[Foundation-l] FYI: Wikipedia, Open Access and Cognitive Virology

[Samuel Klein]

On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 1:45 PM, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:

> Of course, if somebody, those folks included, think they can build a
> better encyclopedia, I'd encourage them to try. And I don't mean that in
> a snotty way; it would be useful to Wikipedia to have some serious
> competition. Just this week at work I was reviewing a competitor's new
> product, and it was both scary and thrilling, prodding us toward better
> work. It would be great for Wikipedia, and especially great for
> humanity, if somebody were actually nipping at our heels.

It is true that we don't have serious competition that is doing a
better job in terms of attracting thousands of top-rate experts in all
fields, who can fill a dozen articles in their field with brilliant
sources in an afternoon.

But we do have serious competition, and it is scary and thrilling - it
also happens to be published entirely in Chinese (hudong, baike).  But
even if you don't know how to read Chinese, you can see how they
display portals and amin pages; images, cartoons, and timelines; how
they reference and discuss topics.  And you can sign up and see some
of the social and community-building features they use to encourage
participation.  (I'd love to see a detailed summary and translation of
their policy tree -- especially policies on notability, fads, and
trending topics -- to illuminate the discussions about how well our
policies are doing in the larger Wikipedias.)

Sam