3 ms·

Well, first of all, you'd run into the chicken and egg problem. How do you fill a competitor with data without blatantly copying Wikipedia's data? How do you fi

Well, first of all, you'd run into the chicken and egg problem. How do you fill a competitor with data without blatantly copying Wikipedia's data? How do you fill in data without editors? How do you get editors without data? It's not unsolvable, but a very tricky problem. Second, you'd have to overcome Wikipedia's massive marketing efforts, particularly with the word "wiki". People often use the term "wiki" as a verb in the same way they use "google" as a verb. How do you get people to think "I'll look that up on Clonopedia" instead of "I'll look that up on Wikipedia"? It's not insurmountable, but potentially a very, very expensive proposition. Third, despite Wikipedia's flaws, it is really one of the best collections of knowledge on the internet. It's so vast that the editing has slowed down because everything goes on there. This is like winning an architecture competition where they submit the Taj Mahal and you submit a sandcastle. It's not impossible, but... well... good luck. That said, I would enjoy some serious competition for Wikipedia and similarly placed entities (Google, etc).

jamesjguthrie 13y ago
I don't know about everybody else but I don't use wiki as a verb, it's a noun in my vocabulary. I'll say "Google it" but I won't say "wiki it" or "Wikipedia it." I'll say "Check the wiki" as if every other wiki on the internet doesn't exist and Wikipedia is the wiki.
- J_Darnley 13y ago
  I don't use wiki as a verb either. There's more than one wiki and if you want to find the right information you need to check the right one. If you want encylopedic knowledge about Star Trek you will check Memory Alpha. Star wars, Wookiepedia. I don't quite remember the "origin story" behind other wikis but thought it was because Wikipedia didn't want the content which now fills these others. Anyway, because these other wikis exist with, I presume, far more detail than Wikipedia contains is the reason Wikipedia won't become /The Wiki/.
tokenadult 13y ago
Is the licensing of Wikimedia Foundation project content consistent with using that content to form a new project, as long as there is attribution? I think so, but I would have to check. That could lead to the odd situation of New Project linking to Old Project from most articles, but that would also allow a head-to-head comparison of article quality, which just might heavily favor New Project.

jamesjguthrie 13y ago

I don't know about everybody else but I don't use wiki as a verb, it's a noun in my vocabulary. I'll say "Google it" but I won't say "wiki it" or "Wikipedia it." I'll say "Check the wiki" as if every other wiki on the internet doesn't exist and Wikipedia is the wiki.

J_Darnley 13y ago
I don't use wiki as a verb either. There's more than one wiki and if you want to find the right information you need to check the right one. If you want encylopedic knowledge about Star Trek you will check Memory Alpha. Star wars, Wookiepedia. I don't quite remember the "origin story" behind other wikis but thought it was because Wikipedia didn't want the content which now fills these others. Anyway, because these other wikis exist with, I presume, far more detail than Wikipedia contains is the reason Wikipedia won't become /The Wiki/.

tokenadult 13y ago

Is the licensing of Wikimedia Foundation project content consistent with using that content to form a new project, as long as there is attribution? I think so, but I would have to check. That could lead to the odd situation of New Project linking to Old Project from most articles, but that would also allow a head-to-head comparison of article quality, which just might heavily favor New Project.