[WikiEN-l] The viable competitors to Wikipedia.

[Bob the Wikipedian]

A relatively successful wiki competitor is the Encyclopedia of Life. 
Here's how that site works:
*Experts write articles (similar to the original Nupedia, only they 
dint' give up after nine articles)
*Articles that are lacking are temporarily imported from Wikipedia
*Wikipedia articles which are reviewed and approved by experts become 
permanent content
*Taxonomic data is imported from various databases, including WORMS, 
ITIS, and various other trusted names.
*The public (supposedly) may contribute information (though I've not 
figured out how yet)
*The public may contribute tagged freely licensed photos to the wiki by 
uploading them to the EOL's Flickr photostream where a bot adds them 
regularly.

On the surface, EOL looks like it's doing quite well and has a lot of 
useful information and photos, and I even use it sometimes for research 
when Wikipedia doesn't satisfy my hunger :-[ . But if you ask me, 
they've made it too difficult to learn to contribute, barring out 
potential editors like myself.

God bless,
Bob

On 4/8/2011 4:58 PM, MuZemike wrote:
> That wouldn't solve anything, except further draw a hard line and create
> an even larger rift between editors. If we strive to be an "open
> community" where we bring people together, then we would collectively be
> making it more closed by doing this.
>
> -MuZemike
>
> On 4/8/2011 1:26 PM, David Goodman wrote:
>> I've also suggested this, calling it  '''Wikipedia Two'' - an
>> encyclopedia supplement where the standard of notability  is much
>> relaxed, but which will be different from Wikia by still requiring
>> WP:Verifiability, and NPOV. It would include the lower levels of
>> barely  notable articles in Wikipedia, and the upper levels of a good
>> deal of what we do not let in.  It would for example include both high
>> schools and elementary schools. It would include college athletes. It
>> would include political candidates. It would include neighborhood
>> businesses, and fire departments.  It would include individual
>> asteroids. It would include anyone who had a credited role in a film,
>> or any named character in one--both the ones we currently leave out,
>> and the ones we put in.  This should satisfy both the inclusionists
>> and the deletionists. The deletionists will have this material out of
>> Wikipedia, the inclusionists will have it not rejected.
>>
>> But it would be interesting to see a search option:
>> Do you want to see everything (WP+WP2), or only the notable(W)?
>> Anyone care to guess which people would choose?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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