Hi all,
I, with Richard Austin, would like to announce the public launch of "Epistemia", a new Internet-wiki-based encyclopedia project which may be found on the Web at http://epistemia.org/. Some of the project's distinguishing features include:
- users are required to log in before being permitted to edit; - civil and polite conduct is required, and no tolerance is shown for those people whose intention is to cause disruption or damage; - people with administrative privileges are required to use their real names as their account names, with few exceptions; - the project places a high emphasis on developing and maintaining content according to established scholarly standards; and - policy (content, community, and project standards), which is still in development, is outlined clearly and simply on a single page.
Wikipedia has undoubtedly proved the value of the wiki content production model, but it suffers from a number of damning flaws. Most serious is the negativity of the participatory culture that has developed on Wikipedia—incivility is rampant in discussions, logical, reasoned arguments are commonly ignored, and people acting maliciously or disruptively are tolerated far in excess of common sense. Governance is another issue, with the project led, not by the most knowledgeable people, but by the people with the most spare time and the loudest voices. Also of much concern, especially to academia, is the lack of consistent adherence to the conventional quality expectations associated with professional scholarship—indeed, many contributors reject established scholarly standards in favour of their own conception of what an encyclopedia should be like. These problems can be traced to two primary causes: firstly, an unprofessional culture, and, secondly, overly complex and inconsistently enforced rules. Epistemia aims to correct both these issues, without implementing the overly-restrictive mechanisms that Citizendium has.
Raymond Arritt once summed it all up neatly—"[Citizendium] ... would be great if it were more similar to Wikipedia (easier to contribute, less bureaucratic) and ... [Wikipedia] ... would be great if it were more similar to Citizendium (less hostile to competence, more willing to act against troublemakers and those with an agenda)." Epistemia aims to be easy to contribute to, unbureaucratic, welcoming of competence, and intolerant of disruptive and malicious people.
Well, Richard Austin and I would like to invite you to check it out yourself and formulate your own opinions—see http://epistemia.org/.
Best and friendly regards,
—Thomas Larsen
That sounds great.
Even though I made myself an account, I'm gonna put an alarm on my iPod for 1 month more. If a considerable amount of articles have been created, I will start contributing. Let's hope it makes itself popular.
-- Alvaro
On 15-01-2009, at 21:16, Thomas Larsen larsen.thomas.h@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I, with Richard Austin, would like to announce the public launch of "Epistemia", a new Internet-wiki-based encyclopedia project which may be found on the Web at http://epistemia.org/. Some of the project's distinguishing features include:
- users are required to log in before being permitted to edit;
- civil and polite conduct is required, and no tolerance is shown for
those people whose intention is to cause disruption or damage;
- people with administrative privileges are required to use their real
names as their account names, with few exceptions;
- the project places a high emphasis on developing and maintaining
content according to established scholarly standards; and
- policy (content, community, and project standards), which is still
in development, is outlined clearly and simply on a single page.
Wikipedia has undoubtedly proved the value of the wiki content production model, but it suffers from a number of damning flaws. Most serious is the negativity of the participatory culture that has developed on Wikipedia—incivility is rampant in discussions, logical, reasoned arguments are commonly ignored, and people acting maliciously or disruptively are tolerated far in excess of common sense. Governance is another issue, with the project led, not by the most knowledgeable people, but by the people with the most spare time and the loudest voices. Also of much concern, especially to academia, is the lack of consistent adherence to the conventional quality expectations associated with professional scholarship—indeed, many contributors reject established scholarly standards in favour of their own conception of what an encyclopedia should be like. These problems can be traced to two primary causes: firstly, an unprofessional culture, and, secondly, overly complex and inconsistently enforced rules. Epistemia aims to correct both these issues, without implementing the overly-restrictive mechanisms that Citizendium has.
Raymond Arritt once summed it all up neatly—"[Citizendium] ... would be great if it were more similar to Wikipedia (easier to contribute, less bureaucratic) and ... [Wikipedia] ... would be great if it were more similar to Citizendium (less hostile to competence, more willing to act against troublemakers and those with an agenda)." Epistemia aims to be easy to contribute to, unbureaucratic, welcoming of competence, and intolerant of disruptive and malicious people.
Well, Richard Austin and I would like to invite you to check it out yourself and formulate your own opinions—see http://epistemia.org/.
Best and friendly regards,
—Thomas Larsen
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Hi Alvaro,
Even though I made myself an account, I'm gonna put an alarm on my iPod for 1 month more. If a considerable amount of articles have been created, I will start contributing. Let's hope it makes itself popular.
Thanks! I hope the project takes off myself, and that you'll start contributing, either in a month, or at some other time ...
Cheers,
—Thomas Larsen
On Jan 15, 2009, at 7:16 PM, Thomas Larsen wrote:
Hi all,
I, with Richard Austin, would like to announce the public launch of "Epistemia", a new Internet-wiki-based encyclopedia project which may be found on the Web at http://epistemia.org/. Some of the project's distinguishing features include:
- the project places a high emphasis on developing and maintaining
content according to established scholarly standards; and
As a scholar, why would I prefer to contribute my content to epistemia instead of a peer-reviewed journal as is the expectation of my field?
-Phil
Hi Phil,
As a scholar, why would I prefer to contribute my content to epistemia instead of a peer-reviewed journal as is the expectation of my field?
You can choose where you want to contribute, or you can contribute to both. I didn't say that you couldn't :-). What I said was that Epistemia aims to maintain scholarly standards—in other words, professional standards of writing, etc.
I invite you to contribute!
—Thomas Larsen
On Jan 15, 2009, at 7:16 PM, Thomas Larsen wrote:
Hi all,
I, with Richard Austin, would like to announce the public launch of "Epistemia", a new Internet-wiki-based encyclopedia project which may be found on the Web at http://epistemia.org/. Some of the project's distinguishing features include:
And as a second question, license incompatibility? Really?
-Phil
On Jan 15, 2009, at 8:01 PM, Thomas Larsen wrote:
Hi Phil,
And as a second question, license incompatibility? Really?
What license incompatibility?
Your choice of CC-BY-SA, which, at least for now, closes off use of Wikipedia content (and visa versa). It seems silly to start a free content encyclopedia and then render yourself unable to share content with a rather large project already underway in that area.
-Phil
2009/1/16 Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com:
On Jan 15, 2009, at 8:01 PM, Thomas Larsen wrote:
Hi Phil,
And as a second question, license incompatibility? Really?
What license incompatibility?
Your choice of CC-BY-SA, which, at least for now, closes off use of Wikipedia content (and visa versa). It seems silly to start a free content encyclopedia and then render yourself unable to share content with a rather large project already underway in that area.
What would you recommend? GFDL? There a reason we're talking about moving away for GFDL...
2009/1/16 Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com:
Your choice of CC-BY-SA, which, at least for now, closes off use of Wikipedia content (and visa versa). It seems silly to start a free content encyclopedia and then render yourself unable to share content with a rather large project already underway in that area.
-Phil
Given the phrasing of the relicensing section of the GFDL 1.3 using it on a new project would be a really bad idea. At this point if you copy work from wikipedia then people modify it you cannot use the relicensing section to shift the modified versions over to CC-BY-SA-3.0.
On Jan 15, 2009, at 9:51 PM, geni wrote:
2009/1/16 Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com:
Your choice of CC-BY-SA, which, at least for now, closes off use of Wikipedia content (and visa versa). It seems silly to start a free content encyclopedia and then render yourself unable to share content with a rather large project already underway in that area.
-Phil
Given the phrasing of the relicensing section of the GFDL 1.3 using it on a new project would be a really bad idea. At this point if you copy work from wikipedia then people modify it you cannot use the relicensing section to shift the modified versions over to CC-BY-SA-3.0.
It seems like, at the moment, a dual-license would be the most sensible route for a new project.
-Phil
Two questions:
1) What are you plans regarding incorporating content from other projects? There is a good chance that Wikipedia will soon switch to a license compatible with yours, so you could copy content across. Do you plan to do so, and to what extent?
2) Your "About" page says:
"Other projects have attempted, and continue to attempt, to develop free Internet encyclopedias—Wikipedia, Citizendium, Conservapedia, Open-Site, Scholarpedia, Veropedia, and Wikinfo, to name a few—yet have failed to produce reliable content, to attract a broad, diverse, responsible, and democratic community, or to achieve widespread public support."
I dispute that. Studies have shown that Wikipedia is as reliable as conventional encyclopaedias, the wide range of subjects covered in great depths shows we have a broad and diverse community, I haven't seen anything to suggest the Wikipedia community is irresponsible, and we don't try to be democratic so you're making a massive assumption there that democracy is the best way to run such a project. As for widespread public support, millions of dollars of donations over the past couple of months suggests we don't have a problem there. So which of those aspects are you suggesting Wikipedia has failed in?
Looks interesting. If it were me, I would've written or copied at least a few articles and other types of content and had the main page complete, as an entryway. I'm also not sure I would have allowed four red links in the "About us" section on the main page.
What is your plan for spreading the word about this project, out of curiosity? At least part of the problem encountered by the other Wikipedia-like projects is publicity - not enough people are aware of the effort to make it successful *and *people prefer to contribute to a project where there is a good likelihood that their work will be read and appreciated. I wonder how you, unlike the other efforts, will overcome this obstacle?
Nathan
Hi Nathan,
What is your plan for spreading the word about this project, out of curiosity? At least part of the problem encountered by the other Wikipedia-like projects is publicity - not enough people are aware of the effort to make it successful *and *people prefer to contribute to a project where there is a good likelihood that their work will be read and appreciated. I wonder how you, unlike the other efforts, will overcome this obstacle?
I'm mainly relying on word of mouth. Word travels fast over the Internet, and I am convinced that quite a few people think that a project in Wikipedia's vein, that addresses perceived problems without doing something too drastic like requiring account approval, will be interested and willing to check the project out.
That said, I'm very open to other suggestions.
Cheers!
—Thomas Larsen
It can be good. Workable. But Wikipedia has been found to be a reliable encyopedia as users know what's right and wrong, and they cite and source content. This project might be better in reliability, but Wikipedia is still a good encyclopedia.
Techman224
Hi Thomas,
- What are you plans regarding incorporating content from other
projects? There is a good chance that Wikipedia will soon switch to a license compatible with yours, so you could copy content across. Do you plan to do so, and to what extent?
My knowledge of the licence situation at the moment is that, since Wikipedia contributors agree to licence their contributions under "GFDL 1.2 _or later_", we can use them under GFDL 1.3 and thus import them to Epistemia under the CC-BY-SA. If, actually, we can't do this, then we'll just have to wait until Wikipedia changes to CC-BY-SA. I'm not willing, though, to make Wikipedia's mistake again (well, actually, calling it a "mistake" is not entirely fair, since it was the only real option back in 2001).
- Your "About" page says:
"Other projects have attempted, and continue to attempt, to develop free Internet encyclopedias—Wikipedia, Citizendium, Conservapedia, Open-Site, Scholarpedia, Veropedia, and Wikinfo, to name a few—yet have failed to produce reliable content, to attract a broad, diverse, responsible, and democratic community, or to achieve widespread public support."
I dispute that. Studies have shown that Wikipedia is as reliable as conventional encyclopaedias, the wide range of subjects covered in great depths shows we have a broad and diverse community, I haven't seen anything to suggest the Wikipedia community is irresponsible, and we don't try to be democratic so you're making a massive assumption there that democracy is the best way to run such a project. As for widespread public support, millions of dollars of donations over the past couple of months suggests we don't have a problem there. So which of those aspects are you suggesting Wikipedia has failed in?
Wikipedia's main issues, in my eyes, are (a) lack of _consistent_ reliability (compare articles in the hard sciences, which tend to be written by specialists, to articles in the soft sciences such as the humanities) and (b) a participatory culture that is commonly incivil and/or impolite. I'm sure you've experienced discussions where a perfectly good argument has been dissolved (or quelled) by hordes of angry, shouting people who are so passionate about a particular point of view, or too lazy to research it, that they refuse to accept logic.
I think writing a kind of FAQ, or "differences between Epistemia and other projects", page would be helpful, and I'll start writing one.
Cheers,
—Thomas Larsen
2009/1/16 Thomas Larsen larsen.thomas.h@gmail.com:
Hi Thomas,
- What are you plans regarding incorporating content from other
projects? There is a good chance that Wikipedia will soon switch to a license compatible with yours, so you could copy content across. Do you plan to do so, and to what extent?
My knowledge of the licence situation at the moment is that, since Wikipedia contributors agree to licence their contributions under "GFDL 1.2 _or later_", we can use them under GFDL 1.3 and thus import them to Epistemia under the CC-BY-SA. If, actually, we can't do this, then we'll just have to wait until Wikipedia changes to CC-BY-SA. I'm not willing, though, to make Wikipedia's mistake again (well, actually, calling it a "mistake" is not entirely fair, since it was the only real option back in 2001).
You had better read the new GFDL license again - only Wikimedia can relicence content on Wikimedia projects (that was the purpose of the deadline that passed 2 days before the license was published). You'll have to wait. My question was what you plan to do if Wikipedia does switch.
Wikipedia's main issues, in my eyes, are (a) lack of _consistent_ reliability (compare articles in the hard sciences, which tend to be written by specialists, to articles in the soft sciences such as the humanities)
What is that assertion based on? That studies I've seen have examined quite a broad range of articles.
and (b) a participatory culture that is commonly incivil and/or impolite. I'm sure you've experienced discussions where a perfectly good argument has been dissolved (or quelled) by hordes of angry, shouting people who are so passionate about a particular point of view, or too lazy to research it, that they refuse to accept logic.
Sure, but civility wasn't on your list.
Hi Thomas,
You had better read the new GFDL license again - only Wikimedia can relicence content on Wikimedia projects (that was the purpose of the deadline that passed 2 days before the license was published). You'll have to wait. My question was what you plan to do if Wikipedia does switch.
I read the license again, and determined that "The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-BY-SA on the same site at any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing."
That raises a number of concerns, actually, since there are a number of Wikipedia-adapted articles on Epistemia. I'll have to delete them, and restore them when Wikimedia relicenses.
What is that assertion based on? That studies I've seen have examined quite a broad range of articles.
What studies? I'm aware that Britannica did a study, but it was my understanding that they focused mainly on topics in the hard sciences. There may have been studies done that I was unaware of, though.
On the other hand, a few glances at the many of the articles returned by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random shows that Wikipedia still needs much work, especially on topics which aren't particular popular.
Sure, but civility wasn't on your list.
I guess I, confusingly, grouped it under "not responsible" :-).
—Thomas Larsen
There is no widespread support. There are some people to which you can say something they don't agree with and back the argument up by saying it's on Wikipedia, and they will say "Anyone can edit Wikipedia".
-- Alvaro
On 15-01-2009, at 22:18, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Two questions:
- What are you plans regarding incorporating content from other
projects? There is a good chance that Wikipedia will soon switch to a license compatible with yours, so you could copy content across. Do you plan to do so, and to what extent?
- Your "About" page says:
"Other projects have attempted, and continue to attempt, to develop free Internet encyclopedias—Wikipedia, Citizendium, Conservapedia, Open-Site, Scholarpedia, Veropedia, and Wikinfo, to name a few—yet have failed to produce reliable content, to attract a broad, diverse, responsible, and democratic community, or to achieve widespread public support."
I dispute that. Studies have shown that Wikipedia is as reliable as conventional encyclopaedias, the wide range of subjects covered in great depths shows we have a broad and diverse community, I haven't seen anything to suggest the Wikipedia community is irresponsible, and we don't try to be democratic so you're making a massive assumption there that democracy is the best way to run such a project. As for widespread public support, millions of dollars of donations over the past couple of months suggests we don't have a problem there. So which of those aspects are you suggesting Wikipedia has failed in? _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
2009/1/16 Alvaro García alvareo@gmail.com:
There is no widespread support. There are some people to which you can say something they don't agree with and back the argument up by saying it's on Wikipedia, and they will say "Anyone can edit Wikipedia".
Have you looked at the donation statistics? And the page view statistics? Plenty of people complain about Wikipedia, but far more people use it and support it on a regular basis.
I know many people use it, but still many people don't think it's reliable. You don't have to show me any statistics. I know Wikipedia is used by many people, but still many people (specially old) don't like it.
-- Alvaro
On 16-01-2009, at 0:58, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/1/16 Alvaro García alvareo@gmail.com:
There is no widespread support. There are some people to which you can say something they don't agree with and back the argument up by saying it's on Wikipedia, and they will say "Anyone can edit Wikipedia".
Have you looked at the donation statistics? And the page view statistics? Plenty of people complain about Wikipedia, but far more people use it and support it on a regular basis. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
2009/1/16 Alvaro García alvareo@gmail.com:
I know many people use it, but still many people don't think it's reliable. You don't have to show me any statistics. I know Wikipedia is used by many people, but still many people (specially old) don't like it.
Nobody said it was universally supported. It is, quite obviously, widely supported, though. I can't believe anyone would dispute that, it's crazy.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
2009/1/16 Alvaro García alvareo@gmail.com:
There is no widespread support. There are some people to which you can say something they don't agree with and back the argument up by saying it's on Wikipedia, and they will say "Anyone can edit Wikipedia".
Have you looked at the donation statistics? And the page view statistics? Plenty of people complain about Wikipedia, but far more people use it and support it on a regular basis.
I have to agree with Thomas. Its the #4 site. Not the #4 information site. #4, overall. I'm guessing that people are using it; call me crazy but I think a few people are actually looking things up here.
I didn't meant it isn't used. Don't be sarcastic. If I'm on here is because I love Wikipedia. No one can disagree with the fact that it's used. Please read my message.
-- Alvaro
On 16-01-2009, at 1:11, KillerChihuahua puppy@KillerChihuahua.com wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
2009/1/16 Alvaro García alvareo@gmail.com:
There is no widespread support. There are some people to which you can say something they don't agree with and back the argument up by saying it's on Wikipedia, and they will say "Anyone can edit Wikipedia".
Have you looked at the donation statistics? And the page view statistics? Plenty of people complain about Wikipedia, but far more people use it and support it on a regular basis.
I have to agree with Thomas. Its the #4 site. Not the #4 information site. #4, overall. I'm guessing that people are using it; call me crazy but I think a few people are actually looking things up here.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
2009/1/16 Alvaro García alvareo@gmail.com:
I didn't meant it isn't used. Don't be sarcastic. If I'm on here is because I love Wikipedia. No one can disagree with the fact that it's used. Please read my message.
Your message said there was no widespread support for Wikipedia. That's crazy talk, pure and simple.
That's right, because there are still people that are reluctant to believe what Wikipedia says.
-- Alvaro
On 16-01-2009, at 1:40, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/1/16 Alvaro García alvareo@gmail.com:
I didn't meant it isn't used. Don't be sarcastic. If I'm on here is because I love Wikipedia. No one can disagree with the fact that it's used. Please read my message.
Your message said there was no widespread support for Wikipedia. That's crazy talk, pure and simple. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 4:43 AM, Alvaro García alvareo@gmail.com wrote:
That's right, because there are still people that are reluctant to believe what Wikipedia says.
-- Alvaro
That doesn't mean it lacks widespread support.
Well, nevermind. We are getting nowhere here.
-- Alvaro
On 16-01-2009, at 1:53, "Al Tally" majorly.wiki@googlemail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 4:43 AM, Alvaro García alvareo@gmail.com w rote:
That's right, because there are still people that are reluctant to believe what Wikipedia says.
-- Alvaro
That doesn't mean it lacks widespread support.
-- Alex (User:Majorly) _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
2009/1/16 Alvaro García alvareo@gmail.com:
That's right, because there are still people that are reluctant to believe what Wikipedia says.
We're talking about widespread support, not universal support.
You're right.
-- Alvaro
On 16-01-2009, at 2:04, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/1/16 Alvaro García alvareo@gmail.com:
That's right, because there are still people that are reluctant to believe what Wikipedia says.
We're talking about widespread support, not universal support. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Sometimes even widespread support is too much to ask.
bibliomaniac15
--- On Thu, 1/15/09, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote: From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Announcing "Epistemia", a new wiki encyclopedia To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Thursday, January 15, 2009, 9:04 PM
2009/1/16 Alvaro García alvareo@gmail.com:
That's right, because there are still people that are reluctant to believe what Wikipedia says.
We're talking about widespread support, not universal support. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
There is no widespread support. There are some people to which you can say something they don't agree with and back the argument up by saying it's on Wikipedia, and they will say "Anyone can edit Wikipedia".
Have you looked at the donation statistics? And the page view statistics? Plenty of people complain about Wikipedia, but far more people use it and support it on a regular basis.
I think Wikipedia has widespread public support. I, for one, have never said that Wikipedia has _not_ had widespread public support.
Simply because a project has a lot of support, though, does not mean that it is by any means perfect or that it has no (serious!) flaws. It simply means there's nothing better available.
Epistemia aims to provide something better.
—Thomas Larsen
2009/1/17 Thomas Larsen larsen.thomas.h@gmail.com:
There is no widespread support. There are some people to which you can say something they don't agree with and back the argument up by saying it's on Wikipedia, and they will say "Anyone can edit Wikipedia".
Have you looked at the donation statistics? And the page view statistics? Plenty of people complain about Wikipedia, but far more people use it and support it on a regular basis.
I think Wikipedia has widespread public support. I, for one, have never said that Wikipedia has _not_ had widespread public support.
I know you haven't, but others have.
Simply because a project has a lot of support, though, does not mean that it is by any means perfect or that it has no (serious!) flaws. It simply means there's nothing better available.
True.
Epistemia aims to provide something better.
A noble aim, and I wish you luck. The problem you will face, I think, is in being sufficiently better to encourage people to read your encyclopaedia despite it being significantly less comprehensive than Wikipedia. Without readers, you will find it very hard to attract writers (you'll get some, but not enough to get the exponential growth that Wikipedia saw for its first few years).
A noble aim, and I wish you luck. The problem you will face, I think, is in being sufficiently better to encourage people to read your encyclopaedia despite it being significantly less comprehensive than Wikipedia. Without readers, you will find it very hard to attract writers (you'll get some, but not enough to get the exponential growth that Wikipedia saw for its first few years).
This _is_ an issue. I think we can and will get exponential growth (although perhaps I'm being too optimistic), but it won't be on Wikipedia's scale unless something drastic happens.
Thanks for the encouragement, and I invite you to join ...
—Thomas Larsen
Thomas Larsen wrote:
I think we can and will get exponential growth (although perhaps I'm being too optimistic), but it won't be on Wikipedia's scale unless something drastic happens.
Hmm, [[exponential growth]] used to contain the helpful remark that growth may be exponential and also very slow (contra over-excited common usage).
Charles
2009/1/17 Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com:
Thomas Larsen wrote:
I think we can and will get exponential growth (although perhaps I'm being too optimistic), but it won't be on Wikipedia's scale unless something drastic happens.
Hmm, [[exponential growth]] used to contain the helpful remark that growth may be exponential and also very slow (contra over-excited common usage).
Indeed. However, in this case, my prediction is that they will have linear growth until they reach a certain point at which they become useful to readers and then they get exponential growth at a reasonably impressive rate. The linear growth is caused by early adopters that want to edit Epistemia because it's new and don't care that it isn't very useful yet, the exponential growth will be caused by people that came along to read something and ended up staying and editing. The big question is whether the linear growth will be fast enough to reach that point before running out of steam (the rule of thumb is that people stay in an given online community for around 18 months, so you probably have 18 months to become useful).
2009/1/17 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
A noble aim, and I wish you luck. The problem you will face, I think, is in being sufficiently better to encourage people to read your encyclopaedia despite it being significantly less comprehensive than Wikipedia. Without readers, you will find it very hard to attract writers (you'll get some, but not enough to get the exponential growth that Wikipedia saw for its first few years).
Citizendium has a community of writers and appears to be ticking along okay.
Unfortunately, more than a few appear to be driven by resentment of Wikipedia, and by far the most effective method of getting publicity so far has been to bitch about Wikpedia (the "let's you and him fight" story is one beloved of lazy journalists everywhere) - which makes CZ look less than classy (less classy than it is).
Epistemia, from the description, appears to be yet another thing in the same space. What's the differentiator from Citizendium?
(And by the way, well done on keeping the hell away from the GFDL, broken piece of shit that it is.)
- d.
2009/1/18 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
2009/1/17 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
A noble aim, and I wish you luck. The problem you will face, I think, is in being sufficiently better to encourage people to read your encyclopaedia despite it being significantly less comprehensive than Wikipedia. Without readers, you will find it very hard to attract writers (you'll get some, but not enough to get the exponential growth that Wikipedia saw for its first few years).
Citizendium has a community of writers and appears to be ticking along okay.
It has writers, does it have any readers, though? You won't get exponential growth without readers (it happens because the more articles you have, the more readers you have so the more writers you acquire, so more articles get written).
Unfortunately, more than a few appear to be driven by resentment of Wikipedia, and by far the most effective method of getting publicity so far has been to bitch about Wikpedia (the "let's you and him fight" story is one beloved of lazy journalists everywhere) - which makes CZ look less than classy (less classy than it is).
What makes you think it's more classy than it appears? They do bitch about Wikipedia constantly, it's not the journalists twisting things.
Epistemia, from the description, appears to be yet another thing in the same space. What's the differentiator from Citizendium?
According to the OP: "Epistemia aims to correct both these issues, without implementing the overly-restrictive mechanisms that Citizendium has."
(And by the way, well done on keeping the hell away from the GFDL, broken piece of shit that it is.)
Hear, hear.
2009/1/18 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
What makes you think it's more classy than it appears? They do bitch about Wikipedia constantly, it's not the journalists twisting things.
Yes, but journalists do push the story when it's not warranted (saying nice things about CZ along the lines of "more good freely reusable content is a win for everyone" confuses them nicely) and it doesn't make CZ look classy.
It's not true to say that all or even most spend their time bitching about Wikipedia ... it is true to say that it doesn't make them look good. But hey, they don't need me as a volunteer image consultant.
OTOH, it does get cheap press quickly. c.f. Conservapedia, which has no other features worth a moment's discussion.
Epistemia, from the description, appears to be yet another thing in the same space. What's the differentiator from Citizendium?
According to the OP: "Epistemia aims to correct both these issues, without implementing the overly-restrictive mechanisms that Citizendium has."
"Good luck with that." And remember that "A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy" cited Wikipedia as a group that had avoided this fate at the time of the essay (2003) - since then it appears to have hit its head on every step on the way down.
(And by the way, well done on keeping the hell away from the GFDL, broken piece of shit that it is.)
Hear, hear.
With others tending to CC-by-sa, a license move would be Wikipedia catching up.
- d.
Hi David,
Citizendium has a community of writers and appears to be ticking along okay.
Unfortunately, more than a few appear to be driven by resentment of Wikipedia, and by far the most effective method of getting publicity so far has been to bitch about Wikpedia (the "let's you and him fight" story is one beloved of lazy journalists everywhere) - which makes CZ look less than classy (less classy than it is).
Epistemia, from the description, appears to be yet another thing in the same space. What's the differentiator from Citizendium?
I'm working on a FAQ at the moment. You can see the current version (which is a real draft) at http://en.epistemia.org/wiki/Epistemia:Frequently_asked_questions. Basically, my notes (which need to be expanded upon) are that Citizendium:
* is overly restrictive; * is not very dynamic or global; * has failed to gain significant public support, after over two years of operation; * has not been growing exponentially; instead, growth is a "straight line"; * alienates people by requiring all contributors to use their real names; and * is a knee-jerk reaction to Wikipedia.
Epistemia basically addresses these problems by being unbureaucratic, having a low barrier to entry, and being more globally-orientated.
—Thomas Larsen
- has not been growing exponentially; instead, growth is a "straight line";
It's worse than that. Not only is growth in article numbers linear, median word count per article is decreasing fairly rapidly so it would seem they're just writing stubs. I would advise you to try and avoid that - the only way you are going to attract readers away from Wikipedia is if your articles are significantly better quality, you will never match us for quantity (well, not for a few years, anyway, and as I said before it's the first 18 months that matters).
Many of the roughly 1.5 million Wikipedia articles that are near start or stub quality are at that level for good reason: Lack of public interest. However, if one were to start a new encyclopedia with the aim of improving them and could find a sizable number of people whose tolerance for incredibly boring topics was quite high, i'm sure Wikipedia would gladly accept the changes back. Its just that no one would read them.
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 6:05 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:
- has not been growing exponentially; instead, growth is a "straight
line";
It's worse than that. Not only is growth in article numbers linear, median word count per article is decreasing fairly rapidly so it would seem they're just writing stubs. I would advise you to try and avoid that - the only way you are going to attract readers away from Wikipedia is if your articles are significantly better quality, you will never match us for quantity (well, not for a few years, anyway, and as I said before it's the first 18 months that matters).
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2009/1/19 Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu:
Many of the roughly 1.5 million Wikipedia articles that are near start or stub quality are at that level for good reason: Lack of public interest. However, if one were to start a new encyclopedia with the aim of improving them and could find a sizable number of people whose tolerance for incredibly boring topics was quite high, i'm sure Wikipedia would gladly accept the changes back. Its just that no one would read them.
Very true. However, the difference between Wikipedia and Citizendium in that respect is that we have decent articles on the topics that do have public interest, Citizendium doesn't. I don't know what their stub percentage is compared to ours, but their total number of good articles is so much lower that they can't afford even a fraction of our stub percentage. Stubs are of limited use to us, but they are of no use to Citizendium (which needs quality articles to attract readers).
Thomas Dalton wrote:
2009/1/19 Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu:
Many of the roughly 1.5 million Wikipedia articles that are near start or stub quality are at that level for good reason: Lack of public interest. However, if one were to start a new encyclopedia with the aim of improving them and could find a sizable number of people whose tolerance for incredibly boring topics was quite high, i'm sure Wikipedia would gladly accept the changes back. Its just that no one would read them.
Very true. However, the difference between Wikipedia and Citizendium in that respect is that we have decent articles on the topics that do have public interest, Citizendium doesn't. I don't know what their stub percentage is compared to ours, but their total number of good articles is so much lower that they can't afford even a fraction of our stub percentage. Stubs are of limited use to us, but they are of no use to Citizendium (which needs quality articles to attract readers).
But do they attract readers? When I research topics for WP articles, I often come across existing WP links and can't remember seeing any links to even major WP forks; this is the main problem I think Epistemia faces- penetration and hence credibility. Whereas I realise that what might be loosely described as "market penetration" is important, I think any endeavour trying to compete has great practical problems to overcome. That's not to talk down the idea itself, just to point out that when the hill is already so high, attempting to climb it is that much more difficult. It's unfortunate that the hill is somewhat littered with rocks in places, but conversely, nobody seriously believes the earth is flat these days.
But do they attract readers? When I research topics for WP articles, I often come across existing WP links and can't remember seeing any links to even major WP forks; this is the main problem I think Epistemia faces- penetration and hence credibility.
Precisely, that's the problem. They need to attract readers and aren't doing so. The way I see it, there are two ways they can try and attract readers, they can be better or they can be bigger. Being bigger isn't practical when enwiki is approaching 3 million articles - it would take years for them to catch up even if they could attract 1000s of dedicated writers. That only leaves being better - they need their articles to be significantly better than Wikipedia articles so that people see the point in looking to see if they have an article on the topic rather than just going to Wikipedia knowing we're sure to have one even if it isn't particularly good. Writing stubs isn't going to move them towards that goal.
Whereas I realise that what might be loosely described as "market penetration" is important, I think any endeavour trying to compete has great practical problems to overcome. That's not to talk down the idea itself, just to point out that when the hill is already so high, attempting to climb it is that much more difficult. It's unfortunate that the hill is somewhat littered with rocks in places, but conversely, nobody seriously believes the earth is flat these days.
Indeed, but competition is good so I wish them all the best, even if the challenge before them may turn out to be impossible.
2009/1/19 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
Indeed, but competition is good so I wish them all the best, even if the challenge before them may turn out to be impossible.
Oh yeah. Enough people complain that Wikipedia and/or its community is hopelessly broken that there's got to be more than one way to do this "wiki based neutral encyclopedia" thing.
- d.
But do they attract readers? When I research topics for WP articles, I often come across existing WP links and can't remember seeing any links to even major WP forks; this is the main problem I think Epistemia faces- penetration and hence credibility. Whereas I realise that what might be loosely described as "market penetration" is important, I think any endeavour trying to compete has great practical problems to overcome.
This is a problem—/the/ problem, actually, for any competitor to a major existing corporation. I'm currently considering the various manners in which the issue could be addressed and, hopefully, overcome.
That's not to talk down the idea itself, just to point out that when the hill is already so high, attempting to climb it is that much more difficult. It's unfortunate that the hill is somewhat littered with rocks in places, but conversely, nobody seriously believes the earth is flat these days.
What you mean is that the hill is emitting smoke, cracks are appearing in its sides, and rumbling sounds can be heard regularly :-).
—Thomas Larsen
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 1:18 AM, Thomas Larsen larsen.thomas.h@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
Epistemia aims to provide something better.
How did you come up with the name, and what does it mean? :-)
Carcharoth
2009/1/17 Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com:
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 1:18 AM, Thomas Larsen larsen.thomas.h@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
Epistemia aims to provide something better.
How did you come up with the name, and what does it mean? :-)
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 1:28 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/1/17 Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com:
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 1:18 AM, Thomas Larsen larsen.thomas.h@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
Epistemia aims to provide something better.
How did you come up with the name, and what does it mean? :-)
I would have thought metaphysics and ontology are closer to the philosophical underpinning of an encyclopedia, but I guess it is harder to come up with names from those (Ontopedia??). The "nature of knowledge" is a bit different from the actual knowledge itself. It did get me wondering how catchy the various spin-off names are (I know, some aren't spin offs):
Infopedia Wikia Veropedia Epistemia Wikinfo Citizendium
Seems Wikipedia cornered the market with the most obvious name.
Anyway, best of luck with Epistemia. It is actually rather tempting to see what it is like to be there on the ground floor constructing the whole thing from the ground up. Many people missed that back in 2001-3
Carcharoth
PS. It seems I made up Infopedia!
On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 8:48 PM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
I would have thought metaphysics and ontology are closer to the philosophical underpinning of an encyclopedia, but I guess it is harder to come up with names from those (Ontopedia??). The "nature of knowledge" is a bit different from the actual knowledge itself.
I think of the capsule definition of epistemology as "(the study of) how we know things". The -ology part is gone from Epistemia, so it works quite well: "Epistemia: How we know things."
-Sage (User:Ragesoss)
"Epistemology" hearkens to the very early days. Nupedia failed because of the 7 tenets of proper epistemology.
On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 6:28 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/1/17 Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com:
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 1:18 AM, Thomas Larsen larsen.thomas.h@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
Epistemia aims to provide something better.
How did you come up with the name, and what does it mean? :-)
See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/epistemology
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"Epistemology" hearkens to the very early days. Nupedia failed because of the 7 tenets of proper epistemology.
Not that Epistemia tries to be old-fashioned, though. We _do_ recognise the benefits associated with the collaborative wiki content production model, and we are quite pragmatic in our approach.
—Thomas Larsen
Hi all,
We now have over 100 articles and 25 contributors on the English-language main project.
I'd like to stress that this project is open to participation, so feel free to check it out and contribute an article. :-)
Have a good day,
—Thomas Larsen
Your Help or Community Portal page should describe your project. Your Welcome page isn't very informative about exactly how you are different from Wikipedia, or any other wiki for that matter.
Almost all (or many) Wikis are free and global. Maybe you could describe somewhere on your site why you are more reliable or something.
Also your About page is blank.
By the way, just to humour me, why do you disallow account names with numbers, punctuation or domain names? I'm sure you must have a good reason, but I can't fathom it.
Will
-----Original Message----- From: Thomas Larsen larsen.thomas.h@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:39 am Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Announcing "Epistemia", a new wiki encyclopedia
Hi all,
We now have over 100 articles and 25 contributors on the English-language main project.
I'd like to stress that this project is open to participation, so feel free to check it out and contribute an article. :-)
Have a good day,
—Thomas Larsen
_______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On another note... Oh... my.. god becky!
Thomas you look just like that one guy from Ferris Bueller's day off, his sidekick who I don't know what the guy's name was.
but you look like him.
On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 11:20 AM, wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
On another note... Oh... my.. god becky!
Thomas you look just like that one guy from Ferris Bueller's day off, his sidekick who I don't know what the guy's name was.
Cameron?
Hi,
Thanks for your suggestions, Will. I'll get to work on the pages you mentioned. Actually, I'm not sure that the Help or the Community Central pages should actually describe the project (it seems more appropriate for [[Epistemia:About]] and [[Epistemia:Frequently asked questions]] to do so), but it's probably a case of poor linking and too-complex structure.
I'm thinking about the welcome page; I want to keep it small, but adding a link to the FAQ and/or making the link to [[Epistemia:About]] more prominent would be helpful.
The About page is blank? Did you look at http://en.epistemia.org/wiki/Epistemia:About? Maybe your browser has a caching problem; the page does not appear blank to me.
Essentially, Epistemia disallows account names with numbers and punctuation in them because they can be difficult to remember, 'ugly' (although that is a point of view, of course), and 'unprofessional' (also another point of view). We disallow account names with domain names in them in order to avoid any problems with spam, trademarks, and problems with apparent representation. We should more accurately describe these reasons on the site.
Thanks again for your suggestions.
Have a nice day,
—Thomas Larsen
Is there a secure / https server available for the project?
I am somewhat reluctant to sign up for any new project or web account anywhere that involves unsecured login transactions in this day and age...
If it's there and I missed it, just send the URL and I apologize for not finding it myself. If it's not there, that's a big bug to file 8-)
-george william herbert
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Thomas Larsen larsen.thomas.h@gmail.comwrote:
Hi,
Thanks for your suggestions, Will. I'll get to work on the pages you mentioned. Actually, I'm not sure that the Help or the Community Central pages should actually describe the project (it seems more appropriate for [[Epistemia:About]] and [[Epistemia:Frequently asked questions]] to do so), but it's probably a case of poor linking and too-complex structure.
I'm thinking about the welcome page; I want to keep it small, but adding a link to the FAQ and/or making the link to [[Epistemia:About]] more prominent would be helpful.
The About page is blank? Did you look at http://en.epistemia.org/wiki/Epistemia:About? Maybe your browser has a caching problem; the page does not appear blank to me.
Essentially, Epistemia disallows account names with numbers and punctuation in them because they can be difficult to remember, 'ugly' (although that is a point of view, of course), and 'unprofessional' (also another point of view). We disallow account names with domain names in them in order to avoid any problems with spam, trademarks, and problems with apparent representation. We should more accurately describe these reasons on the site.
Thanks again for your suggestions.
Have a nice day,
—Thomas Larsen
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