--- lcrocker(a)nupedia.com wrote:
There's a
rich history from older wiki communities
and projects that we can, and should, draw upon,
just
as we draw upon existing sources for encyclopedia
articles.
> Maybe. I'm not actually sure that
that's true;
Wikipedia
> is a completely new thing. It's a wiki,
but it's
a lot
> more than a wiki.
Perhaps, but we're still building on a
foundation
that's largely wiki, and many of our problems have
also been faced by other wikis.
There are lots of other sources to learn from too:
older encyclopedia projects (why did they fail?),
commercial encyclopedias (is there anything we can
leverage from them in our project?) and the
rise(s)
and fall(s) of other great Internet experiments
(Usenet, Slashdot).
I think it's important to realize that we are on the
bleeding edge here, and that the experience of
others in
other online communities, even wiki, doesn't
necessarily
apply.
Yes, but it doesn't necessarily *not* apply, which is
what I'm getting at.
First, the idea that there is a "rich
history"
of wikis in particular is laughable, unless there's
some
definition of "rich history" that includes things
created
in 1995, none of which has ever produced a product
even
vaguely resembling what we're trying to produce. I
might
apply the term "rich history" to things like mailing
lists,
Usenet, IRC, and MUDs; everything else is new
ground.
"Rich" doesn't necessarily equate with "long". There
are examples of many different people trying to do
different things, and that qualifies as "rich".
We also differ greatly from a lot of those earlier
communities
in that we have a goal: building an encyclopedia.
We are not
here /for the purpose/ of building a community; the
community
is just a /means/ to the end of building an
encyclopedia.
Only MeatBallWiki exists solely for the purpose of
community-building and discussion. Ward's Wiki, for
example, was originally a repository for programming
patterns, shifted into extreme programming, and it's
now pretty much a free-for-all. If we want to avoid
that, we can look to avoid and/or counter the factors
that pushed Wiki in that direction
If
those other communities teach us something about
building
communities, that may or may not apply here, because
if the
community gets in the way of the goal, the goal
comes first.
This is a false dichotomy. If the community falls
apart, so does the project. But I'm glad you recognize
that lessons from other communities may apply here,
just as I recognize that they may not.
I think Wikipedia has more in common with things
like open
source software projects, in that the community
itself is just
a secondary concern to producing a product. In
other words,
we should take our lessons not from MUDs or
Everything2, but
from Linux kernel development, the Apache project,
Mozilla,
etc. I think it's worth noting that in all of those
projects,
there are security and control mechanisms.
If Wikipedia is different from previous wiki projects,
it's certainly different from open source software
projects.
I think it's a combination of both, with differences
thrown into the mix. Why can't we take our lessons
from all comers?
Everything2 is a great example. It started out as an
encyclopedia project, just like us. Now it's... not.
It had (and has) many "security and control
mechanisms": police forces, banning, permanent
deletion of nodes, experience points, granting of
privileges by the privileged. If we, out of ignorance,
do the same things that Everything2 has done, we could
end up the same way.
So don't tell me what other Wikis have done--it
doesn't matter.
Tell me what other /successful productive projects/
have done.
What other *unsuccessful* projects have done is just
as important. In fact, I say it's more so. Trying to
copy other's successes is more difficult than avoid
other's mistakes.
Don't tell me how to build a community; tell me
how
to make
the community build an encyclopedia.
Ok, here's one way. Don't treat "the community" and
"the project" as separate entities; they are tightly
entwined. To focus on building a community and losing
sight of the goal is extremely harmful, but so is
forgetting that it's the community that works together
toward the goal.
Stephen G.
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