Durova
- Is Citizendium a snapshot of what Wikipedia's growth would have
been, if Larry Sanger had remained with the project?
Not a testable question, since Wikipedia already dominates the niche. One might also ask "Is Wikia what Wikipedia would have looked like (entertainment, sports, toys) if Larry Sanger had never been with the project?". Note in a certain way Wikia looks a lot like Bomis. (granted, it's missing the aspect of soft-core porn, err, "glamour photography", but that's likely an artifact of Google Adsense's policy restrictions)
There's many situations where a business/marketing type and an academic/creative type produce something in collaboration which is far more successful than what either ever does on their own.
It's also pretty common for those two type to have conflicts, and that usually ends with the business/marketing type working-over the academic/creative type. Wikipedia is NOT an original story there :-(.
- Will Citizendium become a top 1000 website within the next five years?
Depends on if Google does something to boost that sort of site. (I think the *real*, crucial, irreplaceable, founder of Wikipedia, is Google)
- Is debate about Sanger's and Wales's respective cofounder/founder
claims regarding Wikipedia a worthwhile endeavor?
Speaking here just as a very interested observer, apart from matters of personal injustice or formal relevance, there's many issues at the bottom of this about Wikipedia itself. To note just one, either way there's a pretty scary implication - that is, EITHER:
1) One of the most prominent and highest-ranking Wikipedia people is claiming his biography is being kept wrong, by a group favoring "a disgruntled former employee building himself a nice career on this lie"
OR
2) One of the most prominent and highest-ranking Wikipedia people is attempting to use Wikipedia to rewrite history for his own self-promotion, with only the threat of outside scandal limiting his attempts to do so "I can't {{sofixit}} without creating a media firestorm"
[I assume the infamous IRC transcripts I'm quoting are accurate] [I'm of course for case #2, but I acknowledge there's belief in case #1, which after all does include that prominent and high-ranking Wikipedian]
Though case #2 is better for Wikipedia itself than case #1, again, either way, there's something profound there.
Seth Finkelstein wrote:
- Will Citizendium become a top 1000 website within the next five years?
Depends on if Google does something to boost that sort of site. (I think the *real*, crucial, irreplaceable, founder of Wikipedia, is Google)
I think you left out "inadvertent". And in any case, let's look at the proposition. Google could turn off Wikipedia's high hits tomorrow if they wanted to. So far they haven't wanted to. They could privilege CZ pages tomorrow, also, if they wanted to. They might actually lose money on the first? They would then gain money on the second? (Really?)
Assuming the reality is that WP's high page ranking is because that is not an artefact but a situation of compatibility of Wikipedia's content model and Google's business model, you're not really expressing it the best way. It is more like symbiosis.
- Is debate about Sanger's and Wales's respective cofounder/founder
claims regarding Wikipedia a worthwhile endeavor?
Speaking here just as a very interested observer, apart from matters of personal injustice or formal relevance, there's many issues at the bottom of this about Wikipedia itself. To note just one, either way there's a pretty scary implication - that is, EITHER:
- One of the most prominent and highest-ranking Wikipedia people is
claiming his biography is being kept wrong, by a group favoring "a disgruntled former employee building himself a nice career on this lie"
OR
- One of the most prominent and highest-ranking Wikipedia people is
attempting to use Wikipedia to rewrite history for his own self-promotion, with only the threat of outside scandal limiting his attempts to do so "I can't {{sofixit}} without creating a media firestorm"
[I assume the infamous IRC transcripts I'm quoting are accurate] [I'm of course for case #2, but I acknowledge there's belief in case #1, which after all does include that prominent and high-ranking Wikipedian]
Though case #2 is better for Wikipedia itself than case #1, again, either way, there's something profound there.
Not really original to me, but "Matthews's Zeroth Law of Wikipedia" is that "everyone has some misconceptions about how Wikipedia works". (My own would be another thread.) This sort of dichotomy swiftly falls foul of the Law. Not to be too cryptic, but I think it was Manin who explained that a gyroscope seems like a messenger from another planet, because you prod it one way, it turns another. In other words if anyone tries to manipulate Wikipedia, you get a kind of "squirming in your hands" reaction.
Charles
On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 9:18 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Seth Finkelstein wrote:
- Will Citizendium become a top 1000 website within the next five
years?
Depends on if Google does something to boost that sort of site.(I think the *real*, crucial, irreplaceable, founder of Wikipedia, is
Google)
I think you left out "inadvertent". And in any case, let's look at the proposition. Google could turn off Wikipedia's high hits tomorrow if they wanted to. So far they haven't wanted to. They could privilege CZ pages tomorrow, also, if they wanted to. They might actually lose money on the first? They would then gain money on the second? (Really?)
Assuming the reality is that WP's high page ranking is because that is not an artefact but a situation of compatibility of Wikipedia's content model and Google's business model, you're not really expressing it the best way. It is more like symbiosis.
I think you were better off characterizing it as "inadvertent", though "inadvertent" only on the part of Google. Wales is no stranger to SEO, many of the early Wikipedians engaged in intentional google-bombing during the early years, and the strong suggestion at Wikipedia:Copyrights to provide a link back was quite intentionally meant to boost pagerank (and rank in other search engines). Furthermore in my opinion, Google far overvalues internal links (and did so even more during the exponential growth phase of Wikipedia), which is another factor which caused, and, to a much lesser extent continues to cause, Wikipedia to be so highly ranked. I think Google would be a better company, and make more money, if they could fix these problems, but 1) they're difficult problems to fix without introducing other problems; and 2) it's unlikely to significantly effect Wikipedia anyway - the cat's already out of the bag there.
2009/4/19 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
I think you were better off characterizing it as "inadvertent", though "inadvertent" only on the part of Google. Wales is no stranger to SEO, many of the early Wikipedians engaged in intentional google-bombing during the early years, and the strong suggestion at Wikipedia:Copyrights to provide a link back was quite intentionally meant to boost pagerank (and rank in other search engines). Furthermore in my opinion, Google far overvalues internal links (and did so even more during the exponential growth phase of Wikipedia), which is another factor which caused, and, to a much lesser extent continues to cause, Wikipedia to be so highly ranked. I think Google would be a better company, and make more money, if they could fix these problems, but 1) they're difficult problems to fix without introducing other problems; and 2) it's unlikely to significantly effect Wikipedia anyway - the cat's already out of the bag there.
Whuh? Wikipedia's Google ranking was ridiculously bad through 2004-2005. A search on a piece of text from Wikipedia would typically list three pages of mirror sites before it listed Wikipedia itself. It's dubious that Jimbo really caused such fantastic SEO, or that he could effectively apply it so late.
I know some Wikipedians were asking Google "wtf? Could you at least not rank us three pages behind our own mirrors?"
But the thing is: huge popularity for the wikipedia.org website isn't necessarily a win for Wikipedia and writing an encyclopedia. Mostly it's been an expensive pain in the arse.
- d.
On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 4:20 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I know some Wikipedians were asking Google "wtf? Could you at least not rank us three pages behind our own mirrors?"
And Google complied, implementing a duplicate content penalty which eliminated mirrors and forks alike (and is probably hurting Citizendium right this very moment). My point exactly.
But the thing is: huge popularity for the wikipedia.org website isn't
necessarily a win for Wikipedia and writing an encyclopedia. Mostly it's been an expensive pain in the arse.
Agreed, but the question this thread came from was implicitly equating popularity with success: "Will Citizendium become a top 1000 website within the next five years?"
On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 8:35 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 4:20 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I know some Wikipedians were asking Google "wtf? Could you at least not rank us three pages behind our own mirrors?"
And Google complied, implementing a duplicate content penalty which eliminated mirrors and forks alike (and is probably hurting Citizendium right this very moment). My point exactly.
I thought Citizendium had declined to copy any Wikipedia content. How then could such a algorithm tweak matter to them?
(I will note that things have gotten much better. Back in 2004 or so if I had ran a Google search for [[Medici Bank]], the results would've been all cluttered up by mirrors of WP; but now it's pretty rare to run into a mirror, and I think the last one I found unbidden was Wapedia, which admittedly isn't exactly the same content as WP.)
Anthony wrote:
Agreed, but the question this thread came from was implicitly equating popularity with success: "Will Citizendium become a top 1000 website within the next five years?"
heheh
This raises a burning curiosity in my lower cogitative faculties, in finding out who the top websites holding on to placements 9996; 9997; 9998; 9999, and 1000 & 1001 are at present... ( Wednesday, 22. 4. 2009 )?
Heehee.
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
P.S. ...and does anyone consider those sites parts of the zeitgeist?
2009/4/17 Seth Finkelstein sethf@sethf.com:
It's also pretty common for those two type to have conflicts,and that usually ends with the business/marketing type working-over the academic/creative type. Wikipedia is NOT an original story there :-(.
Of course the problem with that description was that Larry was involved in conflicts with other wikipedians.
Larry's position was never long term stable. If you look at how the foundation interacts with the community these days it's either through pronouncements or through indirect social networks.
- Will Citizendium become a top 1000 website within the next five years?
Depends on if Google does something to boost that sort of site.(I think the *real*, crucial, irreplaceable, founder of Wikipedia, is Google)
No. Looking at yahoo and MSN it's pretty clear that anything close to a normal search algorithm will tend to favor wikipedia for certain types of searches.
- Is debate about Sanger's and Wales's respective cofounder/founder
claims regarding Wikipedia a worthwhile endeavor?
Speaking here just as a very interested observer, apart frommatters of personal injustice or formal relevance, there's many issues at the bottom of this about Wikipedia itself. To note just one, either way there's a pretty scary implication - that is, EITHER:
- One of the most prominent and highest-ranking Wikipedia people is
claiming his biography is being kept wrong, by a group favoring "a disgruntled former employee building himself a nice career on this lie"
OR
- One of the most prominent and highest-ranking Wikipedia people is
attempting to use Wikipedia to rewrite history for his own self-promotion, with only the threat of outside scandal limiting his attempts to do so "I can't {{sofixit}} without creating a media firestorm"
[I assume the infamous IRC transcripts I'm quoting are accurate] [I'm of course for case #2, but I acknowledge there's belief in case #1, which after all does include that prominent and high-ranking Wikipedian]
Though case #2 is better for Wikipedia itself than case #1,again, either way, there's something profound there.
Except several years behind the times. The community has dealt with the issue and from what I've seen Jimbo has been back peddling of late.
geni
Seth Finkelstein wrote: It's also pretty common for those two type to have conflicts, and that usually ends with the business/marketing type working-over the academic/creative type. Wikipedia is NOT an original story there :-(.
Of course the problem with that description was that Larry was involved in conflicts with other wikipedians.
And Jimbo has been involved in conflicts too (note I'm not talking about V-wag stuff, but higher-level matters). Don't think the present is somehow inevitable. If Sanger had stayed on, those early conflicts would be minimized or forgotten.
Depends on if Google does something to boost that sort of site.(I think the *real*, crucial, irreplaceable, founder of Wikipedia, is Google)
No. Looking at yahoo and MSN it's pretty clear that anything close to a normal search algorithm will tend to favor wikipedia for certain types of searches.
Yahoo and Microsoft have copied Google's weighting and factors somewhat, in what seems to be a deliberate strategy that people have been trained by Google to "expect" that sort of result, and it would be too risky to deviate radically. But this does not prove any "normal" search algorithm will do that. Many sites - Open Directory, technorati, blog aggregators - have found themselves ranked highly for a time ... and then not.
One reason I think projects such as _Citizendium_ are important is that they provide at least some practical counter-argument to the monopolistic tendencies of Wikipedia-hype. Which comes back to the original question about the success of _Citizendium_, and that being bound up in some very subtle decisions about Google's algorithm.
Speaking here just as a very interested observer, apart from matters of personal injustice or formal relevance, there's many issues at the bottom of this about Wikipedia itself. ...
Except several years behind the times. The community has dealt with the issue and from what I've seen Jimbo has been back peddling of late.
Well, let's see if this issue has indeed been "dealt with". It's only been a few days from the most recent skirmish.
Seth Finkelstein wrote:
One reason I think projects such as _Citizendium_ are important is that they provide at least some practical counter-argument to the monopolistic tendencies of Wikipedia-hype. Which comes back to the original question about the success of _Citizendium_, and that being bound up in some very subtle decisions about Google's algorithm.
Certainly CZ is potentially important: if it manages a "proof of concept" success for a somewhat different model of encyclopedia-wiki writing, then the whole debate moves on a notch. And you could say the same thing about Google knols: these things are field-tests of ideas that differ in some significant ways from the WP model. CZ ducked the issue of forking WP, which remains a major possibility that has not been tried.
I'm not really following you, though, in that "counter-argument" I see (plenty enough of it in the archives of this list), and "practical" as in field-test I also see as just stated. If you think of Sanger as producing a "practical counter-argument" over at Citizendium, then I guess you buy his whole side of the story. In our (WP) terms we would wonder: is there not a CZ community that has a mind of its own? Where are the Citizens in this discussion? Do they see the Wales-Sanger foundation spat as something fundamental (as you seem to)? Or would they see it as something quite aside from the main reason CZ is there? In this light, if I may quote from Wikipedia article [[founder syndrome]]: "Without an effective decentralized decision making process there will be growing conflict between the newcomers, who want a say in how the organization develops and the founder who continues to dominate the decision making process." Interesting to ponder where this hits home harder.
I wouldn't know about the more subtle aspects of PageRank, and I suppose Google doesn't want me to. It might be coarse, of course. We learned at Wikipedia to write as hypertext from early on (mav and summary style comes to mind). We had many short articles instead of one big one one. Wikipedia is shrubland rather than a grove of sequoias. I imagine this all matters.
Charles