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

[George Herbert]

On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 11:53 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> On 04/08/11 5:55 PM, Mike Dupont wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 4:17 AM, Ray Saintonge<saintonge at telus.net>  wrote
>>> A fork could
>>> easily start with copied material which from that moment would evolve
>>> differently. They may choose to abandon NPOV.  Having several sites that
>>> freely and independently do this would in fact put our own NPOV in a
>>> broader perspective.
>> What do you think about having multiple consistent points of view on tricky
>> subjects, on some things, for example my favorite kosovo topic, it is very
>> very hard to find any neutral point of view and the articles on that subject
>> are widely separated. Some like the main article are vaguely neutral, and
>> most of the smaller articles are really not. There are not even any
>> consistent policing of them or manpower to do it.
>> I would like to see some way to identify and isolate fragments of things
>> that are not neutral, but clearly mark on what point of view they represent.
>> That would allow for a clear separation of the one side, "Kosovo is serbia"
>> and marking and clearly giving them a say on the matter, and also another
>> point of view, "Kosovo is free" with equal rights in speaking, at least that
>> would give a way to manage the discussion. Right now you have a big mess
>> where the two sides are just mixed up and each side is basically fighting on
>> wikipedia.
>>
> I like the idea, but even there you'll find varying degrees of support
> for each side with the moderates unable to accept any more extreme views.


You're reasonably likely to find content peace treaties among those
"on the same side" but more or less extreme in their beliefs, in my
experience.

In some topics, the moderates band together against both extremes;
those areas work well in Wikipedia now.  Mike's idea would better
cover the first case.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com