Interview: Wikipedia's founder on Wikia Green - SmartPlanet.com Options

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•Interview: Wikipedia's founder on Wikia Green
SmartPlanet.com, UK -2 minutes ago
Wikipedia's founder has launched a community for all things green. Like Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales' new Wikia Green can be edited by anyone, but it's built to ...[/size][/font]

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[thekohser]

There's some classic stuff from Jimbo in this one, folks.

Were you seeing maybe an increased interest in green topics on Wikipedia? What sparked your interest in launching this?

Wales: One of the funny things about Wikipedia is I have no idea what the traffic is. We don't even track those kinds of numbers... This was sparked initially by a conversation with Al Gore last year just before he won the Nobel Prize. He said there should be a green wiki...We discussed it some and I decided hey, this is a good idea.

In one response Jimbo sounds ignorant (of traffic stats of the website on which he serves as a Board member), insulting of the volunteers ("we don't even track those kinds of numbers" sure might piss off a few workers who took the time to track it hourly), and all-too-glad to name drop (Al Gore, Jimbo? Are you really playing the Al Gore card?)

What personal interest do you have in green topics and sustainability? Are you measuring your carbon footprint and trying to offset it?

Wales: Yes, I'm doing some things like that...At Wikia we're going through a process of trying to be certified as a green company...I come to this as an outsider. I'm part of that broad general public saying there's something really important and I want to learn more. It's time to wake up and do something. I'm finding it hard to get educated because the information is so disparate. I saw a need where people could come together and really clarifying and documenting all this kind of information.

Well, if Wikia can do anything, we know it's clarify information.

Do you use any green servers, for instance, on the back-end are there efficiency features in terms of the hardware used to support all this?

Wales: No, we're looking into those kinds of things.

+++ *** +++ ***

Something I found interesting about the new Green Wikia is that (for example) this page about How to reduce your carbon footprint takes content ("a significant benefit for those who aren't in shape") verbatim from the site WikiHow. Now, WikiHow releases their content under a Creative Commons license that says "You must not use the content for commercial purposes."

Do you think that Wikia will say that they goofed in stealing the content, or will they say that they intend for Green Wikia to be a not-for-profit arm of Wikia, Inc., or will they say that this is just "typeset recycling" (a new form of conservation)?

I'll try to find out.

Greg