[WikiEN-l] Jimbo interview

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

doc wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>   
>> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
>>     
>>> I do however in the larger scheme of things think that
>>> having a credible fork of the English wikipedia at this
>>> stage of its life-cycle wouldn't be counter-productive,
>>> ghod knows somebody needs to keep it honest. But I
>>> have very little hope of that happening in a form that is
>>> genuine, and not just a mocker.
>>>   
>>>       
>> Agreed. At least in theory it counter-balance the rule-oriented and 
>> corporatist tendencies that have developed.  The difficulty is that it 
>> would take a lot of resources and tenacity to pull this off.
>>
>>     
> At this stage, I'd say that the odds of a successful fork are roughly 
> nil. The problem for a fork is that it is immediately competes with 
> wikipedia, and is offering a product that the average reader or 
> contributor will probably not differentiate much from wikipedia. If it 
> takes the whole database, it won't have enough initial users to maintain 
> it. If it doesn't, then why would anyone use it when they have wikipedia?
>
> The only real hope for a competitor would be one that offered something 
> substantially different to both reader and writer. Only then can it 
> overcome the "motivation problem" of getting people interested in an 
> initially small project, when there's the giant wikipedia available.
>
> The ingredients of a "different product" are there:
>
> Contributors could be offered motivation in things like 1) promises of 
> ad-revenue share. 2) meaningful attribution, where you can personally 
> take the kudos of writing a superb article into the real world (CV 
> etc.). 3) Ability to publish original research. 4) Ability to reflect a POV.
>
> Readers could be offered things like: 1) useful commercial links 
> ("people interested in this topic might like to buy the following 
> books") 2) a more reliable  - stable product 3) a more "child friendly" 
> product. 4) ability to know the qualifications - or even online 
> reputation - of the author. 5) ability to read articles written from a 
> POV you share.
>
> Now, some of those attributes were offered by veropedia, some by 
> Citenzium, or Conservapedia, and some by others. Some are obviously 
> incompatible, or possibly infeasible, and so far no one has found a 
> recipe to combine any of them successfully. (I'd class all current 
> offerings as failed or failing). However given that the rewards for 
> success here could be remarkably high, I'd suggest that there will be 
> more attempts in coming years, and possibly by very well-resourced 
> players (Wikipedia is vulnerable in that the WMF is underfunded - what 
> happens if a competitor goes for advertising with a massive publicity 
> budget could be interesting). It is not beyond possibility that someday 
> someone will stumble on a formula that works, and will either complement 
> or overshadow wikipedia.
>
>   
I think I agree with just about everything you posit, except
that I would limit it to the English wikipedia, or conceivably
to some of the larger language wikipedias. It seems clear to
me that minor languages just don't have enough mindshare
to split out to produce a viable fork without completely
decimating the original wikipedia, essentially rubbing it out
as a going concern.

However an intriguing possibility does peek at the extreme
other end of the spectrum. Should wikimedia ever stop the
expansion into the very tiniest of languages at some definite
level, an outside project that picked up on languages that
wikimedia had rejected, would have a form of opening at
doing something that would quite genuinely complement
wikimedia.

Essentially the most realistic scenario for the creation of
a viable fork of the English Wikipedia remains the
prospect that enwiki completely loses its way, and
precipitates an exodus. But we all know that at that
point many good people would kick in and try mightily
to right the ship of wikipedia on its keel. I would be in
there, working shoulder to shoulder, not jumping ship.
I have every faith that any such foundering would
prove a short lived experience, and the experience
would merely revitalize our community. And of course
I don't envision that scenario even as remotely likely.
I have always maintained as my personal belief that
wikipedia will still be going strong decades and
centuries from now.

I believe the comparison in terms of longevity of the
wiki model of encyclopaedia building is to that of
movable type. Printing with movable type is still
with us, even if the type is set electronically these
days.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen