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Agreed. But I like the highlighting, saving of snippets and history-tracking ideas. I would find that very useful for myself, beyond the "oh sweet I didn't kn

Agreed. But I like the highlighting, saving of snippets and history-tracking ideas. I would find that very useful for myself, beyond the "oh sweet I didn't know it could do that" but for real "now where did I once read that?" purposes.

saraid216 14y ago
These ideas would probably be better achieved using a browser add-on of some kind.
- thebigshane 14y ago
  Not if you want it to be popular (read: IE users, high school and college students, other "normal" people). (Ok, yes, a browser add-on would be better for someone like me. But I don't think my need is very unique.)
  - saraid216 14y ago
    Most people who really care about this functionality are already using external tools to handle it. EndNote and Scrivener come to mind off the top of my head. But more to the point, the plugin wouldn't make it Wikipedia-only. Doing research involves more than Wikipedia.
tptacek 14y ago
Is it a good idea for a design shop to propose features that would beg huge numbers of otherwise passive consumers of the encyclopedia to register accounts? Because you'd have to do that, to get highlighting and bookmarking.
- thebigshane 14y ago
  I don't know. You think it's a bad idea though? Why? Are we worried about vandalism? I think I can support an idea that would hope to turn otherwise passive consumers into not-so-much-any-longer passive consumers. As long as pseudonyms remain acceptable.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    I'm more worried about their database servers melting, since the overwhelming amount of traffic Wikipedia handles today is passive consumption. If you think highlighting and bookmarking of Wikipedia articles is extremely valuable --- and maybe it is! --- go start a site backed by Wikipedia's content. In the places where it actually counts, Wikipedia has bent over backwards to be helpful to developers.
    - robryan 14y ago
      Has anything that has built on top of wikipedia as the primary product got much traction? I think it is something that would be hard to really get widespread without it. Can a 3rd party even maintain a fully up to date set of wikipedia content? Not sure what their policy on scraping is?
      - jarek 14y ago
        No need to scrape, Wikipedia has full dumps for the articles available for download: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#English-language_Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#Eng...
        robryan 14y ago
        Yeah I am aware, but wikipedia changes daily. There would have to be a pretty impressive feature set built on top before many would consider using an out of date wikipedia when they can easily see the latest version.
        jarek 14y ago
        Hm... for most pages it shouldn't really matter, they don't change drastically within days. For developing or current subjects I guess it would...
        gromgull 14y ago
        There is a feed of changes though - both a "realtime" IRC feed that is restricted access and some sort of batch feed (daily? Hourly?)
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  That could be implemented using localStorage + a simple key-value API, no sign-in required.

saraid216 14y ago

These ideas would probably be better achieved using a browser add-on of some kind.

thebigshane 14y ago
Not if you want it to be popular (read: IE users, high school and college students, other "normal" people). (Ok, yes, a browser add-on would be better for someone like me. But I don't think my need is very unique.)
- saraid216 14y ago
  Most people who really care about this functionality are already using external tools to handle it. EndNote and Scrivener come to mind off the top of my head. But more to the point, the plugin wouldn't make it Wikipedia-only. Doing research involves more than Wikipedia.

tptacek 14y ago

Is it a good idea for a design shop to propose features that would beg huge numbers of otherwise passive consumers of the encyclopedia to register accounts? Because you'd have to do that, to get highlighting and bookmarking.

thebigshane 14y ago
I don't know. You think it's a bad idea though? Why? Are we worried about vandalism? I think I can support an idea that would hope to turn otherwise passive consumers into not-so-much-any-longer passive consumers. As long as pseudonyms remain acceptable.
- tptacek 14y ago
  I'm more worried about their database servers melting, since the overwhelming amount of traffic Wikipedia handles today is passive consumption. If you think highlighting and bookmarking of Wikipedia articles is extremely valuable --- and maybe it is! --- go start a site backed by Wikipedia's content. In the places where it actually counts, Wikipedia has bent over backwards to be helpful to developers.
  - robryan 14y ago
    Has anything that has built on top of wikipedia as the primary product got much traction? I think it is something that would be hard to really get widespread without it. Can a 3rd party even maintain a fully up to date set of wikipedia content? Not sure what their policy on scraping is?
    - jarek 14y ago
      No need to scrape, Wikipedia has full dumps for the articles available for download: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#English-language_Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#Eng...
      - robryan 14y ago
        Yeah I am aware, but wikipedia changes daily. There would have to be a pretty impressive feature set built on top before many would consider using an out of date wikipedia when they can easily see the latest version.
        jarek 14y ago
        Hm... for most pages it shouldn't really matter, they don't change drastically within days. For developing or current subjects I guess it would...
        gromgull 14y ago
        There is a feed of changes though - both a "realtime" IRC feed that is restricted access and some sort of batch feed (daily? Hourly?)
ricardobeat 14y ago
That could be implemented using localStorage + a simple key-value API, no sign-in required.