On 08/27/2010 04:12 AM, David Gerard wrote:
It's not clear there's room for another
general encyclopedia on the
web. What they're describing Webypedia as sounds a bit like Knol,
which was more like an unmoderated
about.com than a Wikipedia
competitor per se. (The notion that it was a Wikipedia competitor was
entirely media-originated as they desperately cast about for something
to say about it, and not from anything Google or Wikipedia said at any
time.)
This is actually an area I think there is some opening to "compete" with
Wikipedia in a sense, by providing more essayish articles by a
individuals giving their takes on a subject, which tend to be a bit more
coherent, with more personality, stronger stands/opinions, etc. Of
course, it's better if most of the articles are reasonably good.
That idea actually predates Wikipedia, though, and imo it hasn't been
much improved by these new entrants. I still find Everything2 and h2g2,
both late-1990s projects, to be the most successful of the
user-produced, non-wiki "webs of knowledge", and I still refer to them
now and then. Am I missing new innovations in this area?
-Mark