[Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia

[robert_horning at netzero.net]

---------- Original Message ----------
From: Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>


No, it won't. People have been saying that for years and the fact
remains that a screen full of a text with a few relevant images is a
much better way to convey information than VR.

----

I look at comments like this as somebody who is very closed minded and not willing to see more methods of instruction.  A screen full of text certainly is a useful way to convey certain kinds of factual information, and I certainly see the analogy of a paper encyclopedia to be a useful way to compile and organize general knowledge about this universe we live in, but it isn't the only way and certainly isn't the "best" way to learn about all knowledge.

I certainly could see some application for the use of virtual reality in the context of Wikiversity or some other guided tour of a virtual environment, or for alternative ways to explore content.  It does require a different way of looking at that information, and the tools needed to organize information that is fitting for that environment are certainly a bit different than the tools needed for organizing a web page.

As for why projects like VRML failed to take off in a meaningful way, that is certainly something worthy debating.  From my viewpoint, one of the problems facing VRML was the very non-intuitive interfaces and incredibly steep initial learning curves to being able to get even a simple object like a cube or a sphere created in the first place.  As somebody who still likes to write HTML using a simple text editor, HTML is by comparison very simple to at least get *something* put down and displayed with a typical web server... in fact it doesn't even need a web server in order to experiment with creating basic web pages.

At the very least, tools similar to a wiki where somebody new to even the concept of editing on-line content at this moment in time really don't exist.  As far as what those tools could be and how you might take the philosophy of wiki editing into an on-line virtual reality environment.... that is something I would love to explore in depth.  I'm being serious here and I think this is an awesome idea but it certainly would take some work.

The real gift here that is incredibly beneficial to the whole thing is that some significant content is available for the first time.  For those that have forgotten, a rather substantial portion of Wikipedia was seeded with free content from a variety of sources like the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, the CIA World Factbook, and a variety of free image libraries that existed before the Wikimedia Commons came into existence.  It doesn't matter that Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects have exceeded in nearly all aspects these original seed sources and have in turn become seeds to other projects, the point is that those organizing Wikipedia in the first place were able to leverage some tools from a variety of sources and applied a rather interesting democratic principle for organizing information.

I am arguing here that a similar opportunity has now presented itself to perhaps extend the basic ideas and philosophies of wiki editing to a very new environment that until now has been very closed and proprietary.  There have been other previous attempts to get a free software equivalent MMORPG type environment going before, but frankly they have been kludgy messes of software that has been lacking content and developers, and has never really been able to get a good critical mass of development put together to get it to work.  That is the significance of this announcement, as perhaps those who might get involved here with this media could make a step forward into a new direction that hasn't been tried before.

As far as Wikimedia's involvement with this effort.... that certainly can be debated.  There are some who contribute to this list that even think the sister projects are an utter failure and should all be spun off to separate charities or foundations other than the WMF.  I for one think this is a unique opportunity to do something very different if there would be some individuals who might want to think a bit outside of the normal box of throwing text onto a web page.

____________________________________________________________
Get Free Email with Video Mail & Video Chat!
http://www.netzero.net/freeemail?refcd=NZTAGOUT1FREM0210