Re: Langmaker and FrathWiki (was Re: Wikipedia:Verifiability - Mailing lists as sources)

On 29.2.2008 Sai Emrys wrote:
 > Whereas you assign (primary?) value simply to its
 > existence in its historical *form*, which to me is
 > completely irrelevant. I respect those who have done that
 > work before, and I want to preserve their *functional*
 > contributions (i.e. the information), but I do not value
 > the *form* thereof at all. (And even feel that if
 > preserving the form means it languishing unread or unused,
 > it's being done a disservice.)
 >

The problem is that even if I think the form of some
articles on FW is suboptimal it is the form their authors
have given them, and as such the authors are attached to
them. Even though in theory anyone can edit any article the
practice is not to make 'improvements' to what others have
authored, out of respect for their creative choices. It
would be a whole other thing if someone *asked* someone
else to touch up their articles, which AFAIK hasn't
happened any much.

That's why I said that an amalgamation project as you
suggest would require *everyone's* cooperation. Even if one
doesn't share or understand other people's feelings towards
their work it behooves one to respect it. Surely the share-
alike license would allow one to make a new site *in
addition* to the old sites where one massages their content
ruthlessly to conform to one's ideas of optimal form, but
doing so would create chaos and resentment.

It may be that in this case the good is the enemy of the
best, but since we are not Vulcans it must be so.

/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Truth, Sir, is a cow which will give [skeptics] no
more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull."
                            -- Sam. Johnson (no rel. ;)

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