[Bug-gne]The slow death of GNE

[Bob Dodd]

Judging from Hector's mail, I would say GNE is dead or soon will be.
You cannot have a successful project when the main sponsor of the
project is not 100% committed to its ideals and to its successful
completion. Clearly RMS is not. And Hector is not. Better to call it a
day.

For the record, I do think there are differences between Nupedia and,
at least from my viewpoint, GNE. Nuipedia is a very expert-led,
academic exercise. GNE always seemed to be aiming for a broader brush
with multiple non-peer reviewed articles on a single topic. Looking at
the Nupedia website today, it is also still a project which solicits
articles from people (you do volunteer to write them, but an editor
decides if you are good enough). GNE was about unsolicited material.

There is still space for a GNE project, in fact there is a need for
one, but it needs a fully commited sponsor who is prepared to lead and
to drive the project forward.

Looking back over the last few weeks, my suspicion is that GNE was only
ever politics and not a real project, just a way of applying pressure
on Nupedia. I hope I'm wrong, but all the evidence to date does tend to
point that way: the difference between the two projects is too wide to
belive that the changes at Nupedia make GNE redundant. It reads more
like RMS got what _he_ wanted out of Nupedia, and now GNE is being
allowed to rumble on in the background with little urgency shown about
its completion (or its demise).

I feel less well disposed towards GNU as a result of this exercise.

/Bob Dodd


> Well, as you can see in the /encyclopedia directory of the GNU
> webserver,
> Nupedia is the GNU encylopedia project. So, 'what is this'??? Well,
> RMS
> said that there's no need to destroy this project. But I say that
> there's no need to have two equal projects (Jimmy has made
> everything to change the original Nupedia idea to the idea of
> GNUPedia).
> The last thing, is that RMS said that editorial control is not a bad
> idea... Make your own conclusions.
> 
> So, if you want, the GNE project will still be alive. If you want to
> work
> on it, go ahead, I'll help in everything I can. I'll also keep alive
> this mailing list. But for now, the GNU encyclopedia project is
> Nupedia.
> 
> hfa


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