[WikiEN-l] How to start a viable competitor to Wikipedia?

[Marc Riddell]

on 4/7/11 2:26 PM, David Gerard at dgerard at gmail.com wrote:

> Larry Sanger started Citizendium with a detailed plan for precisely
> how it would work, which he detailed in a Slashdot article in 2005 and
> kept firmly to. This produced the weird phenomenon where he treated
> user suggestions like they were *threats*. I just read a Paul Graham
> article which contains a line summing up the problem here:
> 
> If you want a recipe for a startup that's going to die, here it
> is: a couple of founders who have some great idea they know everyone
> is going to love, and that's what they're going to build, no matter
> what.
> 
> Knowino (and Argopedia, and the survivors of Citizendium, and everyone
> in fact) needs to look at this and see what they can do. Is there room
> in the encyclopedia game? I sure hope so. How do you beat Wikipedia?
> Work like a startup. Wikipedia now changes at dinosaur pace and seems
> utterly unable to solve the problems it knows it has, let alone the
> ones it doesn't. If room to zip around it exists, something small
> enough to be nimble can find it.
> 
> 
You're right, David. And when the dust finally settles (if it were ever
meant to settle :-)) the encyclopedic project that really works
consistently, reliably and progressively will be one that truly knows how to
work with those who create and maintain the substance of it: People. And I
will be very happy to assist this endeavor when it is started. Wikipedia is
at a standstill. The primary focus of the powers-that-be seems to be
building a donor base. But, from the top down, none has a clue how to work,
guide, collaborate, or motivate the persons who are these new donors; much
less the incredible persons that make up the existing one. This has been
pointed out time after time on this and other Lists. But the message seems
to be falling on ears tuned to a different frequency. It's in the people,
people!

Marc Riddell