[WikiEN-l] Does openness dull the bleeding edge?

[David Gerard]

From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> On Aug 31, 2006, at 12:55 AM, stevertigo wrote:

>> Noting certain deficiencies in areas of advanced physics
>> - bleeding edge stuff in particular seems to be a bit disorganised.
>> Few qualified editors and things are no doubt lonely at the top.
>> Does the fact that Wikipedia is 1/10 Pokemon and sex/porn articles
>> chase
>> away scientists? What would WP look like if NOR was lifted for
>> certain science
>> articles?

> That is the premise of Wikinfo, but those guys don't show up the
> way the cranks do.


You mean, you don't get the scientists but you do get the cranks?

A lot of that will be that Wikipedia has an incredibly powerful brand
name. (c.f. the New York Times comparing mathematics to Wikipedia, not
the other way around.) So even a friendly fork designed to take much
of the same material but operate on it with notably different policies
will have trouble getting contributors, because everyone will come
here first.

OTOH, I've often wondered if setting up an academic wiki would be
something to attract people. It could use Mediawiki and GFDL and have
similar content guidelines to Wikipedia, just use signed articles,
allow article ownership and allow original research. The academic
barrier would guard against non-accredited cranks if not the
accredited ones ;-) Such a thing even be usable as referenceable
source material for Wikipedia articles. I'm not saying this is a good
idea, for Wikipedia, for readers or for civilisation in general, but I
do wonder if and how it would work.


- d.