[Foundation-l] FYI: Wikipedia, Open Access and Cognitive Virology

[William Pietri]

On 05/15/2010 02:27 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:
> But we do have serious competition, and it is scary and thrilling - it
> also happens to be published entirely in Chinese (hudong, baike).  But
> even if you don't know how to read Chinese, you can see how they
> display portals and amin pages; images, cartoons, and timelines; how
> they reference and discuss topics.  And you can sign up and see some
> of the social and community-building features they use to encourage
> participation.  (I'd love to see a detailed summary and translation of
> their policy tree -- especially policies on notability, fads, and
> trending topics -- to illuminate the discussions about how well our
> policies are doing in the larger Wikipedias.)
>    

That sounds like material for an awesome group blog, a sort of ongoing 
competitive analysis.

It wouldn't have to only be about Chinese on-line encyclopedias, either. 
Just because the paper encyclopedia has become a bit of a joke [1] 
doesn't mean we can't learn things from it. There are plenty of other 
great reference works both current and historical that would be fun to 
examine. And I'm sure we could gain a lot by stealing ideas from other 
community and collaborative project websites.

However much Hudong and Baike are serious competitors, they're also 
mainly invisible to Wikipedians who don't go looking for them. There's a 
big difference between knowing intellectually that you're in a race and 
looking behind you seeing somebody running hard and gaining ground. I'd 
love to find a way to make the competition more obvious.


William



[1] Quite literally. This week Jon Stewart flipped open a paper 
reference book to make a point. After a slight pause, he lifted the book 
and dropped it on his desk with an audible thud. He smiled and said, 
"It's like Wikipedia, in a book!" 
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-may-11-2010/release-the-kagan 
(about 4:48 for the gag, although the book comes out about 3:45)