Hello all,
The same article was put on a Wikipedia page.
I think that we have grown a Wikipedia community. Wikipedia is a volunteer project that was made possible by Bomis. However, we have invested in our favourite project a lot of enthusiasm, time and (in some cases) money. It is quite natural that we want Wikipedia to prosper. In my opinion it is a time to stop and discuss. Discuss the future of Wikipedia. How does Bomis see it ? How does Nupedia see it ? How do we ? The future might be or might not as bright as our imagination whispers into our ears. Wikipedia is a great idea combined with a new, revolutionary software and it has a lot of brilliant committed authors. Her growth is explosive. But there are also weaknesses (Wikinesses ?) brought into light be some of us.
Reliability
The other side of the free writing style in Wikipedia is quite possible lack of reliability. This lack of reliability would in the end undermine Wikipedia's credibility and ultimately her success. This issue must be tackled, and as soon as possible. I don't agree here with [[Larry Sanger]] and his view "self-healing". It is an example of elated wishful thinking that is misleading us. I'd rather agree with [[Piotr Wozniak]]. His ideal of reliability is EB and he is anxious about the potential lack of it in Wikipedia. I am very interested in other people views. To start the creative process of discussion I'll give you my ([[Kpjas]]) idea : Why not create two parallel Wikipedias one public Wikipedia that is almost frozen (apart from Talk pages, Feature requests pages and the like). And the working Wikipedia for contributors. Forseeing your criticisms of the proposal that it would hamper netizen involvement - Edit this page could lead into the working Wikipedia.
Scalability
There are two ways of Wikipedia growth - global or niche. If we decide in favour of global growth - being slashdotted only first symptom of a serious problem. I'll give you my ([[Kpjas]]) idea : :Nowadays distributed software solutions are the height of fashion. Why not devise a distributed Wikipedia ? Programmers ?
Multimedia
A picture can say more than, say, several Wikipedia articles. It is rather trivial. I think that Wikipedia without pictures, video, and audio is not a real encyclopedia. I wonder if you think my propositions worthwhile : AudioWikipedia, PhotoWikipedia, VideoWikipedia - pages that can be linked from the real Wikipedias but having only a title and Talk pages.
Internal data format
This point is connected with Software issue below. Current data format is otherwise an example of excellent software solution. But understandably the creator of it did not envision the scale of Wikipedia. It poses numerous problems like searching through Wikipedia and others. My ([[Kpjas]]) thoughts wander around [[XML]] data format in connection with a free [[database]] like [[MySQL]]. And your thoughts ?
Editorial process
Much has been said about it but not much done. We have an excellent and hard-working editor-in-chief - [[Larry Sanger]] but I think Wikipedia in current form needs several such editors and when it reaches 100,000 pages 1000 Larrys. My idea ([[Kpjas]] is : Create editor teams online that would cross national Wikipedias borders. The teams would need tools to work effectively. One, the simplest, in terms of setting it up are separate mailing-list devoted to editorial groups like [[Architecture]], [[Philosophy]] and so on.
Software
Like any other open software project the software behind it should be free and open to all. The same applies to Wikipedia software. As I said above wikipedia software (usemod wiki) is a revolutionary and of very good quality but needs of Wikipedia as a global encyclopedia of unrestrained growth go beyond that kind of software. See also above Internal data format. On the Wikipedia mailing list [[BryceHarrington]] proposed making the Wikipedia software publicly available on [[CVS]] for further collaboration on its development.
Commercial and organizational issues
I'm no good at it. But to me it seems to be one of the most important issues, second to wide netizen involvement. Please, share your feelings and opinions here.
Best wishes to everyone, kpj.
On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
Hello all,
The same article was put on a Wikipedia page.
I just have a few random, not-worth keeping comments so will reply here rather than on the wiki site. (Btw, good idea to post it there.)
I think that we have grown a Wikipedia community. Wikipedia is a volunteer project that was made possible by Bomis. However, we have invested in our favourite project a lot of enthusiasm, time and (in some cases) money. It is quite natural that we want Wikipedia to prosper. In my opinion it is a time to stop and discuss. Discuss the future of Wikipedia. How does Bomis see it ? How does Nupedia see it ? How do we ?
Personally, as long as Bomis is providing tarballs and enough to *potentially* allow for forking, we've zero incentive to do it at all. Sort of, the more control they're willing to give away, the more control we can all trust them to have, I guess.
Reliability
The other side of the free writing style in Wikipedia is quite possible lack of reliability. This lack of reliability would in the end undermine Wikipedia's credibility and ultimately her success.
No one in the world expects credibility from Wikipedia. And Wikipedia requires nothing from the world at large to be successful. Thus to me it seems like there is only a tenuous connection - at best - between credibility and success, regarding Wikipedia. If Wikipedia were *only* intended to be a literal replacement for a traditional encyclopedia, sure. But it's something a tad less, and something a tad more.
That said, I do not think that the lack of credibility is as clear cut as would appear at first glance. Yes, logic says one should expect to see a distinct lack of credibility in Wikipedia. However, the evidence we're seeing is that many articles actually *are* reliable and credible. In a small but growing number of cases, the articles are actually *better* than you'd find in a traditional encyclopedia.
This issue must be tackled, and as soon as possible. I don't agree here with [[Larry Sanger]] and his view "self-healing". It is an example of elated wishful thinking that is misleading us.
Well I have disagreed with Larry on many things, but on this particular one I think he is correct. I've been involved with Wikipedia since the start, and have watched the evolution of many articles. I think this "self-healing" is not an expression of an idealistic wish of his but a characterization of a real thing that we have been observing again and again.
I don't know that I would go so far as to say that self-healing will ensure that at some tangible point wikipedia will be 100% correct. Actually I'm fairly confident that will never happen. But then, does that matter? No encyclopedia is 100% correct, and probably not even 75% correct, when you consider how much is unknown or incorrectly known in the world.
I would like to analogize to science here. Scientists 300 years ago did not say, "Let's make sure we have everything completely and reliably figured out as soon as possible, and record it." Instead they came up with a process that allows for establishing what they believed true, with processes for testing and validating and adjusting as we go. A self-correcting approach to accumulating knowledge. With Wikipedia we are using a similar approach - we record what we believe to be true, and then it is challenged and tested, and hopefully replaced with something better.
Why not create two parallel Wikipedias one public Wikipedia that is almost frozen (apart from Talk pages, Feature requests pages and the like). And the working Wikipedia for contributors. Forseeing your criticisms of the proposal that it would hamper netizen involvement - Edit this page could lead into the working Wikipedia.
I agree. However, to me it seems like this describes what Nupedia's role has become, and I think it already serves this purpose very well.
Scalability
There are two ways of Wikipedia growth - global or niche. If we decide in favour of global growth - being slashdotted only first symptom of a serious problem. I'll give you my ([[Kpjas]]) idea : :Nowadays distributed software solutions are the height of fashion. Why not devise a distributed Wikipedia ? Programmers ?
The wiki cgi is actually pretty light on resource usage. The format of the html pages are very simple and so bandwidth is probably not a major concern. We seem to have weathered the slashdotting extremely well. So distribution for purposes of resource distribution isn't going to buy too much, IMHO. Larry and Jason and etc. can let us know if it becomes a problem and we can seek out a solution then.
A second reason for distribution is to make it harder to "kill" the service, ala Napster. But as long as tarballs of the site are available periodically, this is not a major concern.
A third reason would be for caching purposes. If a large site like google is the source of many frequent accesses of the site, there might be benefit to establishing read-only caches. Again, though, I think this is Bomis' domain to worry about. If it ain't a problem for them, it ain't a problem for us.
Multimedia
A picture can say more than, say, several Wikipedia articles. It is rather trivial. I think that Wikipedia without pictures, video, and audio is not a real encyclopedia. I wonder if you think my propositions worthwhile : AudioWikipedia, PhotoWikipedia, VideoWikipedia - pages that can be linked from the real Wikipedias but having only a title and Talk pages.
Agreed, agreed, agreed. What we need, essentially, is an upload tool that lets us post images onto the wikipedia site. This opens many benefits but also some cans of worms, so this is not a trivial request.
I've written file upload systems several times over the years, and I'm about to need to do yet another one at work. I will *tentatively* offer to volunteer to provide something that can be plugged into wikipedia to do file uploads, if Larry and Jason give the go ahead for it. It may be a few months, if at all, before I can have it ready, though.
Editorial process
Much has been said about it but not much done. We have an excellent and hard-working editor-in-chief - [[Larry Sanger]] but I think Wikipedia in current form needs several such editors and when it reaches 100,000 pages 1000 Larrys. My idea ([[Kpjas]] is : Create editor teams online that would cross national Wikipedias borders. The teams would need tools to work effectively. One, the simplest, in terms of setting it up are separate mailing-list devoted to editorial groups like [[Architecture]], [[Philosophy]] and so on.
I think this is a good idea. Many pages require editing attention. This is a topic I've heard Larry and others discuss many times. The issue is just finding a way to incentivize folks to do this. I think we are still searching for the solution here.
Software
Like any other open software project the software behind it should be free and open to all. The same applies to Wikipedia software. As I said above wikipedia software (usemod wiki) is a revolutionary and of very good quality but needs of Wikipedia as a global encyclopedia of unrestrained growth go beyond that kind of software. See also above Internal data format. On the Wikipedia mailing list [[BryceHarrington]] proposed making the Wikipedia software publicly available on [[CVS]] for further collaboration on its development.
I think we're ok on this one now.
usemodwiki is available openly and has been for a long time. (In fact, I'm using usemodwiki on half a dozen other sites right now.)
Also, the recent tarball includes the usemodwiki software, and all of the associated scripts and such.
Bryce
I think Wikipedia is doing remarkably well, and while considerations about the future are certainly understandable just now when we're experiencing unprecedented growth, I don't see any necessity for any *radical* change. This is not at all to deny, of course, that there are some features we desperately need, that we have been requesting for months, such as a file uploader. There are a few replies I'd like to make, too.
From: "Bryce Harrington" bryce@neptune.net
On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
The other side of the free writing style in Wikipedia is quite possible lack of reliability. This lack of reliability would in the end undermine Wikipedia's credibility and ultimately her success.
No one in the world expects credibility from Wikipedia. And Wikipedia requires nothing from the world at large to be successful. Thus to me it seems like there is only a tenuous connection - at best - between credibility and success, regarding Wikipedia. If Wikipedia were *only* intended to be a literal replacement for a traditional encyclopedia, sure. But it's something a tad less, and something a tad more.
That's close to how I would answer. I would say that it *is* going to be a replacement (or a competitor) for traditional encyclopedias, precisely because it *will* be remarkably reliable--as well as more massive than any traditional encyclopedia. It already is remarkably reliable given that there is no peer review process at present. I think it's a very long time indeed before we'll institute anything like a peer review process. That would stymie development.
What we might want to do in the nearer term, particularly if there is programming support for it out there, is some manner of voting system about articles (good articles get high votes, e.g.). But, frankly, I think that's a complete and utter waste of time, precisely because we don't know who's voting--but if we were to have a huge panel of *experts* voting on Wikipedia articles, that'd be something else. Of course, we aren't going to get any such huge panel anytime soon, so...
That said, I do not think that the lack of credibility is as clear cut as would appear at first glance. Yes, logic says one should expect to see a distinct lack of credibility in Wikipedia. However, the evidence we're seeing is that many articles actually *are* reliable and credible. In a small but growing number of cases, the articles are actually *better* than you'd find in a traditional encyclopedia.
Another important point, well stated. (Of course, strictly speaking, logic, or logical application of straightforward principles derived from common experience, doesn't apply here: Wikipedia is really a *new thing*!
Re: "Reliability"
This issue must be tackled, and as soon as possible. I don't agree here with [[Larry Sanger]] and his view "self-healing". It is an example of elated wishful thinking that is misleading us.
Excuse me, Krzysztof, but this isn't just *my* view. As far as I can tell, it is the view of *most* people who have been actively working on Wikipedia for more than a month or two--more importantly, it's common knowledge just how robust wikis are. You make it sound as if it were something that were a matter of serious dispute. Well, notwithstanding your view, and that of a few very new people who lack experience with wikis--it isn't! Not at all! It's pretty much self-evident to old hands here that articles *do* tend constantly to be improved, repaired (when, as sometimes occurs, a disadvantageous edit is made), etc. I think you simply have yet to fully appreciate this.
I think you could stand to stop talking *about* Wikipedia and use your time to do some actual work on it. I think this might help you understand some things you don't seem yet to understand fully.
Well I have disagreed with Larry on many things, but on this particular one I think he is correct. I've been involved with Wikipedia since the start, and have watched the evolution of many articles. I think this "self-healing" is not an expression of an idealistic wish of his but a characterization of a real thing that we have been observing again and again.
Very well stated. In other words, it's practically self-evident, to someone with adequate experience with wikis.
I don't know that I would go so far as to say that self-healing will ensure that at some tangible point wikipedia will be 100% correct. Actually I'm fairly confident that will never happen. But then, does that matter? No encyclopedia is 100% correct, and probably not even 75% correct, when you consider how much is unknown or incorrectly known in the world.
When it is much more mature than it is now, I think there will be some benefit to be gained, *perhaps*, in setting up some sort of professional-level review system. But setting up such a system now would be extremely counterproductive. So, I counsel patience!
Why not create two parallel Wikipedias one public Wikipedia that is
almost
frozen (apart from Talk pages, Feature requests pages and the like).
And the
working Wikipedia for contributors. Forseeing your criticisms of the
proposal
that it would hamper netizen involvement - Edit this page could lead
into the
working Wikipedia.
I agree. However, to me it seems like this describes what Nupedia's role has become, and I think it already serves this purpose very well.
More to the point, this is what the Chalkboard does. Krzysztof, maybe you should just devote your efforts to the Chalkboard. I think you'll find it *much* more to your liking, and your active participation may be just the extra little push we need to get that project really moving. Have a look at the Chalkboard policy statement http://chalkboard.nupedia.com/wiki.cgi?Chalkboard/Policy and I think you'll find a few of your suggestions already implemented there.
Multimedia
A picture can say more than, say, several Wikipedia articles. It is rather trivial. I think that Wikipedia without pictures, video, and audio is not a real encyclopedia. I wonder if you think my propositions worthwhile : AudioWikipedia, PhotoWikipedia, VideoWikipedia - pages that can be linked from the real Wikipedias but having only a title and Talk pages.
Agreed, agreed, agreed. What we need, essentially, is an upload tool that lets us post images onto the wikipedia site. This opens many benefits but also some cans of worms, so this is not a trivial request.
Well, I've asked our guys *repeatedly* for an upload tool. Maybe that's the next thing they'll give us.
I've written file upload systems several times over the years, and I'm about to need to do yet another one at work. I will *tentatively* offer to volunteer to provide something that can be plugged into wikipedia to do file uploads, if Larry and Jason give the go ahead for it. It may be a few months, if at all, before I can have it ready, though.
Please do--there's really no need to ask permission to write obviously useful tools for the project. If you show the initiative of writing complex code, I'm pretty sure Jason and others will want to take the time of uploading and using it.
But bear in mind Nupedia has an upload tool too...that could be adapted, perhaps. I do think we need some sort of approval system for Wikipedia's upload tool, though--if we don't, it *will* be used to try to crash the server, upload porn, and otherwise cause problems, of that I'm sure.
Editorial process
Much has been said about it but not much done.
That's because, frankly, most of what's been said reflects a failure to understand ***WHY*** Wikipedia has been so successful so far.
My idea ([[Kpjas]] is : Create editor teams online that would cross national Wikipedias borders. The teams would need tools to work effectively. One, the simplest, in terms of setting it up are separate mailing-list devoted to editorial groups like [[Architecture]], [[Philosophy]] and so on.
I think this is a good idea. Many pages require editing attention. This is a topic I've heard Larry and others discuss many times. The issue is just finding a way to incentivize folks to do this. I think we are still searching for the solution here.
I'll bite: what would the editor teams be *for*, and what would they *do*, and, to be consistent with what does make Wikipedia work, how could they possibly be anything other than a bunch of pompous blowhards who want to control what everyone else is doing? I wouldn't *want* to be on an editorial team for philosophy, myself; Krzysztof, would you want to be on one for your field? How would you try to control what people do on the wiki, and do you really think that it would be for the best?
I have a better idea. Let's encourage every person who might possibly be a member of an editorial team to go in and work directly on the articles that would be in the purview of their editorial team. That way, all the energy that goes into the silly politics of an "editorial team" is channelled in a positive direction, viz., working on articles.
Larry, who would much rather be working on the wiki than writing this
On 16-08-2001, Larry Sanger wrote thusly :
I think Wikipedia is doing remarkably well, and while considerations about the future are certainly understandable just now when we're experiencing unprecedented growth, I don't see any necessity for any *radical* change. This is not at all to deny, of course, that there are some features we desperately need, that we have been requesting for months, such as a file uploader. There are a few replies I'd like to make, too. From: "Bryce Harrington" bryce@neptune.net
On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
The other side of the free writing style in Wikipedia is quite possible lack of reliability. This lack of reliability would in the end undermine Wikipedia's credibility and ultimately her success.
No one in the world expects credibility from Wikipedia. And Wikipedia requires nothing from the world at large to be successful. Thus to me it seems like there is only a tenuous connection - at best - between credibility and success, regarding Wikipedia. If Wikipedia were *only* intended to be a literal replacement for a traditional encyclopedia, sure. But it's something a tad less, and something a tad more.
That's close to how I would answer. I would say that it *is* going to be a replacement (or a competitor) for traditional encyclopedias, precisely because it *will* be remarkably reliable--as well as more massive than any traditional encyclopedia. It already is remarkably reliable given that there is no peer review process at present. I think it's a very long time indeed before we'll institute anything like a peer review process. That would stymie development. What we might want to do in the nearer term, particularly if there is programming support for it out there, is some manner of voting system about articles (good articles get high votes, e.g.). But, frankly, I think that's a complete and utter waste of time, precisely because we don't know who's voting--but if we were to have a huge panel of *experts* voting on Wikipedia articles, that'd be something else. Of course, we aren't going to get any such huge panel anytime soon, so...
That said, I do not think that the lack of credibility is as clear cut as would appear at first glance. Yes, logic says one should expect to see a distinct lack of credibility in Wikipedia. However, the evidence we're seeing is that many articles actually *are* reliable and credible. In a small but growing number of cases, the articles are actually *better* than you'd find in a traditional encyclopedia.
Another important point, well stated. (Of course, strictly speaking, logic, or logical application of straightforward principles derived from common experience, doesn't apply here: Wikipedia is really a *new thing*! Re: "Reliability"
This issue must be tackled, and as soon as possible. I don't agree here with [[Larry Sanger]] and his view "self-healing". It is an example of elated wishful thinking that is misleading us.
Excuse me, Krzysztof, but this isn't just *my* view. As far as I can tell, it is the view of *most* people who have been actively working on Wikipedia for more than a month or two--more importantly, it's common knowledge just how robust wikis are. You make it sound as if it were something that were a matter of serious dispute. Well, notwithstanding your view, and that of a few very new people who lack experience with wikis--it isn't! Not at all! It's pretty much self-evident to old hands here that articles *do* tend constantly to be improved, repaired (when, as sometimes occurs, a disadvantageous edit is made), etc. I think you simply have yet to fully appreciate this. I think you could stand to stop talking *about* Wikipedia and use your time to do some actual work on it. I think this might help you understand some things you don't seem yet to understand fully.
Your sarcasm is quite unecessary. Do we want arguments like 'I have a bigger say in Wikipedia matters because...' Looking just a week ahead and taking only one aspect into consideration is not a good thing. In my opinion. I feel I am putting a lot of effort and enthusiasm in Wikipedia project. So far I have written as many pages as my time allowed. So it is unfair to bring up that matter as an argument for me to sit silent. I have already said many times that I acknowledge that wiki software is absolutely revolutionary but it doesn't mean it is perfect for a particular application of it and it can not be improved.
Well I have disagreed with Larry on many things, but on this particular one I think he is correct. I've been involved with Wikipedia since the start, and have watched the evolution of many articles. I think this "self-healing" is not an expression of an idealistic wish of his but a characterization of a real thing that we have been observing again and again.
Very well stated. In other words, it's practically self-evident, to someone with adequate experience with wikis.
I don't know that I would go so far as to say that self-healing will ensure that at some tangible point wikipedia will be 100% correct. Actually I'm fairly confident that will never happen. But then, does that matter? No encyclopedia is 100% correct, and probably not even 75% correct, when you consider how much is unknown or incorrectly known in the world.
A question arises about Wikipedia audience. Now and then I hear it is very well that it is for the fun of the authors. I enjoy Wikipedia very much myself but I think that the ultimate goal is global web audience. Why, if Wikipedia is such a great idea, keep it to ourselves ? If we are not prepared to share Wikipedia with the rest of the world why publicise its existence ?
When it is much more mature than it is now, I think there will be some benefit to be gained, *perhaps*, in setting up some sort of professional-level review system. But setting up such a system now would be extremely counterproductive. So, I counsel patience!
I suppose that there are more prospective authors than reviewers. If there are 100,000 pages how long will it take to review it professionally.
Why not create two parallel Wikipedias one public Wikipedia that is
almost
frozen (apart from Talk pages, Feature requests pages and the like).
And the
working Wikipedia for contributors. Forseeing your criticisms of the
proposal
that it would hamper netizen involvement - Edit this page could lead
into the
working Wikipedia.
I agree. However, to me it seems like this describes what Nupedia's role has become, and I think it already serves this purpose very well.
More to the point, this is what the Chalkboard does. Krzysztof, maybe you should just devote your efforts to the Chalkboard. I think you'll find it *much* more to your liking, and your active participation may be just the extra little push we need to get that project really moving. Have a look at the Chalkboard policy statement http://chalkboard.nupedia.com/wiki.cgi?Chalkboard/Policy and I think you'll find a few of your suggestions already implemented there.
Surely I must look at the Chalkboard.
Multimedia A picture can say more than, say, several Wikipedia articles. It is rather trivial. I think that Wikipedia without pictures, video, and audio is not a real encyclopedia. I wonder if you think my propositions worthwhile : AudioWikipedia, PhotoWikipedia, VideoWikipedia - pages that can be linked from the real Wikipedias but having only a title and Talk pages.
Agreed, agreed, agreed. What we need, essentially, is an upload tool that lets us post images onto the wikipedia site. This opens many benefits but also some cans of worms, so this is not a trivial request.
Well, I've asked our guys *repeatedly* for an upload tool. Maybe that's the next thing they'll give us.
Keep fingers crossed.
I've written file upload systems several times over the years, and I'm about to need to do yet another one at work. I will *tentatively* offer to volunteer to provide something that can be plugged into wikipedia to do file uploads, if Larry and Jason give the go ahead for it. It may be a few months, if at all, before I can have it ready, though.
Please do--there's really no need to ask permission to write obviously useful tools for the project. If you show the initiative of writing complex code, I'm pretty sure Jason and others will want to take the time of uploading and using it. But bear in mind Nupedia has an upload tool too...that could be adapted, perhaps. I do think we need some sort of approval system for Wikipedia's upload tool, though--if we don't, it *will* be used to try to crash the server, upload porn, and otherwise cause problems, of that I'm sure.
Upload process needs some careful planning that anyone could link to any image (or the like) as easy as he/she makes a wiki link. I think we will need 'Recent Changes' for images uploaded as well.
Editorial process Much has been said about it but not much done.
That's because, frankly, most of what's been said reflects a failure to understand ***WHY*** Wikipedia has been so successful so far.
My idea ([[Kpjas]] is : Create editor teams online that would cross national Wikipedias borders. The teams would need tools to work effectively. One, the simplest, in terms of setting it up are separate mailing-list devoted to editorial groups like [[Architecture]], [[Philosophy]] and so on.
I think this is a good idea. Many pages require editing attention. This is a topic I've heard Larry and others discuss many times. The issue is just finding a way to incentivize folks to do this. I think we are still searching for the solution here.
I'll bite: what would the editor teams be *for*, and what would they *do*, and, to be consistent with what does make Wikipedia work, how could they possibly be anything other than a bunch of pompous blowhards who want to control what everyone else is doing? I wouldn't *want* to be on an editorial team for philosophy, myself; Krzysztof, would you want to be on one for your field? How would you try to control what people do on the wiki, and do you really think that it would be for the best?
I see editorial boards like a discussion forum for possibly different people from different areas. This editorial boards would be supplied with information on current changes, state of the affairs, and specific needs that must be done now plus plans and changes for the future. For example: 1. I have contributed most of the material for Insulin but I know practically nothing about Insulins in other animals. 2. I have contributed most of the material for Sagrada familia, someone form the Catalan Wikipedia could give additional info or interesting insights. Moreover someone actually living in Barcelona could go take a few photos with a digital camera and upload them to Wikipedia.
I have a better idea. Let's encourage every person who might possibly be a member of an editorial team to go in and work directly on the articles that would be in the purview of their editorial team. That way, all the energy that goes into the silly politics of an "editorial team" is channelled in a positive direction, viz., working on articles.
Larry I am not proposing this to be a president of an editorial board but to foster productivity and collaboration.
Larry, who would much rather be working on the wiki than writing this
Answering to posts on this mailing list is not compulsory. Without such discussion we would have had tarballs, upload mechanism and (I hope) many future enhancements. If this is petty...
Regards, kpj.
Rather than bothering you all further with this, I'm answering Krzysztof privately...
Larry
I've read with interest the comments by Krzysztof, Larry, and Bryce. I'd like to summarize how I view the relationship between Wikipedia, the Nupedia chalkboard, and Nupedia.
I have perused the list of contributors to Nupedia and am impressed by their credentials. But it is unlikely that I will every achieve the level of authority in any subject that would enable me to be counted among their ranks. Having said that, I will add that as an amateur intellectual with eclectic interests, I find Wikipedia to be a refreshing outlet for my interest in sharing the smattering of facts that I ''have'' mastered.
Getting to the point, I do not appreciate the direction suggested by Krzysztof to attempt to "improve" the reputation of Wikipedia. For one thing, let's see some concrete examples of existing [[patent nonsense]] ''today'' in the Wikipedia so we can gauge the actual extent of the problem to which Krzysztof alludes.
As long as the Internet is crawling with [[induhvidual]]s who spread hoax e-mail [1], misinformation will ''not'' be stamped out. ''Caveat lector'', I say! I agree with Larry that those who are uncomfortable with the potential for dubious information on Wikipedia should concentrate on Nupedia and its wiki chalkboard.
What hasn't been mentioned here is the value Wikipedia has in adding a new dimension to discourse and knowledge transfer. I first discovered it at the original [[WikiWiki]], whose purpose has rightly remained relatively narrow and focused on subjects of interest to computer scientists. That dimension evolves from the fundamental concepts that wiki embodies -- the ability to add hyperlinks with extreme ease. No other Web site offers anywhere close to the potential for interconnecting human concepts so easily.
Sorry if this seems rambling. I don't have any more time for editing. But I'll close with this. Remember the plot device popular in fish-out-of-water movies and TV shows about how the extraterrestrial/mermaid/caveman learns about American culture by watching television? Well, all you Singularity fans out there -- think about what we're creating at the Wikipedia. It -- more than any other World Wide Web site -- has the potential to become the ultimate storehouse of human knowledge, ready-made for absorption by the first artificial consciousness that some expect will eventually somehow emerge on the 'Net. Maybe Wikipedia will be the grounds for its adolescent development. Then it will graduate to the Nupedia and get ''really'' smart. :-) Or maybe before that, the extraterrestrials will get ahold of this knowledge, infiltrate our society, and have us for dinner. :-)
<>< Tim
---
On 16-08-2001, Bryce Harrington wrote thusly :
I snipped some parts of Bryce's post that are not relevant to my answers.
On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
Hello all, The same article was put on a Wikipedia page.
I just have a few random, not-worth keeping comments so will reply here rather than on the wiki site. (Btw, good idea to post it there.)
I think that we have grown a Wikipedia community. Wikipedia is a volunteer project that was made possible by Bomis. However, we have invested in our favourite project a lot of enthusiasm, time and (in some cases) money. It is quite natural that we want Wikipedia to prosper. In my opinion it is a time to stop and discuss. Discuss the future of Wikipedia. How does Bomis see it ? How does Nupedia see it ? How do we ?
Personally, as long as Bomis is providing tarballs and enough to *potentially* allow for forking, we've zero incentive to do it at all. Sort of, the more control they're willing to give away, the more control we can all trust them to have, I guess.
Reliability The other side of the free writing style in Wikipedia is quite possible lack of reliability. This lack of reliability would in the end undermine Wikipedia's credibility and ultimately her success.
No one in the world expects credibility from Wikipedia. And Wikipedia requires nothing from the world at large to be successful. Thus to me it seems like there is only a tenuous connection - at best - between credibility and success, regarding Wikipedia. If Wikipedia were *only* intended to be a literal replacement for a traditional encyclopedia, sure. But it's something a tad less, and something a tad more.
I'd like to write an article for Wikipedia about it but maybe later today.
That said, I do not think that the lack of credibility is as clear cut as would appear at first glance. Yes, logic says one should expect to see a distinct lack of credibility in Wikipedia. However, the evidence we're seeing is that many articles actually *are* reliable and credible. In a small but growing number of cases, the articles are actually *better* than you'd find in a traditional encyclopedia.
I agree and this is a Wikipedia magic but a casual reader might not know the difference. You say that judging articles in your area of expertise.
This issue must be tackled, and as soon as possible. I don't agree here with [[Larry Sanger]] and his view "self-healing". It is an example of elated wishful thinking that is misleading us.
Well I have disagreed with Larry on many things, but on this particular one I think he is correct. I've been involved with Wikipedia since the start, and have watched the evolution of many articles. I think this "self-healing" is not an expression of an idealistic wish of his but a characterization of a real thing that we have been observing again and again. I don't know that I would go so far as to say that self-healing will ensure that at some tangible point wikipedia will be 100% correct. Actually I'm fairly confident that will never happen. But then, does that matter? No encyclopedia is 100% correct, and probably not even 75% correct, when you consider how much is unknown or incorrectly known in the world.
To be really self-healing we need dozens of such enthusiasts as we are otherwise someone might put some nonsense pretending to be valid in an article none of us is competent enough. I think we should strive for a better kind of credibility than "this article can be right or wrong, but it is not totally wrong".
I would like to analogize to science here. Scientists 300 years ago did not say, "Let's make sure we have everything completely and reliably figured out as soon as possible, and record it." Instead they came up with a process that allows for establishing what they believed true, with processes for testing and validating and adjusting as we go. A self-correcting approach to accumulating knowledge. With Wikipedia we are using a similar approach - we record what we believe to be true, and then it is challenged and tested, and hopefully replaced with something better.
OK I take your point. I am just afraid that we are losing what Wikipedia _could be_ ? So in your opinion Wikipedia is a discussion forum rather than a reference source. [big snip]
Regards, kpj.
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