[WikiEN-l] Fwd: For the WikiEN-l list

[Gregory Kohs]

>> Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 02:23:22 -0400
>> From: "David Goodman" <dgoodmanny at gmail.com>

>> Gregory,

>> suppose I have an opinion on the ethics of one of your article-owners,
>> or the quality of its products, or the merits of its view of the
>> world. How does this information get incorporated into your
>> encyclopedia? For a politician, can I write an anti-[  ] article to go
>> along with the [  ]? If not, he can tell any lie he chooses. If so, is
>> he going to want to contribute?

First, let me apologize for the unfortunate e-mail subject of "Fwd: For the
WikiEN-l list", but for the sake of continuity, I'm going to keep it as
such.

David, the question you raise is an interesting one.  First, let's not call
Centiare an "encyclopedia".  Let's call it a "directory".  Now, that being
said, you still have a valid question.  Registered users of Centiare who
wish to give their own view about a particular company or product or
political candidate (with which they are not legally affiliated) have
several choices at their disposal:

(1) They can tap into the Discussion page of the company's article and make
commentary there, in this fashion:
http://www.centiare.com/Directory_talk:Bray_Plastic_Surgery

(2) They can write a whole essay about one aspect of the company, or about
the entire industry, if they so choose.  This would belong in "Main Space",
though; so it could be edited mercilessly by future contributors, just like
Wikipedia.

(3) They can write a whole essay on their own User page, or on a sub-page of
their User pages.  These can be protected (at the choosing of the owner)
from collaborative editing, or not.

(4) They could create an entire Directory space dedicated to the rival(s) of
the company or product or political candidate that they so oppose.  The only
downside to that editor is that if they are not the legal representative of
these companies or candidates, then the content is subject to
removal/replacement the very day that company or candidate DOES register
with Centiare to take control of the space.

We're all about OPTIONS at Centiare.  Furthermore, I think it would be
helpful for everyone's understanding if you might begin to think of what
we're trying to accomplish at Centiare in terms of the companies and the
entrepreneurs who are welcomed to contribute there, as opposed to the random
visitors who happen to alight on its pages.  The site is dedicated to the
former, not the latter.  (Even though the latter are certainly encouraged to
register and get involved as they see fit, too.)  Let me make an analogy.
When you open a Yellow Pages book to find a pizza restaurant, your first
concern is almost certainly not "How can I edit this Mario's Italian Grille
listing?  I really think it should portray three tomatoes and an onion,
rather than two bell peppers."  No, your primary concern is more likely
"What's their phone number?  How late are they open on Saturdays?  Will they
take reservations for a party of 12 adults and 8 children?"  And,
simultaneously, Mario's owner has a primary concern of "Will the prospective
customer call me?  Do they realize we've extended our Saturday hours to
11:00 PM?  I hope they know that we've remodeled the back room for larger
parties, birthdays, and rehearsal dinners."  The owner probably doesn't care
whether you like their logo of two bell peppers or not.  In the Internet
environment, Google searching is the primary way merchants are getting
themselves in front of consumers.  But, as we have proven (
http://www.centiare.com/Centiare:Search_Engine_Optimization), Centiare can
be MORE effective than even the merchant's own website at garnering top
search results.

Personally, I think that Centiare could be a really nifty tool for the
WikiProject Spam folks, who might co-opt the relentless SEO
Wikipedia spammers by pointing them our way, as I described here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Interwiki_map#Centiare

I haven't even bothered to mention that Centiare contributors can pocket ad
money from their editing, nor have I mentioned the cool things you can do
with Semantic Mediawiki in an environment like Centiare.  (Marc Riddell
would have a field day creating custom "ASK" parser queries for things like
"find every male who died of thoracic or lung cancer since 1960", if only we
could get people to start contributing this type of data to the project.)
If admins like Guy Chapman would turn down the heat for a few minutes, maybe
some other admins could begin to see the advantages of working WITH entities
like Centiare.com and the MemoryArchive.org, rather than disparaging them at
every opportunity.

Kindly,

   Greg
-- 
Gregory Kohs
Cell: 302.463.1354