Are we discovering more than we can process?

[Kai]

yeah -- put shortly: the problem with wikipedia is that they have yet to perfect the many-to-many editorial process.


In contrast, I've heard that the German wikipedia is focused on being not necessarily the largest, but the most accurate version of wikipedia - they tend to have tighter articles but very contentious discussion pages.

I bet we'll discover other ways to manage information in the coming years. For example, maybe it'd be nice if there was a relatively objective expert assigned to each page. Somebody like that should have the ability to moderate pages within his field of expertise, rejecting unsourced data. Currently editors do get assigned groups of pages based on their expertise, but a layman can still become the champion of a page if he's got enough wikipedia-editor cred. Food for thought. /tangent

I've seen the Encyclopedia of Life do the bolded. The problem is, that process is much slower, and there's no guarantee the editor will come through on their task. What ends up happening is that the groups with lots of public appeal, like vertebrates, get added to but people who are experts in the other groups don't contribute because it takes too much effort. While something, anything, would be better than nothing, it ends up being nothing by default. It's faster just to allow open generation, and then come back and eliminate in bits, than limit from the start. I personally would rather be able to edit pages freely and have them reedited than have to submit articles. A posteriori peer review rather than a priori, if you will.

Or maybe, looking back, I'm not addressing your point. :/

[Cramulus]

related, from our old buddy Shii:

http://shii.org/knows/Shii's_Solution_to_the_Problem_of_Wikipedia

tl;dr version - shii identifies the three major problems with wikipedia's model. Which is that it lacks 1. Accountablility  2.  Reliability   3. Truth


The solution he suggests is that expert groups or individuals should build their own wikis which they control.

[Kai]

related, from our old buddy Shii:

http://shii.org/knows/Shii's_Solution_to_the_Problem_of_Wikipedia

tl;dr version - shii identifies the three major problems with wikipedia's model. Which is that it lacks 1. Accountablility  2.  Reliability   3. Truth


The solution he suggests is that expert groups or individuals should build their own wikis which they control.

Funny how that's exactly what I'm doing.  

Edit: In other words, we've come to the same conclusion.

The problem then becomes "how insular is that group". There still needs to be an a posteriori peer review system. Something I hope to address in my own project.

[Cain]

yeah -- put shortly: the problem with wikipedia is that they have yet to perfect the many-to-many editorial process.


In contrast, I've heard that the German wikipedia is focused on being not necessarily the largest, but the most accurate version of wikipedia - they tend to have tighter articles but very contentious discussion pages.

I bet we'll discover other ways to manage information in the coming years. For example, maybe it'd be nice if there was a relatively objective expert assigned to each page. Somebody like that should have the ability to moderate pages within his field of expertise, rejecting unsourced data. Currently editors do get assigned groups of pages based on their expertise, but a layman can still become the champion of a page if he's got enough wikipedia-editor cred. Food for thought. /tangent

How very....German of them.

But yes, unofficial wikis with expert staff are proliferating and very easy to set up.

For instance, regardless of what you think of Thomas P Barnett's core-periphery argument (I think it is crap, personally), there is no doubt he has expertise on geopolitics and strategic thinking, and I therefore welcome his Wikistrat project - even if I think making people pay for certain in depth analysis isn't a viable long-term business plan.