5 ms·

I hope this goes somewhere. I have been very disappointed that the social technology of a wiki has not been used much after Wikipedia itself. In theory, an ope

I hope this goes somewhere. I have been very disappointed that the social technology of a wiki has not been used much after Wikipedia itself. In theory, an openly editable wiki cannot work. People will just vandalize everything and ruin it. Amazingly, it works in practice. Not perfectly, there are definitely biased articles and bad things in the community, but it works so much better than anyone could have predicted in 2001. Yet, noone has used that insight to create other great user-created websites with almost universal write access. There are various smaller wikis that cover areas too niche for Wikipedia, like minor Star Wars characters. There's been various ideas of more locked down wikis, or wikis overseen by an editorial team, but that's just missing the point. Wikipedia is great because of the amazing scale you get when anyone can go in and add their bit, without asking for permission.

akavel 9y ago
I disagree about "wiki not being used much [other than] Wikipedia [except super-niche areas]". Just a few successful, absolutely useful and worthwile as much as notable examples off the top of my head: - http://www.scp-wiki.net/ http://www.scp-wiki.net/ — platform for artistic expression - http://duolingo.wikia.com/wiki/Duolingo_Wiki http://duolingo.wikia.com/wiki/Duolingo_Wiki — practical FAQ for users, by users (I learned from it quite a few things I needed about the app) - https://wiki.archlinux.org/ https://wiki.archlinux.org/ — super practical, ultimate guide/HOWTO for many Linux-related technologies - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoWWiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoWWiki - not to mention cr*ploads of "corporate wikis" in corporate intranets where any and all information can be lost (ummm... "found" according to official corpo-speak...) I pose that wiki as a technology is now firmly entrenched and was without doubt revolutionary. (Btw, it was pioneered on http://c2.com http://c2.com, not "Wikipedia itself".)
- TorKlingberg 9y ago
  Good point, but I meant the social system of Wikipedia more than the technology. On a corporate intranet vandalism was never a concern, as you can always have their manager tell them to lay it off. You can separate wiki history quite clearly into pre-Wikipedia (c2 and friends) and post-Wikipedia. What disappoints me is that post-Wikipedia wikis are almost all "Wikipedia for <niche>", rather than something new.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - akavel 9y ago
    Ah, so you mean the various orgs, policies, moderators, etc. "administrative" social structures that emerged on Wikipedia? In other words, more or less "meta.wikipedia.org"? If yes, that was not clear to me from your original post (to tell the truth, still isn't; that's why I decided to hereby ask in the end). As to the "something new" in this area, one thing that comes to my mind is some wiki-based experiment/game I seem to have seen once, where its own rules could be edited; I think it was framed as a kind of "social experiment", but I can't google it out now. Other than that, I'm afraid I'm still not exactly sure what you're trying to say, so I find it hard to discuss or acknowledge yet... That said, for sure I seen the wiki tech used in more than one SCP-like narrative/worldbuilding case. On the other hand, the c2 wiki was in fact a kind of encyclopedia already, so maybe a wiki just naturally matches with such structural model?
    - Animats 9y ago
      some wiki-based experiment/game I seem to have seen once, where its own rules could be edited; I think it was framed as a kind of "social experiment" That's touched on in SF, in "The Moon Goddess and the Son" (1979), by Donald Kingsbury. It's not developed there, just mentioned briefly.
    - schoen 9y ago
      > As to the "something new" in this area, one thing that comes to my mind is some wiki-based experiment/game I seem to have seen once, where its own rules could be edited You might be thinking of Peter Suber's Nomic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic
    - cecilpl2 9y ago
      You are likely thinking of the game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic, which happens to be very well-suited for online play. Two of the largest instances are https://agoranomic.org/ https://agoranomic.org/ and https://blognomic.com/ https://blognomic.com/
- rtkwe 9y ago
  Is there actually that much wiki-ing going on on SCP-wiki? It always seemed that it was just the author doing anything with the pieces more like a fanfiction.net than a wiki.
  - half-kh-hacker 9y ago
    SCPs themselves can be written by anyone, thrown into the 'Sandbox' wiki, and approved by staff. (I have never gone through the process myself, so if anyone else wants to clarify, please do.)
    - SolaceQuantum 9y ago
      SCP articles are written by anyone and posted by anyone(who is a member, which. Is staff approval via simple rules and entering a code in application) and the community votes on it. Anything below a certain threshold is deleted by staff.
  - VectorLock 9y ago
    SCP is a good example of things that can go wrong with a wiki other than vandalism. Heavy handed self-proclaimed editors with too much time on their hands to stifle any creative writing that doesn't fit the mold of schlocky fan fiction.
    - zardo 9y ago
      Other than not being forkable to satisfy the people who's fiction is excluded, what's the problem? You can't satisfy everyone, those that want a consistent theme and voice would be unhappy if they ease up. Do any wiki's support forking and merging?
- xster 9y ago
  Is this still answering the original topic though? None of these wikis have deep life and death financial interests tied to their content like news and indirectly political world views does.
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  Even the NSA and related three letter agencies use wikis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellipedia Also the FBI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaupedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaupedia The DoD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoDTechipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoDTechipedia The State Department: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplopedia
- schemathings 9y ago
  I recall running across c2 a few times .. there was also everything2.com from 1998 which was/is a community wiki with its own engine, and kuro5hin.com from 1999 which was wiki-ish as well
- peterlk 9y ago
  I'd point to Openstreetmaps as another example
perryprog 9y ago
This sort of reminded me of ChaosBot [0], something that sounds like what could be a total disaster, ended up being really neat. https://github.com/Chaosthebot/Chaos https://github.com/Chaosthebot/Chaos
desireco42 9y ago
RapGenius or Genius now. :) Pretty awesome what they did there.
rkuykendall-com 9y ago
> like minor Star Wars characters I think you're underestimating the value here. Sites like Wikia host an unimaginable sum of knowledge that appears nowhere else in the world. If you search for anything related to TV shows, comics, gaming, etc. you will end up on a Wikia article. For games like Minecraft, Wikis are a core part of the how you play the game.
Doctor_Fegg 9y ago
> Yet, noone has used that insight to create other great user-created websites with almost universal write access OpenStreetMap.
- Animats 9y ago
  True. I was surprised how easy OpenStreetMap was to edit. My own tiny street was misnamed. Many low-end GPS devices use that data. After I fixed that, deliveries and service became more reliable, and I stopped getting calls from people nearby but lost. I never edited again after fixing the map for my own neighborhood. But that's fine. That's what you should do; check OpenStreetMap for places you know well and, if they need fixing, fix them.
  - ancarda 9y ago
    Really? Wow. I recently moved in with my partner and we keep having issues with deliveries, I’d never have imagined it could be due to bad or missing OSM data. I’ll check when I’m near a computer. Thank you for the heads up!
dzdt 9y ago
Stackoverflow? Openstreetmap?
samhyde420 9y ago
Wikis are everywhere. What the fuck are you on about?
goialoq 9y ago
Wikipedia has a critical anti-spam effort (technology and human moderators) to prevent vandalism. That's why it's not covered in spam.
- r00fus 9y ago
  It's arguable that it's this process that allows the wiki concept to be successful in production. Are the Wikipedia anti-spam/manipulation efforts discussed/outlined in detail somewhere?
  - blattimwind 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_anti-vandal_bots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_anti-vandal...

akavel 9y ago

I disagree about "wiki not being used much [other than] Wikipedia [except super-niche areas]". Just a few successful, absolutely useful and worthwile as much as notable examples off the top of my head: - http://www.scp-wiki.net/ http://www.scp-wiki.net/ — platform for artistic expression - http://duolingo.wikia.com/wiki/Duolingo_Wiki http://duolingo.wikia.com/wiki/Duolingo_Wiki — practical FAQ for users, by users (I learned from it quite a few things I needed about the app) - https://wiki.archlinux.org/ https://wiki.archlinux.org/ — super practical, ultimate guide/HOWTO for many Linux-related technologies - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoWWiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoWWiki - not to mention cr*ploads of "corporate wikis" in corporate intranets where any and all information can be lost (ummm... "found" according to official corpo-speak...) I pose that wiki as a technology is now firmly entrenched and was without doubt revolutionary. (Btw, it was pioneered on http://c2.com http://c2.com, not "Wikipedia itself".)

TorKlingberg 9y ago
Good point, but I meant the social system of Wikipedia more than the technology. On a corporate intranet vandalism was never a concern, as you can always have their manager tell them to lay it off. You can separate wiki history quite clearly into pre-Wikipedia (c2 and friends) and post-Wikipedia. What disappoints me is that post-Wikipedia wikis are almost all "Wikipedia for <niche>", rather than something new.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- akavel 9y ago
  Ah, so you mean the various orgs, policies, moderators, etc. "administrative" social structures that emerged on Wikipedia? In other words, more or less "meta.wikipedia.org"? If yes, that was not clear to me from your original post (to tell the truth, still isn't; that's why I decided to hereby ask in the end). As to the "something new" in this area, one thing that comes to my mind is some wiki-based experiment/game I seem to have seen once, where its own rules could be edited; I think it was framed as a kind of "social experiment", but I can't google it out now. Other than that, I'm afraid I'm still not exactly sure what you're trying to say, so I find it hard to discuss or acknowledge yet... That said, for sure I seen the wiki tech used in more than one SCP-like narrative/worldbuilding case. On the other hand, the c2 wiki was in fact a kind of encyclopedia already, so maybe a wiki just naturally matches with such structural model?
  - Animats 9y ago
    some wiki-based experiment/game I seem to have seen once, where its own rules could be edited; I think it was framed as a kind of "social experiment" That's touched on in SF, in "The Moon Goddess and the Son" (1979), by Donald Kingsbury. It's not developed there, just mentioned briefly.
  - schoen 9y ago
    > As to the "something new" in this area, one thing that comes to my mind is some wiki-based experiment/game I seem to have seen once, where its own rules could be edited You might be thinking of Peter Suber's Nomic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic
  - cecilpl2 9y ago
    You are likely thinking of the game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic, which happens to be very well-suited for online play. Two of the largest instances are https://agoranomic.org/ https://agoranomic.org/ and https://blognomic.com/ https://blognomic.com/
rtkwe 9y ago
Is there actually that much wiki-ing going on on SCP-wiki? It always seemed that it was just the author doing anything with the pieces more like a fanfiction.net than a wiki.
- half-kh-hacker 9y ago
  SCPs themselves can be written by anyone, thrown into the 'Sandbox' wiki, and approved by staff. (I have never gone through the process myself, so if anyone else wants to clarify, please do.)
  - SolaceQuantum 9y ago
    SCP articles are written by anyone and posted by anyone(who is a member, which. Is staff approval via simple rules and entering a code in application) and the community votes on it. Anything below a certain threshold is deleted by staff.
- VectorLock 9y ago
  SCP is a good example of things that can go wrong with a wiki other than vandalism. Heavy handed self-proclaimed editors with too much time on their hands to stifle any creative writing that doesn't fit the mold of schlocky fan fiction.
  - zardo 9y ago
    Other than not being forkable to satisfy the people who's fiction is excluded, what's the problem? You can't satisfy everyone, those that want a consistent theme and voice would be unhappy if they ease up. Do any wiki's support forking and merging?
xster 9y ago
Is this still answering the original topic though? None of these wikis have deep life and death financial interests tied to their content like news and indirectly political world views does.
toomanybeersies 9y ago
Even the NSA and related three letter agencies use wikis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellipedia Also the FBI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaupedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaupedia The DoD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoDTechipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoDTechipedia The State Department: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplopedia
schemathings 9y ago
I recall running across c2 a few times .. there was also everything2.com from 1998 which was/is a community wiki with its own engine, and kuro5hin.com from 1999 which was wiki-ish as well
peterlk 9y ago
I'd point to Openstreetmaps as another example

perryprog 9y ago

This sort of reminded me of ChaosBot [0], something that sounds like what could be a total disaster, ended up being really neat. https://github.com/Chaosthebot/Chaos https://github.com/Chaosthebot/Chaos

desireco42 9y ago

RapGenius or Genius now. :) Pretty awesome what they did there.

rkuykendall-com 9y ago

> like minor Star Wars characters I think you're underestimating the value here. Sites like Wikia host an unimaginable sum of knowledge that appears nowhere else in the world. If you search for anything related to TV shows, comics, gaming, etc. you will end up on a Wikia article. For games like Minecraft, Wikis are a core part of the how you play the game.

Doctor_Fegg 9y ago

> Yet, noone has used that insight to create other great user-created websites with almost universal write access OpenStreetMap.

Animats 9y ago
True. I was surprised how easy OpenStreetMap was to edit. My own tiny street was misnamed. Many low-end GPS devices use that data. After I fixed that, deliveries and service became more reliable, and I stopped getting calls from people nearby but lost. I never edited again after fixing the map for my own neighborhood. But that's fine. That's what you should do; check OpenStreetMap for places you know well and, if they need fixing, fix them.
- ancarda 9y ago
  Really? Wow. I recently moved in with my partner and we keep having issues with deliveries, I’d never have imagined it could be due to bad or missing OSM data. I’ll check when I’m near a computer. Thank you for the heads up!

dzdt 9y ago

Stackoverflow? Openstreetmap?

samhyde420 9y ago

Wikis are everywhere. What the fuck are you on about?

goialoq 9y ago

Wikipedia has a critical anti-spam effort (technology and human moderators) to prevent vandalism. That's why it's not covered in spam.

r00fus 9y ago
It's arguable that it's this process that allows the wiki concept to be successful in production. Are the Wikipedia anti-spam/manipulation efforts discussed/outlined in detail somewhere?
- blattimwind 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_anti-vandal_bots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_anti-vandal...