I just want to say, this thread has made me SO happy and confident about the future of the world. The issues of sockpuppets and cabals look alot less scary whene we're reminded that Wikipedia is not the only wany of organizing the world's information.
Wikinfo, I think, is a very very valuable thing that needed doing. Who said NPOV has to be the best way of presenting the world's information?? Surely, there's room in any good paper for both the News section and the Editorial section.
Veriopedia, meanwhile, considered that maybe having any encyclopedia where "there is no deadline" aren't the best ways to do things-- maybe it would be better to have articles that are peer-reviewed prior to publication, and frozen. This would be horrible if it were the ONLY 'peidia on the block, but combined with Wikipedia, I think they're two great tastes that go great together.
Citzenpedia is another really interesting way of writing a project. Suppose "Anyone can edit" isn't the best way to present the world's information, and "Deferring to credentialed experts" is a better way to do things. This cuts out all the problems of outing, socks, and vandalize, but of course, Citzenpedia would never be able to have the breadth of Wiikipedia.
And then, there's our beloved wikipedia, which is the project I personally am most attracted to. Cabals and secret mailing lists asside, there's only SO much damage that can any cabal could do. NPOV,or attempted NPOV, is the style of writing I most prefer, so while I value Wikinfo's existence, it's not the ony I'm drawn to. I feel stongly that "who you are" shouldn't affect "how your work is judged" so Citzenpedia doesn't appeal to me as much. Veropedia, or something like it, is going to be an essential partnert to wikipedia. We need a *pedia where "If you see it in THE SUN it's so."-- Wikipedia can never achieve this goal, but we can be an ESSNENTIAL half of the process.
On 12/5/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not yet convinced that the world needs two community-edited encyclopaedias. I wonder if someone will attempt a project to fuse them. Maybe such a thing already exists: browse both in parallel, every time you click a link it looks in both of them. Maybe we should be considering interwiki links to CZ? The information would still be separate, and we could still distinguish between the models used to create it.
I can't TELL You how happy this would make me. The copyright issues would have to be resolved, so that people could free to copy text back and forth, but I would LOVE to see Wikipedia just be one of a family of wikis with close ties, where you could easily see if some other project had a take on the same subject. I'm convinced that this, or something like it, is the next step-- Web 3.0 or whatever you want to call it. Where one could jump from "which editoral policies you want to see" just as easily as one can currently jump from which language you want to see.
And then, it takes the pressure off everybody. I don't have to fight the secret mailing lists quite as hard, because any "cabal" can only affect one FLAVOR of the content. The vandal-fighters don't have to have quite as much pressure on them, beause the other flavors exist to sort out only the "good portions" of wikipedia, discarding the vandalism. The badsites advocates wouldn't have to fight as hard because they could make their own flavor that doesn't link to badsites, and the anti-badsites advocates and censorship-phobics wouldn't have to stress as much, because they could make their own "uncensored" versions of articles where the information could still get out.
I don't know if anyone is enthusiastic about Steve's idea fof inter-wiki links as much as I am, but I think he's hit on the first step to the next wonderful beautiful evolution of the wiki, andthat is BEYOND wonderful.
Alec
Wikipedia would stilll be the one I'd be drawn to contribute to in most cases, but
I'm split by Larry's email because the truth is, I on a personal emotional level, like the Wikipedia model best of any I've seen. .