So, I just listened to part 2 of the discussion with Larry Sanger. Wow!

Larry is certainly coming into the discussions we've been having with a strong P.O.V., eh?

I think one of the key points he made that I've struggled with all along is the notion of too many cooks can spoil the broth. In other words, how do you allow anyone to be a part of the creation of a textbook and still have a resource that has a voice or flow? When you go to Wikipedia, you can read about a topic, but most people don't read about a topic and then just keep reading through topics to get a bigger picture; it's not designed to be an entertaining continuous read. Not that a textbook should be a continuous read either. But, in Wikipedia, each topic is designed to be a stand-alone topic and that's what you expect from an encyclopedia -- it is a reference manual, after all. That's not to say that everything isn't linked together; rather, it is linked, but not narratively. Good textbooks (is that an oxymoron?) tell a story. Good encyclopedias have a gazillion stories.
By sean at 2006-02-13 05:42 | miscellaneous | login or register to post comments | read more