[WikiEN-l] Price we pay from the Deletionists: Y-Combinator looking to fund Wikipedia-like startup

[Alec Conroy]

Perhaps the solution to is for Wikimedia to start an entirely
different projects that "out wikipedias wikipedia".   One that has
less strict content requirements, while at the same time, not having
the same reputation for quality that we would hope for Wikipedia.

Personally, I'd like to see at least THREE different projects.  One to
be a 100% reputable, citable encyclopedia of the sort "If you see it
in the Sun, it's so".     Nothing but featured articles, slow to
release new versions of articles, potentially signed by experts.

Another project would be more diverse but far far less reputable.
Article forks allowed, biased articles, editorial articles.   Utterly
uncitable, but offering greater diversity of opinion.

And then the third project, our own Wikipedia, is the happy medium
between the two.   No guarantee that any given article is
high-quality, but some effort is made to delete (or at least tag)
articles of low quality, non-neutral POV, article-forks, etc.

Of course, the real trick would be coming up with a branding of some
sort so that  they don't step on each others toes and people can
easily distinguished between the three.

We could let some other foundation create these project-- but why not us?

Alec



On 7/20/08, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 4:16 AM, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > 2008/7/20 geni <geniice at gmail.com>:
>  >> 2008/7/20 Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com>:
>  >>> Although there are plenty of people turned-off and turned-away by the
>  >>> deletion of factually correct, verifiable and referenced articles.
>  >>> There is nothing quite as disheartnening as working on an article,
>  >>> only for a faceless gang of self-appointed AfDers to come along and
>  >>> decide that this article falls below an arbitrary threshold for
>  >>> inclusion in Wikipedia. My Wikipedia experience has been significantly
>  >>> soured by such arbitrary deletions and my efforts toward Wikipedia
>  >>> have fallen off recently as a result.
>  >>
>  >> Getting a properly reffed article deleted is quite a trick.
>  >>
>  >>
>  >>> If I knew that my work could survive at least in some form (a
>  >>> publicly-viewable deletion namespace with libel and slander removed,
>  >>> e.g.), perhaps I would allow myself to get more excited about working
>  >>> on Wikipedia again.
>  >>
>  >> If you wrote it yourself there are no shortage of free webhosts on
>  >> which it can survive.
>  >
>  > The point isn't about a particular article ("my work" was a wrong
>  > expression to use here): it is to do with the efforts I put into
>  > editing Wikipedia and whether it is worth it. I've had problems with
>  > referenced, factually-accurate and verifiable articles that I have
>  > worked on being deleted due to questions to notability. It is also
>  > disheartening to go to AfD and see articles which are referenced,
>  > factually-accurate and verifiable being deleted due to notability.
>  >
>  > --
>  > Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
>  >
>  > _______________________________________________
>  > WikiEN-l mailing list
>  > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>  > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>  > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>  >
>
>
> I can write a referenced, factually-accurate and verifiable (public
>  records) article about my car or my dog, or for that matter myself.
>  For quality control and undue weight reasons, we still shouldn't
>  -have- those articles. That's why we ask "Has someone who is reliable
>  on this subject and doesn't have any interest in promoting it written
>  a significant amount about it?" It's really a reasonable question, and
>  keeps a lot of garbage out. However, as always, one man's trash is
>  another man's treasure, and if someone else would like to start up a
>  project to put it -elsewhere-, be it fancruft on a Wikia or
>  all-imaginable-kinds-of-cruft on some new project, that's just fine.
>  It's just not allowed -on Wikipedia-, the Web's a big place, and
>  (unless it's a copyvio, libel, or something else illegal), there's
>  likely a place where it does fit in.
>
>
>  --
>  Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.
>
>  _______________________________________________
>
> WikiEN-l mailing list
>  WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>  To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>  https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>