[WikiEN-l] Citizendium vs. Wikipedia

[doc]

David Gerard wrote:
> Yes. This is a fallacy we see over and over: "Wikipedia would be so
> much better if you did X for the writers." Whereas that doesn't serve
> the readers, so is why we don't do it. So other projects come along
> that will do X for the writers, and fail to gain traction. Knol is the
> highest-profile failure so far - untrammeled freedom for the writers
> has made it a spam repository.
> 
> 
> - d.
> 

Ultimately, I think this is true. Almost....

Wikipedia has cornered the market in "huge coverage, but somewhat 
questionable reliability" online encyclopedias. Whilst it is true that 
Wikipedia could be improved on and a Wikipedia+ system devised, it will 
fail. Just as surely as any new operating system will fail if it tries 
to sell itself as "Windows but a bit better". The saturation of the 
established product will squash it. This is also why content forking is 
quite useless. The only hope for An Other is to offer an entirely 
different formula from "huge coverage, but somewhat questionable 
reliability". (If you up the reliability by selecting your writers, then 
your coverage will be proportionately decreased anyway.)

You would need to be able to offer a product which was *substantially* 
more reliable, but still wide and participatory enough not just to be 
another Veropedia. If you could do that, comparisons with wikipedia 
would be pointless - the point would be that people looking for 
reliable, citable, material on any core subject would use that 
encyclopedia in preference to/or alongside Wikipedia. That Wikipedia had 
100 times more articles would be beside the point.

(It is interesting to consider what would happen if Encarta had been 
made available and maintained free to use by Microsoft - perhaps ad 
funded - it might well have taken the business from Wikipedia on many 
core topics.)

I'd say that "the reader question" is less pertinent for any start up 
than the "writer question". Readers will not be interested until you 
have enough writers to produce the goods, and do so in a reliable way. 
So you really need to find a motivation to make qualified people want to 
contribute (or Wikipedia's best to switch). Ultimately, having a lot of 
readers will do that, but any start up needs initially to offer 
something else to the writer.

There are two things which motivate people - fame and money. Wikipedia 
offers neither. It is not impossible that a formula could emerge that 
allows revenue to the writer or the writer to get the type of kudos that 
is bankable on a CV. Knowl and CZ have both realised this - but neither 
seems to have got the formula right. (If, indeed, it is possible to.)

The Other does not need to think in terms of replacing Wikipedia - or 
scoring more Goggle juice. Success is where someone looking for a source 
they can quote in their school essay says "better try Otherpedia.com".

Indeed would it not be great if in ten years time I can google a 
subject, easily find the wikipedia article, and then, if the subject is 
not so obscure that only Wikipedia will cover it, follow the link to the 
academically respectable Otherpedia.com article (which, indeed, is 
reliable enough to have been allowed as a source for Wikipedia)!