[Foundation-l] [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture, will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia]

[Jeffrey V. Merkey]

Anthony wrote:

>On 9/16/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Sanger will fail for all the same reasons Wikipedia has hit a wall of
>>late on growth of articles.
>>    
>>
>
>>From what little information has been released, I think you're right.
>Taking Wikipedia articles and forking them is in most instances *not*
>a good way to produce the type of quality academic work that Sanger
>expects.  In some instances Wikipedia is already there, of course, but
>where it isn't I just don't see what real work can be saved by
>starting from a Wikipedia article as opposed to starting from scratch.
>  
>
Yep.

>Now maybe I'm just misunderstanding Sanger's plan.  If the plan is to
>take Wikipedia articles, and use them as a sort of rough draft for a
>new work, which is written pretty much from scratch, then maybe this
>will succeed.  And if so, I don't think this will hurt Wikipedia in
>any way.  In fact, I think if anything it'll help Wikipedia, as it'll
>allow Wikipedians to focus on places where Wikipedia *hasn't* hit a
>brick wall.
>  
>
Sanger's plan is "I'll show you" based on the energy I sense from his 
posting and
statements.

>  
>
>>Wikipedia has reached critical mass
>>of information and it's "good enough" in most peoples minds.
>>    
>>
>
>The best articles are "good enough" in my mind.  Others are more like
>"barely adequate" but yet they've still hit a brick wall in terms of
>quality (think popular politicians).  Then there's the other 90% or
>more articles, which just haven't had enough eyes on them yet.  This
>is the place where Wikipedia will shine, and Sanger's project will
>hopefully not even bother to venture for the first 5-10 years or more.
>  
>
The quality is getting very good. The last dump had far too many tags in 
the articles
on neutrality, etc. Which indicates too much disagreement. This means 
the work load
is running low and people have too much idle time. The "green plants" 
creating the content
have realy dropped in recent months.

>  
>
>>Beyond
>>translation activities and divergence into Wikiversity type of programs,
>>and incremental updates of content, it will hover around 1.4 million
>>articles until it gets another massive infusion of content from some
>>other source. There's also the glaring fact the 2% of the community
>>create 98% of the content on average (based on Slashdot study published
>>last month). And these 2% usually become inactive after they drop
>>content into the project. I see a lot of activitiy in recent edits, but
>>growth has been stagnant for several months and quality has been
>>improving dramatically.
>>
>>Without a new information source or innovative technology play, Sanger
>>will fail.
>>
>>Jeff
>>    
>>
>
>I think there's still potential for a lot of growth in terms of
>numbers of articles left for Wikipedia.  It may have hit a plateau,
>but I'd say it's only a temporary one.  
>

I don't think so, need to get some fresh folks on the site, and the 
number of admins has
become excessive and may be contributing to this trend. I notice a lot 
of folks get run off
before they can put down roots. This needs to be addressed.

>In order to get the *next* 1.4
>million articles Wikipedia is going to have to think about how to open
>itself up more though.  2% of the community creating 98% of the
>content, if it's a true figure, is far too low to meet this goal.  How
>can Wikipedia be more encouraging to those 98% of people?  
>

Get rid of abusive and trolling admins and cut back the ability to block and
dissuade new editors. I see too many folks run off the site because of 
their
views, not their behavior.

>Maybe Larry
>Sanger's project can help take away some of the people who want
>Wikipedia to be an exclusionary club.
>  
>
Sanger is out for payback. I just can feel this, and a wounded ego -- 
this is just IMHO, but it feels that way. Something built
on negative emotions is destined for failure from the start.

Jeff

>Anthony
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>  
>