The future might be or might not as bright as our imagination whispers
into our ears.
Wikipedia is a great idea combined with a new, revolutionary software and
it has a lot of brilliant committed authors. Her growth is explosive.
But there are also weaknesses (Wikinesses ?) brought to light by some
of us.
The other side of the free writing style in Wikipedia is quite possible
lack of reliability.
This lack of reliability would in the end undermine Wikipedia's credibility and
ultimately her success.
This issue must be tackled, and as soon as possible. I don't agree here with
Larry Sanger and his view "self-healing". It is an example
of elated wishful thinking that is misleading us.
I'd rather agree with Piotr Wozniak. His ideal of reliability is EB and
he is anxious about the potential lack of it in Wikipedia.
I am very interested in other people views. To start the creative process of
discussion I'll give you my (Kpjas) idea :
There are two ways of Wikipedia growth - global or niche.
If we decide in favour of global growth - being slashdotted only first symptom
of a serious problem.
I'll give you my (Kpjas) idea :
A picture can say more than, say, several Wikipedia articles.
It is rather trivial.
I think that Wikipedia without pictures, video, and audio is not a
real encyclopedia.
I wonder if you think my propositions worthwhile :
This point is connected with <b>Software<b> issue below.
Current data format is otherwise an example of excellent software solution.
But understandably the creator of it did not envision the scale of Wikipedia.
It poses numerous problems like searching through Wikipedia and others.
Like any other open software project the software behind it should be free and
open to all.
The same applies to Wikipedia software. As I said above wikipedia software
(usemod wiki) is a revolutionary and of very good quality but
needs of Wikipedia as a global encyclopedia of unrestrained growth go beyond
that kind of software. See also above Internal data format.
On the Wikipedia mailing list BryceHarrington proposed making the Wikipedia
software publicly available on CVS? for further collaboration on its
development.
I'm no good at it. But to me it seems to be one the most important issues,
second to wide netizen involvement.
Please, share your feelings and opinions here.
I certainly wish there were a way to have pictures and maps. I would like to be able to write about art and buildings that are viewable.
Who is going to choose the 'contributor' group as opposed to the 'reader' group. Do we know that there is a reader group anyway? I have a distinct feeling that those using wikipedia are those who are contributing.
The self-healing model is an incredibly optimistic one that depends on a civil society of the web to work. I am (so far) incredibly impressed with it, sleep/learning aside. I have had no trouble with my submissions; many of them have been improved by editing and additions (thanks rmhermen!). P.Wozniak's idea that the best writers are the least tolerant of others edits may mean that I am not a very good writer. Or that humility is a virtue that all of us, however good we think our writing or contributions are, have to cultivate if we're going to participate in a Wiki-format encyclopedia. If a contributor wants to feel pride in ownership as well as craftsmanship, that contributor should, at present, find another venue - Nupedia, for one.
There is in my field (Early Medieval Europe) an excellent peer-reviewed project, the Ecole Initiative (http://www2.evansville.edu/ecoleweb/). The peer-review editing process has slowed its growth to a C-R-A-W-L. One thing I like about wikipedia is that I can dash off a fairly stupid little biographical entry and then come back and flesh it out later. I'm building up a network of 8th and 9th century entries which are starting to satisfy me. Every now and then someone else takes a stab at 'em, and I'm grateful. MichaelTinkler
For the image issue, I solved that one for myself on the chalkboard by using the space at my virtualave site. Some people at wikipedia could group together and start a tripod site or something for their corner of wikipedia. They'd have to maintain the images is the tripod account is closed, though.
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