point? 
>Why not just kill off Nupedia and 
>advertise Wikipedia as a single project? 

The point is that a main criticism I always here about Wikipedia is that it is 
largely not written by people trained in the areas they are writting. But 
that is the whole point of Nupedia. Therefore we take the best of Wikipedia 
and put it through the expert approval process and the result is something 
that can't be criticized for that reason. Also having a different name makes 
it clear that those articles are different than regular Wikipedia ones (a 
"stable" Wikipedia article is an oxymoron anyway). 

>If Wikipedia is not simple enough, not easy  
>enough to use for the kind of experts who 
>can help in certification, then it seems we 
>should make it simple enough -- perhaps by 
>having a special skin for the purpose. 
>See, my main concern is about having 
>separate communities.

We already have the experts - let's use them in Nupedia, revive the Nupedia 
brand as a stable, experted-approved distribution of Wikipedia and that will 
attract even more experts. All editing will still be on Wikipedia so every 
Nupedian is also a Wikipedian. I see this as setting-up great synergies 
between the two projects.

>I feel that getting the experts hooked 
>on Wikipedia might be way cooler.

See above. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)