[Foundation-l] Re: New Proposal: WikiMemory (slightly OT)

[Robin Shannon]

On 9/17/05, Poe, Marshall <MPoe at theatlantic.com> wrote:
<snip />
> 4. Why a Wiki (or, To edit or not to edit)?  
> To me, this is the most interesting question of all because it points up a
> conflict between two principles.  On the one hand, we want to be open and
> allow everyone to edit all content.  On the other hand, we want to gather
> and disseminate the sum of human knowledge to everyone, free.  In the case
> of Wikimemory (and several other wikis), these principles run up against one
> another.  Let me try to explain.  
> It seems to me that there are two kinds of wikis, differentiated by the kind
> of data they gather. What might be called "scientific" wikis record the
> present state of *human knowledge*, that is, metadata or secondary sources. 
> I have in mind Wikipedia, Wikispecies, etc. In contrast, what might be
> called "documentary" wikis gather, preserve and disseminate *artifacts*,
> that is, data or primary sources.  I have in mind 911Wiki, Wikisource,
> Wikiquote, Wikicommons, and Wikimemory. 
> 
> Now here's the interesting part: the scientific wikis can be expected to
> become more valuable in an opensource environment as they are edited, but
> the documentary wikis can be expected to become less valuable as they are
> edited.  For example, the Wikipedia *entry* on the "Magna Carta" will
> improve as we learn more about the document and its context, but the
> Wikisource *edition* of the "Magna Carta" will only become less valuable as
> it is edited further away from its original, canonical state (the words as
> they were written in 1215).  Or to take a hypothetical example from
> Wikimemory, the Wikipedia *entry* on "Abu Graib Prison" will get better as
> historians uncover more about what happened there, but a Wikimemory *memoir*
> by one of the prisoners will only lose value if it is changed from its
> original disposition (that is, if it is vandalized).
> And here's where we run into a contradiction of principles or aims. If we
> stick to the open-source principle, then we won't be able to present
> historical artifacts, because they may be inaccurate reflections of the
> originals (due to vandalism). This contradicts the all-human-knowledge
> principle.  If, in contrast, we prioritize the all-human-knowledge
> principle, then we'll probably be forced to make finished entries on 
> "documentary" wikis read-only. This violates the open-source principle.
> 
> Which is the superior principle?  I'd say it's the all-human-knowledge
> principle.  There's a lot to be gained by relaxing our stand on open-source
> here.  For this reason I propose that discuss making the finished content on
> Wikimemory read-only in some or most cases. Moreover, we can still be true
> to our open-source principles by allowing users edit metadata (explanatory
> information about the memoirs) to the site. To return to our example, a
> well-annotated Magna Carta is much easier to understand than a Magna Carta
> in isolation.  And such annotations would be (in the sense meant before)
> "scientific," they would improve as we learned more.
> 
> All the Best, Marshall

I think you are mixing up your terms. Wikis are editable. That is what
makes them wikis and not forums (where anyone can contribute, but
editing can only be done by a very select group of admins), blogs, and
other "open" publishing methods. The wiki principle is far more than
just the open source principle.

Anyway, this raises the interesting point that more and more of the
things we are doing (such as commons, wikisource, and to some extent
wikiquote) do not gain from universal editablitly. This means we need
to do some naval gazing about what we are doing and where we are
going. If we are to go outside of the realm of wikis (as we already
have to some extent) then our software and methods need to change with
it. I think wikidata is a step towards this - moving beyond the
traditional wiki paradigm. Of course, changing software isn't easy and
can stray into the area of bloatware or featureitus. Maybe a whole new
piece of software is needed for these new ideas? Maybe aswell as
regular requests to the wikimedia community for donnations of money,
we should have a programming drive, to encourage those who use the
wikimedia to donate time to coding (or for those who can't code to
learn to code). This would perhpas lead to probs with quality control.
I dont know... just a random suggestion.
</OT rambalings>

paz y amor,
-rjs.

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