3 ms·

I'm not sure if an alternative competitor is necessarily possible or easy. Google tried an alternative model presumably to address issues with turf wars and cre

I'm not sure if an alternative competitor is necessarily possible or easy. Google tried an alternative model presumably to address issues with turf wars and credibility with Google Knol, but that burned out pretty quickly even though the model was worth pursuing (giving expert editors incentives to create their own pages in an area they have specialized domain knowledge).

tdoggette 14y ago
One perk of competing with Wikipedia is that you can use Wikipedia articles as a base.
- mjn 14y ago
  A perk but also a logistical challenge. In the small number of attempts I've observed so far, a big problem is that if you start with a small community but all of Wikipedia as your starting content, you immediately get overrun by spammers, because your small community can't police editing of 2m+ articles, and you also lack all the anti-vandalism "immune system" bot infrastructure that Wikipedians currently run. One way to sidestep it would be if your experiment is with a community structure that's much more restrictive than Wikipedia's. If, for example, only approved editors can edit articles, then you avoid most of the spam problem. But it's not clear to me that insufficient barriers to editing are the main problem with Wikipedia.
- saraid216 14y ago
  It seems to me that Wikia should be an effective disruptor, but it isn't and I'm not sure why. Culture? Stigma? Awareness? Reasons I think it is: it's very domain-specific, which makes it possible for qualified editors to flock to appropriate domains; there is a separate command structure per Wikia, enabling access on a per-qualification basis; it practically begs you to copy content from Wikipedia as a base; it already has a financial support system in place with the ads, and presumably has solid infrastructure backing it. I can see how some of those strengths would double as weaknesses, though.
pm90 14y ago
There is another project called Scholarpedia, but that is restricted to Science/Math only, I think

tdoggette 14y ago

One perk of competing with Wikipedia is that you can use Wikipedia articles as a base.

mjn 14y ago
A perk but also a logistical challenge. In the small number of attempts I've observed so far, a big problem is that if you start with a small community but all of Wikipedia as your starting content, you immediately get overrun by spammers, because your small community can't police editing of 2m+ articles, and you also lack all the anti-vandalism "immune system" bot infrastructure that Wikipedians currently run. One way to sidestep it would be if your experiment is with a community structure that's much more restrictive than Wikipedia's. If, for example, only approved editors can edit articles, then you avoid most of the spam problem. But it's not clear to me that insufficient barriers to editing are the main problem with Wikipedia.
saraid216 14y ago
It seems to me that Wikia should be an effective disruptor, but it isn't and I'm not sure why. Culture? Stigma? Awareness? Reasons I think it is: it's very domain-specific, which makes it possible for qualified editors to flock to appropriate domains; there is a separate command structure per Wikia, enabling access on a per-qualification basis; it practically begs you to copy content from Wikipedia as a base; it already has a financial support system in place with the ads, and presumably has solid infrastructure backing it. I can see how some of those strengths would double as weaknesses, though.

pm90 14y ago

There is another project called Scholarpedia, but that is restricted to Science/Math only, I think