On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 12:36 PM, wiki <doc.wikipedia(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
>[...]
> If I dare to be a seer, I worry about software that looks increasingly 2004
> in a Facebook world.
Let me focus that a bit, if you don't mind -
Craigslist looks like 1997; other than the occasional image change for
the logo, Google's main search page and its results look like about
2000 still (and not much different, to me, than AltaVista did shortly
after it launched, though it's subtly better in many ways).
Yahoo has a lot more modern interface design than its competitors; it
must be successful, right?
I believe that from a user (reader) point of view, Wikipedia is
suitably capable from an interface standpoint.
>From a user (editor) point of view, there is a distinct remaining lack
of WYSIWIG and steep learning curve. Our existing editor base are
"used to it", but I always wonder if we're not losing significant
potential contributors from the Facebook generation who aren't willing
to put up with learning our syntax.
General worry? No. Discouraged potential contributor worry? Yes.
> And I'd be interested to wonder what other nightmares of the future keep the
> Wiki-saints in fear and trembling.
Community actually hitting a consensus management barrier, though I
predict we'd muddle through a representative system of some sort if
push came to shove.
Someone (else) doing a WYSIWIG, sematic / fact based competitor with
at least equal participant community access and a dump of our database
as a seed point, with a way for them to do AI-scanned update
management from the Wikipedia pages.
Expanding - Wikipedia is several things - an online encyclopedia (the
actual article content, images, etc), a software system for managing
that content, and a community that does the management. What's
functionally critical are the content and the community, though the
software is an enabler. If people could walk across the street to
NextPedia and have a really snazzy UI experience to updating the
shared content and still have the supportive and managing functions of
the community...
Wikipedia NG discussions are a perennial favorite, and always hit a
tactical wall. Strategically, I feel that's a mistake. Not that I
can wave a magic wand and fix it, but it always worries me.
--
-george william herbert
george.herbert(a)gmail.com