2006/5/29, Traroth <traroth(a)yahoo.fr>fr>: 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. -- Andre Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels

On 29/05/06, Andre Engels <andreengels(a)gmail.com> wrote: It's not bad for proofreading of OCRed text, but this is a rather limited use of it. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

Erik Moeller wrote: ... but the *original source* should be protected at the steward level, which requires a software change. -- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

Erik Moeller wrote: 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 31/05/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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 andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

Andre Engels wrote: 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

On 5/29/06, Traroth <traroth(a)yahoo.fr> wrote: 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.

On 5/29/06, Berto <albertoserra(a)ukr.net> wrote: 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 5/30/06, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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