---------- Original Message ----------
From: Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>
No, it won't. People have been saying that for years and the fact
remains that a screen full of a text with a few relevant images is a
much better way to convey information than VR.
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I look at comments like this as somebody who is very closed minded and not willing to see
more methods of instruction. A screen full of text certainly is a useful way to convey
certain kinds of factual information, and I certainly see the analogy of a paper
encyclopedia to be a useful way to compile and organize general knowledge about this
universe we live in, but it isn't the only way and certainly isn't the
"best" way to learn about all knowledge.
I certainly could see some application for the use of virtual reality in the context of
Wikiversity or some other guided tour of a virtual environment, or for alternative ways to
explore content. It does require a different way of looking at that information, and the
tools needed to organize information that is fitting for that environment are certainly a
bit different than the tools needed for organizing a web page.
As for why projects like VRML failed to take off in a meaningful way, that is certainly
something worthy debating. From my viewpoint, one of the problems facing VRML was the
very non-intuitive interfaces and incredibly steep initial learning curves to being able
to get even a simple object like a cube or a sphere created in the first place. As
somebody who still likes to write HTML using a simple text editor, HTML is by comparison
very simple to at least get *something* put down and displayed with a typical web
server... in fact it doesn't even need a web server in order to experiment with
creating basic web pages.
At the very least, tools similar to a wiki where somebody new to even the concept of
editing on-line content at this moment in time really don't exist. As far as what
those tools could be and how you might take the philosophy of wiki editing into an on-line
virtual reality environment.... that is something I would love to explore in depth.
I'm being serious here and I think this is an awesome idea but it certainly would take
some work.
The real gift here that is incredibly beneficial to the whole thing is that some
significant content is available for the first time. For those that have forgotten, a
rather substantial portion of Wikipedia was seeded with free content from a variety of
sources like the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, the CIA World Factbook, and a variety of
free image libraries that existed before the Wikimedia Commons came into existence. It
doesn't matter that Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects have exceeded in nearly all
aspects these original seed sources and have in turn become seeds to other projects, the
point is that those organizing Wikipedia in the first place were able to leverage some
tools from a variety of sources and applied a rather interesting democratic principle for
organizing information.
I am arguing here that a similar opportunity has now presented itself to perhaps extend
the basic ideas and philosophies of wiki editing to a very new environment that until now
has been very closed and proprietary. There have been other previous attempts to get a
free software equivalent MMORPG type environment going before, but frankly they have been
kludgy messes of software that has been lacking content and developers, and has never
really been able to get a good critical mass of development put together to get it to
work. That is the significance of this announcement, as perhaps those who might get
involved here with this media could make a step forward into a new direction that
hasn't been tried before.
As far as Wikimedia's involvement with this effort.... that certainly can be debated.
There are some who contribute to this list that even think the sister projects are an
utter failure and should all be spun off to separate charities or foundations other than
the WMF. I for one think this is a unique opportunity to do something very different if
there would be some individuals who might want to think a bit outside of the normal box of
throwing text onto a web page.
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