On 7 April 2011 21:56, MuZemike <muzemike(a)gmail.com> wrote: Yes, but also other niches Wikipedia leaves. Wikia, for example, started to form wikis of any sort, but has rapidly taken over the niche of fansite wikis. - d.

On 04/07/11 4:13 PM, Fred Bauder wrote: I confess that when my wife and I are sitting in front of the TV, and a question arises from whatever we are watching, Wikipedia's relevant articles become a first source of information on our laptops while we're watching. When we do that we seldom feel the need to follow the sources. Ec Ec

On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 4:17 AM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: What do you think about having multiple consistent points of view on tricky subjects, on some things, for example my favorite kosovo topic, it is very very hard to find any neutral point of view and the articles on that subject are widely separated. Some like the main article are vaguely neutral, and most of the smaller articles are really not. There are not even any consistent policing of them or manpower to do it. I would like to see some way to identify and isolate fragments of things that are not neutral, but clearly mark on what point of view they represent. That would allow for a clear separation of the one side, "Kosovo is serbia" and marking and clearly giving them a say on the matter, and also another point of view, "Kosovo is free" with equal rights in speaking, at least that would give a way to manage the discussion. Right now you have a big mess where the two sides are just mixed up and each side is basically fighting on wikipedia. mike

On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 11:53 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: You're reasonably likely to find content peace treaties among those "on the same side" but more or less extreme in their beliefs, in my experience. In some topics, the moderates band together against both extremes; those areas work well in Wikipedia now. Mike's idea would better cover the first case. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 8 April 2011 01:03, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com> wrote: One thing that should probably be considered is that from the competing POV wikipedia does 2 things. 1)It provides information to people on general interest topics (for broad values of general interest) 2)It provides a plece for people to write articles on general interest topics. We've received both competition and attempts at competition in both cases In case 1 competition comes from Britannica and the million and one aps for viewing wikipedia on your phone. In case 2 competition attempts include knol, citizendium and more successfully hoodong -- geni

IMO, the "next best thing" will be whatever can come along and solve our social and community problems technologically, while being easier to edit. Treat assholes like bugs in the software - code around them, figure out how you can make the experience downright painful for them while making it easier for the sort of people that you really want to attract. Build the software to guide people in the direction of correct behavior, and to inherently track sourcing, etc. Do this right, and wikipedia will be pretty much dead, do it wrong, and we'll be laughing at you here in 6 months. :P On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 10:33 PM, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 4:43 AM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: I beg to differ here. While not every social or community problem has a technological answer, that doesn't mean we shouldn't seek one out where a suitable one exists. We've already been doing it successfully - things like the edit filter are applications of technology to social problems (in this case vandalism) that have been proven to have real world value. When you have a small community, the community itself tends to propagate and enforce certain standards of behavior, and distance themselves from those that don't follow them. As that community grows, it eventually reaches a point where people are added faster than they can be assimilated into the norms of the community, and the behavior of the community changes to follow the behavior of the masses that are joining it, rather than people changing their behavior to fit community norms. Making some of those norms part of "how the system works" - that is, inside the black box that is the software, takes the confrontations out of the equation, while keeping the pressure to adhere to community norms in place long after a handful of editors trying to enforce them would have been overran and given up. Obviously you can't code "assume good faith" into the software, but you can change the workflows and information flow, and communication structure, and even site permissions to encourage this, and to give someone a chance to stop unwanted behavior like [[WP:BITE]]ing before it actually has an effect. Not every technological answer is going to be direct either - when you are looking at fixing a people problem with a technological fix, you have to look at the whole workflow in question, with a mindset of "what can I change to head this off.... what else will it effect... will it work...". It may take several rounds of that before a solution is obvious, and even then, it may not be the right one, or there may not even be one, but if you start thinking outside the box, oftentimes something will come out of it that does work :) Of course, it also works the other way -- look at how some templates are being used on Wikipedia - the technology is often used to create problems :)

Already been done, Conservapedia. The most disgusting mockery of conservatives I've ever seen. Then again, isn't this one of the sites Jimbo runs? Bob On 4/8/2011 3:32 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:

Good :) I'd be embarrassed for whoever does run that site. On 4/8/2011 6:08 PM, Sarah wrote: