[Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia subset proposal

Tue Nov 5 16:00:27 UTC 2002

> From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
>
> Larry Sanger wrote:
> > > It should not go under the name nupedia, nor should it go under the
> > > name wikipedia, but something else. According to network solutions
> > > metapedia.com is owned, but metapedia.org and metapedia.net are
> > > available.  Hyperpedia.org is also a good name and available.
> >
> > We clearly need Jimbo to reply on this point.  I've got a few name
> > ideas myself.
>
> I have no opinion at the present time.  I am intending to revive
> Nupedia in the near future, in some fashion, and I am thinking very
> much along the lines of what is being discussed here.  Therefore, I
> think that Nupedia might be the right vehicle for this in the first
> place.

Then here's what I propose.  Magnus, Lee, and I (and anyone else who wants
to, I guess!) will hammer out a test version of the software.

We'll set up a mailing list for the project, in which the new project's
policy (and name), etc., will be discussed.  I'll announce the mailing
list on Wikipedia-l, Nupedia-l, and Advisory-l.

> From: Gareth Owen <wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk>
>
> Larry Sanger <lsanger at seeatown.com> writes:
>
> > I remember that several Nupedia editors and reviewers came out very strongly
> > against having any association with Wikipedia, and at least one (or was it
> > two?) of them threatened to quit
>
> Given the amount of progress they've made on Nupedia, how would we tell?

FYI, the reasons for the scant progress are (1) the editorial process was
complicated.  That doesn't mean that we couldn't make progress in the
future with a simpler system and that someone who has put in hours of work
on Nupedia wouldn't be missed in the future.  And (2) the whole process
was top-down, and once it became clear that I had been more or less
reassigned to Wikipedia, all but a few just stopped working.  Again, that
doesn't mean they're not there and waiting, and that they wouldn't be
missed in the future if they quit now.

A lot of people are unjustly critical of Nupedia when they don't realize
that it was *always* a project in development, that we were generally
quite open to adjustments to make the project better--and just when we
were making a move to simplify the project, with everybody's blessing,
money ran out, and no one volunteered for the full-time unpaid job of
leading the newly-reorganized project.  So don't blame Nupedia for its
stasis.  Blame the bursting of the Internet bubble, if you want to blame
anything!

Larry
-- 
"We have now sunk to a depth at which the re-statement of the obvious is
the first duty of intelligent men." --George Orwell