Aaah, Eloïse used lmgtfy.. I'm enamoured.
I could not help chipping in with a little, hopefully genuine, authority to answer a few questions and possibly follow up with some suggestions:
- Becoming a Wikipedia editor is easy. I suggest we all do so, if only to correct spelling mistakes. Wikipedia-ing is in itself a public good.
- Wikipedia should not contain original research and should be well referenced. Therefore, as George suggests, finding the original source is invariably a more sophisticated use.. more like a review article or a book of abstracts (anybody else old enough to remember abstracts books? This is v2.0).
- Countless sessions have shown that trying to 'control' a Wikipedia page creates an isolated possession only seems meaningful for the people writing in the early stages. Opening things up and getting as many collaborators to work voluntarily and sporadically creates a more natural page _of higher quality_. The open discussion page attached to every Wikipedia page is probably useful here, too.
Therefore, even ignoring the idea of the Wiki spirit and public knowledge, beginning with a members-only mentality would be quite wrong-headed if we are interested in engaging people outside the group of writers. As Peter suggests, you can't lock down the system, man! And besides, we don't 'own' LD.
Let's see how this goes first, but please let me know if a session on Wikipidianship could be useful, and I'll call in the experts (I almost wrote 'the illuminati', but we're not supposed to know that!). Next conference?
Still swooning,
Sam
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