[WikiEN-l] One alternative

[Alec Conroy]

I just want to say, this thread has made me SO happy and confident
about the future of the world.  The issues of sockpuppets and cabals
look alot less scary whene we're reminded that Wikipedia is not the
only wany of organizing the world's information.

Wikinfo, I think, is a very very valuable thing that needed doing.
Who said NPOV has to be the best way of presenting the world's
information??  Surely, there's room in any good paper for both the
News section and the Editorial section.

Veriopedia, meanwhile, considered that maybe having any encyclopedia
where  "there is no deadline" aren't the best ways to do things--
maybe it would be better to have articles that are peer-reviewed prior
to publication, and frozen.   This would be horrible if it were the
ONLY 'peidia on the block, but combined with Wikipedia, I think
they're two great tastes that go great together.

Citzenpedia is another really interesting way of writing a project.
Suppose "Anyone can edit" isn't the best way to present the world's
information, and "Deferring to credentialed experts" is a better way
to do things.  This cuts out all the problems of outing, socks, and
vandalize, but of course, Citzenpedia would never be able to have the
breadth of Wiikipedia.

And then, there's our beloved wikipedia, which is the project I
personally am most attracted to.   Cabals and secret mailing lists
asside, there's only SO much damage that can any cabal could do.
NPOV,or attempted NPOV,  is the style of writing I most prefer, so
while I value Wikinfo's existence, it's not the ony I'm drawn to. I
feel stongly that "who you are"  shouldn't  affect  "how your work is
judged" so Citzenpedia doesn't appeal to me as much.   Veropedia, or
something like it, is going to be an essential partnert to wikipedia.
We need a *pedia where "If you see it in THE SUN it's so."--
Wikipedia can never achieve this goal, but we can be an ESSNENTIAL
half of the process.

On 12/5/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not yet convinced that the world needs two community-edited
> encyclopaedias. I wonder if someone will attempt a project to fuse
> them. Maybe such a thing already exists: browse both in parallel,
> every time you click a link it looks in both of them. Maybe we should
> be considering interwiki links to CZ? The information would still be
> separate, and we could still distinguish between the models used to
> create it.

I can't TELL You how happy this would make me.  The copyright issues
would have to be resolved, so that people could free to copy text back
and forth, but I would LOVE to see Wikipedia just be one of a family
of wikis with close ties, where you could easily see if some other
project had a take on the same subject.   I'm convinced that this, or
something like it, is the next step-- Web 3.0 or whatever you want to
call it.  Where one could jump from "which editoral policies you want
to see" just as easily as one can currently jump from which language
you want to see.

And then, it takes the pressure off everybody.   I don't have to fight
the secret mailing lists quite as hard, because any "cabal" can only
affect one FLAVOR of the content.  The vandal-fighters don't have to
have quite as much pressure on them, beause the other flavors exist to
sort out only the "good portions" of wikipedia, discarding the
vandalism.  The badsites advocates wouldn't have to fight as hard
because they could make their own flavor that doesn't link to
badsites, and the anti-badsites advocates and censorship-phobics
wouldn't have to stress as much, because they could make their own
"uncensored" versions of articles where the information could still
get out.

I don't know if anyone is enthusiastic about Steve's idea fof
inter-wiki links as much as I am, but I think he's hit on the first
step to the next wonderful beautiful evolution of the wiki, andthat is
BEYOND wonderful.

Alec

Wikipedia would stilll be the one I'd be drawn to contribute to in
most cases, but

I'm split by Larry's email because the truth is, I on a personal
emotional level,  like the Wikipedia model best of any I've seen.  .