On Mar 10, 2005, at 3:10 PM, David Gerard wrote:
Stirling Newberry wrote:
There have been hundreds of messages about small
language wikipedias,
and a handful about the social structure and credibility of
wikipedai. Starting a wikipedia in (fill in the blank language) is
far less important than dealing with credibility issues, and with the
interaction problems in wikipedia, and with ideas to promote
wikipedia to the larger world.
Perhaps when we can deal with our *current* status as a Top 200
website,
with peaks yesterday at No. 71. For a site popular purely through word
of mouth, I think we're having problems coping with the amount of
credibility we already have.
- d.
More than you are aware of, in that so far wikipedia has only had to
deal with "natural" challenges of software, social organization and
server load factor. Wait until you start having to deal with the
problems of organized attempts to extract value from wikipedia, it will
generate server loads and social problems which are, if the experience
of e-tailers like EBay and Amazon are any indication two to four orders
of magnitude above current peak loads. And I am not kidding.
More over, the current size is based on link equity, not merely "word
of mouth". That link equity is something that people pay money for, and
therefore exploiting wikipedia's link equity is already happening, and
doing so on a systematic basis is a matter of time.
As well, the problems of retention and wider recruitment need to be
dealt with now, otherwise by the time people realize there is a problem
it will be too late.