--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
On Saturday 10 August 2002 10:15 am, Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
When someone makes a GUI frontend to Wikipedia, those features will become more sophisticated (wysiwyg).
Blasphemy! GUI? WYSIWYG? Now that would be unwiki.
Seriously; one of the reasons why we are successful is because there is a bit of a learning curve to being a contributor (small, but it is there). I hate to say it, but this small learning curve acts as a kind of filter against those that have nothing but incoherent and random nonsense to "contribute".
Ward Cunningham, the founder of Wiki, says on WhyWikiWorks (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyWikiWorks) "Wiki is not WYSIWYG (WhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet). It's an intelligence test of sorts to be able to edit a wiki page. It's not rocket science, but it doesn't appeal to the VideoAddicts. If it doesn't appeal, they don't participate, which leaves those of us who read and write to get on with rational discourse."
I think he's probably right. We should remember that one of the reasons why Wikipedia has been successful while other encyclopedia projects have not is the wiki way of contributing.
Stephen G.
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