On 12/28/2010 9:40 PM, Anthony wrote:
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 9:28 PM, MuZemikemuzemike@gmail.com wrote:
We must also take into account the popularity factor when it comes to comparing WMF wikis. It is obvious of the advantage Wikipedia has over all the other wikis in that is immensely more popular and is received much more widely than all other wikis.
You think popularity is the cause of Wiktionary sucking? I think it's the effect.
In a sense, yes. The amount of influence and power Wikipedia yields on the rest of the Internet is amazing; we may not be aware of that as we tend to naturally look from the inside out and not from the rest of the world's POV.
And I feel that does get in the way of us trying to organize the information we have put together so far (as we humans like to do) - words and definitions in one place (the dictionary), basic descriptions of topics (the encyclopedia) in another place, locations (an atlas or gazetteer, which we still yet to find a way to incorporate a wiki structure for something like that), and so on.
I know people don't like what I say when I sometimes tell them to think of Wikipedia (or whichever wiki you are working on) sans the high search rankings, popularity, etc., and just concentrate on the content itself. Are we organizing the information in the most efficient and logical ways we can? Are we maintaining a stable and sustainable wiki in both content and community? I feel those are the questions we ultimately, as a collection of wiki communities, need to always keep in mind.
-MuZemike