Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> So Larry Sanger is complaining about Wikipedia being too anarchistic
> and Nicholas Carr is complaining about it being too hierarchical. You
> guys must be doing something right :).
>
> I thought the most insightful part of the article was this:
>
> "I think that the Wikipedia community made a mistake when it decided
> that it's the wiki part that explained Wikipedia's success. They
> proceeded to apply the same software and content development system,
> which happened to work (more or less) for an encyclopedia, to develop
> very different kinds of projects: a dictionary, news articles, editing
> public domain books, writing new books from scratch, and several more
> things. It seems they found they had a whopping good hammer and
> suddenly everything looked like a nail."
>
> I think I've fallen into that trap myself a few times.
One of his useful observations, yes. Although it could be pointed out
that plenty of people in the community support the principle that being
a wiki is secondary to producing an encyclopedia (though certainly still
a free and collaborative encyclopedia). That would be why we make
adjustments of the kind that prompted Carr's pronouncement.
And for the other projects, a wiki is sometimes far from ideal, true
enough. That's been recognized for some time, which is why there are
ongoing efforts to adapt or extend the software to better serve those
objectives. In the meantime, the wiki is the tool we've got. Tired
cliches aside, I'm sure better ones would be welcomed if somebody cares
to offer us more tools.
--Michael Snow