[Mediawiki-l] Towards more scholarly commentary

Sun Aug 6 18:26:16 UTC 2006

We've all heard the criticism that wikis don't work because potentially 
just anyone can add anything to the articles.  Could be vandalism, could be 
nonsense, could be Nobel prize winning research.  There are obviously some 
controls that can be put on that (close vigilance, moderation, posting 
limits, etc.), but the basic problem still exists.

One fix my users suggested was to be able to always track who contributed 
what.  Actually, what happened was complaints about how successive editors 
can alter the work of previous editors.  In most cases I feel this is a 
good thing, since the article *should* evolve into a better article 
overall.  But, some felt strongly that the credibility of the article 
depends on who is providing the information.  Thus a semi-anonymous article 
isn't useful, because you can't easily tell who wrote what.

So what I'd like is a variation on the MediaWiki functionality.  Rather 
than have a single article that anyone can edit, how about articles that 
become the primary responsibility of a single editor.  Other users can add 
to it, but it would be in the form of extended footnotes on the 
page.  Those new users would  be responsible for the notes they wrote.  Any 
corrections (such as typos or wikifying) would be suggested to the primary 
(and any moderators) but not automatically included in the article or 
footnote until they concur.

The end result would be articles that look more like old style footnoted or 
annotated scholarly treatises.  A reader coming to the article could 
immediately see who wrote what, but also see how the whole thing ties 
together.  It would be harder to absorb at a glance, but each contribution 
would be readily identifiable.  This might not work well for monstrously 
large articles, but for smaller focused ones it should.

For example:
Preamble - by A Adams
We the people, in order to form a more perfect union[1], establish justice, 
ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense[2], and secure 
the blessings of liberty, for ourselves and our posterity[3], do ordain and 
establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

[1] by B Bobbins - This union was tested severely in the US Civil War
[2] by C Carter - Defense concepts have changed over the years
[3] by D Dworkin - There have been 30 generation of Americans since 1776

and so on.  Each person can change what they wrote, and add a reference 
into other people's work, but that is all.  Moderators/sysops could take 
over abandoned articles, or reassign them to someone else.

How would this be implemented, or would it take a complete rewrite of 
MediaWiki?

Bill Taylor