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
Michael Snow a écrit :
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.
That's not false. But a question remains : why did Wikipedia become a hit, with millions of articles in hundred of languages, while Nupedia, which actually followed the same principles as Wikipedia, except it was not a wiki, never reached 100 articles ?
Traroth
On 29/05/06, Traroth traroth@yahoo.fr wrote:
That's not false. But a question remains : why did Wikipedia become a hit, with millions of articles in hundred of languages, while Nupedia, which actually followed the same principles as Wikipedia, except it was not a wiki, never reached 100 articles ?
Should you judge phenomena involving human factor on their technical merits alone?
-regards
2006/5/29, Traroth traroth@yahoo.fr:
Michael Snow a écrit :
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.
That's not false. But a question remains : why did Wikipedia become a hit, with millions of articles in hundred of languages, while Nupedia, which actually followed the same principles as Wikipedia, except it was not a wiki, never reached 100 articles ?
Well, as said, for Wikipedia wiki worked very well. That doesn't mean it works as well for other projects. A wiki means several things at once, and it is one of them (the wiki philosophy of free editing and control afterward instead of in advance) that made Wikipedia work where Nupedia did not. Wiktionary would I think work better in an environment with the same philosophy but a different technology (more database-like rather than marked up text). Wikiquote and Commons might well profit from a similar switch. For Wikisource the whole 'free editing' concept itself does not seem as suitable, or at least, not as necessary.
De : Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com
Well, as said, for Wikipedia wiki worked very well. That doesn't mean it works as well for other projects. A wiki means several things at once, and it is one of them (the wiki philosophy of free editing and control afterward instead of in advance) that made Wikipedia work where Nupedia did not. Wiktionary would I think work better in an environment with the same philosophy but a different technology (more database-like rather than marked up text). Wikiquote and Commons might well profit from a similar switch. For Wikisource the whole 'free editing' concept itself does not seem as suitable, or at least, not as necessary.
IMHO, wikiway could be useful for Wikisource, to produce free translation. Even if an artwork is free from rights (For example : ''Hamlet'' from Shakespeare), it does not mean a free french (or arab, spanish or bambara) translation of this artwork exists. But for the original work, wiki is not only unnecessary but even damaging.
Traroth
On 29/05/06, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
For Wikisource the whole 'free editing' concept itself does not seem as suitable, or at least, not as necessary.
It's not bad for proofreading of OCRed text, but this is a rather limited use of it.
On 5/29/06, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
Well, as said, for Wikipedia wiki worked very well. That doesn't mean it works as well for other projects. A wiki means several things at once, and it is one of them (the wiki philosophy of free editing and control afterward instead of in advance) that made Wikipedia work where Nupedia did not. Wiktionary would I think work better in an environment with the same philosophy but a different technology (more database-like rather than marked up text). Wikiquote and Commons might well profit from a similar switch. For Wikisource the whole 'free editing' concept itself does not seem as suitable, or at least, not as necessary.
Largely true, however, one should never underestimate the advantages of even the simple technology we have. We take the ability to edit and improve the description of an image on Commons for granted, but that is something you only get from a wiki-like system. Similarly, at least some degree of consistency within our taxonomy can be maintained because people can add/remove categories as they please. Compare Flickr's tags, where keywords are rarely consistent across images of the same type.
As for Wikisource, I continue to hold that one of its great promises are free translations of public domain texts, and this is where wiki becomes quickly indispensable.
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 5/29/06, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
Well, as said, for Wikipedia wiki worked very well. That doesn't mean it works as well for other projects. A wiki means several things at once, and it is one of them (the wiki philosophy of free editing and control afterward instead of in advance) that made Wikipedia work where Nupedia did not. Wiktionary would I think work better in an environment with the same philosophy but a different technology (more database-like rather than marked up text). Wikiquote and Commons might well profit from a similar switch. For Wikisource the whole 'free editing' concept itself does not seem as suitable, or at least, not as necessary.
Largely true, however, one should never underestimate the advantages of even the simple technology we have. We take the ability to edit and improve the description of an image on Commons for granted, but that is something you only get from a wiki-like system. Similarly, at least some degree of consistency within our taxonomy can be maintained because people can add/remove categories as they please. Compare Flickr's tags, where keywords are rarely consistent across images of the same type.
As for Wikisource, I continue to hold that one of its great promises are free translations of public domain texts, and this is where wiki becomes quickly indispensable.
... but the *original source* should be protected at the steward level, which requires a software change.
On 5/31/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
(Re: Wikisource)
... but the *original source* should be protected at the steward level, which requires a software change.
You mean the "original source" as in the print edition that was scanned to create the Wikisource document? You could lock it up somewhere, I suppose. ;-) In seriousness, the scanning and proofreading process is, of course, prone to errors which are fixed over time. Even for a well-checked document, new metadata is added, annotations are made, new formatting standards implemented, and so on. So what you end up with is, once again, the need for the "last known stable version". Same as in Wikipedia, really.
There's nothing inherently wrong with using wiki processes for small changes to large documents.
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 5/31/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
(Re: Wikisource)
... but the *original source* should be protected at the steward level, which requires a software change.
You mean the "original source" as in the print edition that was scanned to create the Wikisource document? You could lock it up somewhere, I suppose. ;-) In seriousness, the scanning and proofreading process is, of course, prone to errors which are fixed over time. Even for a well-checked document, new metadata is added, annotations are made, new formatting standards implemented, and so on. So what you end up with is, once again, the need for the "last known stable version". Same as in Wikipedia, really.
There's nothing inherently wrong with using wiki processes for small changes to large documents.
Erik
Hoi, When a source is scanned, OCR-d, spell checked (mind you a spell checker should be a spell checker that allows for the spelling of the period) and checked again, it provides a facsimile of the document that was scanned. This underlying data is what should have some form of protection. However, there is nothing stopping anyone from annotating the document, the point is that it is outside the document itself and it should be obvious that it is. When I read something like a work of Shakespeare, I am not necessarily interested in all the fluff that his work has accumulated over the years. I would like to read the bard. The functionality to read the original text without annotations and stuff is very much essential to reading a source. Remember, it is a SOURCE.
Thanks, GerardM
On 5/30/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
There's nothing inherently wrong with using wiki processes for small changes to large documents.
In practice it seems difficult to ensure that the good edits outweigh the bad ones when the number of good edits that can possibly be made is small.
I initially made that statement to refer to something like Wikisource (and to a lesser extent, Wikinews), but I wonder how much it applies to something like Wikipedia.
Anthony
On 31/05/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 5/29/06, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
Well, as said, for Wikipedia wiki worked very well. That doesn't mean it works as well for other projects. A wiki means several things at once, and it is one of them (the wiki philosophy of free editing and control afterward instead of in advance) that made Wikipedia work where Nupedia did not. Wiktionary would I think work better in an environment with the same philosophy but a different technology (more database-like rather than marked up text). Wikiquote and Commons might well profit from a similar switch. For Wikisource the whole 'free editing' concept itself does not seem as suitable, or at least, not as necessary.
Largely true, however, one should never underestimate the advantages of even the simple technology we have. We take the ability to edit and improve the description of an image on Commons for granted, but that is something you only get from a wiki-like system. Similarly, at least some degree of consistency within our taxonomy can be maintained because people can add/remove categories as they please. Compare Flickr's tags, where keywords are rarely consistent across images of the same type.
As for Wikisource, I continue to hold that one of its great promises are free translations of public domain texts, and this is where wiki becomes quickly indispensable.
... but the *original source* should be protected at the steward level, which requires a software change.
Incidentally, this implies we ever have the "original source". For most of the material likely to be on Wikisource, by virtue of it being comfortably over a hundred years old, we don't; we have a scan of one particular edition. Much of that particular edition will have been silently altered several times between us and the author; indeed, even with contemporary editions, the author may never have seen it since manuscript.
And that's even before contemplating the effects of which public-domain source (and hence which iteration of expurgation) we have used...
Andrew Gray wrote:
On 31/05/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 5/29/06, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
Well, as said, for Wikipedia wiki worked very well. That doesn't mean it works as well for other projects. A wiki means several things at once, and it is one of them (the wiki philosophy of free editing and control afterward instead of in advance) that made Wikipedia work where Nupedia did not. Wiktionary would I think work better in an environment with the same philosophy but a different technology (more database-like rather than marked up text). Wikiquote and Commons might well profit from a similar switch. For Wikisource the whole 'free editing' concept itself does not seem as suitable, or at least, not as necessary.
Largely true, however, one should never underestimate the advantages of even the simple technology we have. We take the ability to edit and improve the description of an image on Commons for granted, but that is something you only get from a wiki-like system. Similarly, at least some degree of consistency within our taxonomy can be maintained because people can add/remove categories as they please. Compare Flickr's tags, where keywords are rarely consistent across images of the same type.
As for Wikisource, I continue to hold that one of its great promises are free translations of public domain texts, and this is where wiki becomes quickly indispensable.
... but the *original source* should be protected at the steward level, which requires a software change.
Incidentally, this implies we ever have the "original source". For most of the material likely to be on Wikisource, by virtue of it being comfortably over a hundred years old, we don't; we have a scan of one particular edition. Much of that particular edition will have been silently altered several times between us and the author; indeed, even with contemporary editions, the author may never have seen it since manuscript.
And that's even before contemplating the effects of which public-domain source (and hence which iteration of expurgation) we have used...
While this is true to some extent, a Wiki also gives us greater opportunities to study the evoloution of a text across its several editions.
Ec
Andre Engels wrote:
Well, as said, for Wikipedia wiki worked very well. That doesn't mean it works as well for other projects. A wiki means several things at once, and it is one of them (the wiki philosophy of free editing and control afterward instead of in advance) that made Wikipedia work where Nupedia did not. Wiktionary would I think work better in an environment with the same philosophy but a different technology (more database-like rather than marked up text). Wikiquote and Commons might well profit from a similar switch. For Wikisource the whole 'free editing' concept itself does not seem as suitable, or at least, not as necessary.
I agree. The wiki format works very well to collaboratively create a text. But for other purposes it doesn't suite that perfect. An other example is discussions. I think, it would actually be nice if the MediaWiki software would be changed in that way that the 'discussion' page of each article had a more automated formatting, more like a forum, while still enabling the wikimedia-syntax. Outdated discussions could simply be hided and a rating system for comments (maybe similar to /.) could also work very well. To enable more semantic and meta-data support, or a more data-base-like feeling for Wiktionary etc. there's being worked at the Semantic MediaWiki (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki). Looks very promising!
Mauro Bieg
An other example is discussions. I think, it would actually be nice if the MediaWiki software would be changed in that way that the 'discussion' page of each article had a more automated formatting, more like a forum, while still enabling the wikimedia-syntax. Outdated discussions could simply be hided and a rating system for comments (maybe similar to /.) could also work very well.
this seems to be one of the wikimedia summer of code 2006 projects
To enable more semantic and meta-data support, or a more data-base-like feeling for Wiktionary etc. there's being worked at the Semantic MediaWiki (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki). Looks very promising!
And there is WiktionaryZ too...
Felipe Sanches ( "JucaBlues" )
On 5/29/06, Traroth traroth@yahoo.fr wrote:
Michael Snow a écrit :
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.
That's not false. But a question remains : why did Wikipedia become a hit, with millions of articles in hundred of languages, while Nupedia, which actually followed the same principles as Wikipedia, except it was not a wiki, never reached 100 articles ?
I don't think you can completely separate "the wiki part" from the "success" [1] of Wikipedia. The fact that in Wikipedia there were almost no barriers to contribution/collaboration (explicit, technical, social, etc.) was, as far as I can tell, the only significant difference between the two projects.
But I don't see the elimination of barriers to contribution as being exclusive to being a wiki. Is DMOZ a wiki? Would it become one if you eliminated the rules about signing up and getting approved before you can "become an editor"?
Jimmy Wales tried applying "the wiki part" to a web directory (Wikiasari). The project failed miserably.
I dunno, maybe DMOZ *would* be "a wiki" if you eliminated just a couple of the stupid rules. And maybe it would be enormously more successful if you did so. Of course, maybe Nupedia would have overtaken Wikipedia by now if Bomis had just funded it for a few more years. I've read before that Larry Sanger thinks this.
[1] Wikipedia's definitely enormously popular, and it has certainly managed to produce an enormous breadth of information. The average quality, on the other hand, is mediocre, and I personally have serious doubts as to whether or not that's a situation that's correctable.
Hi!
Wikipedia's definitely enormously popular, and it has certainly managed to produce an enormous breadth of information. The average quality, on the other hand, is mediocre, and I personally have serious doubts as to whether or not that's a situation that's correctable.
Quality is an issue, yet most people will believe Wikipedia anyway, just because it's free and it's often the only available online information source on a given subject. Doubts about quality, on the other side, may not be referred to wikis only. It's a lot of sites on the net publishing pure trash, and sometimes they even want money for you to read it...
I suppose the only answer is into trying to concentrate wiki growth towards quality, instead of making it only a quantity matter. Yet, the internal success mark (at the moment) still is limited to "how many articles you guys got?". Until this internal perception does not change, there will be no chance to improve quality.
Sometimes in the future this will probably develop into more complex redactional structures, that will take care of analyzing and correcting wiki content, at least for the main subjects. Some trends in that direction are visible, still this cannot be done in full scale without spending money and time.
Bèrto
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On 5/29/06, Berto albertoserra@ukr.net wrote:
Hi!
Wikipedia's definitely enormously popular, and it has certainly managed to produce an enormous breadth of information. The average quality, on the other hand, is mediocre, and I personally have serious doubts as to whether or not that's a situation that's correctable.
Quality is an issue, yet most people will believe Wikipedia anyway, just because it's free and it's often the only available online information source on a given subject. Doubts about quality, on the other side, may not be referred to wikis only. It's a lot of sites on the net publishing pure trash, and sometimes they even want money for you to read it...
I suppose the only answer is into trying to concentrate wiki growth towards quality, instead of making it only a quantity matter. Yet, the internal success mark (at the moment) still is limited to "how many articles you guys got?". Until this internal perception does not change, there will be no chance to improve quality.
My doubts come from the fact that Wikipedia, from its very birth, was never designed to produce a final product. "Nupedia started Wikipedia as a side project to allow collaboration on articles prior to entering the peer review process."
I'm just not sure it's possible to ratchet up the quality controls (explicit/rules-based, technical, social, etc.) without also killing the very openness which has proven to be so necessary in getting people to work for free. I suppose it could be attempted on an article by article basis, but that's going to cause a significant cultural shift which may or may not work.
Anthony
On 5/29/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
But I don't see the elimination of barriers to contribution as being exclusive to being a wiki. Is DMOZ a wiki? Would it become one if you eliminated the rules about signing up and getting approved before you can "become an editor"?
Jimmy Wales tried applying "the wiki part" to a web directory (Wikiasari). The project failed miserably.
I dunno, maybe DMOZ *would* be "a wiki" if you eliminated just a couple of the stupid rules. And maybe it would be enormously more successful if you did so. Of course, maybe Nupedia would have overtaken Wikipedia by now if Bomis had just funded it for a few more years. I've read before that Larry Sanger thinks this.
DMOZ is a creepy mess; Wikipedia's starting to develop some of the same self-congratulating culture of admins that it has (or had last time I checked). It freaks me out.
On 5/30/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
DMOZ is a creepy mess; Wikipedia's starting to develop some of the same self-congratulating culture of admins that it has (or had last time I checked). It freaks me out.
I hope I didn't suggest that DMOZ was any more than a creepy mess. I think the decision to add such large barriers to entry was a huge mistake.
Anthony
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