5 ms·

Isn't that what Wikia is for? No single website can reasonably hope to cater to everyone's interests but luckily the web makes it very easy to create alternati

by jiggy2011 12y ago

Isn't that what Wikia is for? No single website can reasonably hope to cater to everyone's interests but luckily the web makes it very easy to create alternatives.

brazzy 12y ago
> Isn't that what Wikia is for? Says who? > No single website can reasonably hope to cater to everyone's interests Why?
- cbd1984 12y ago
  >> No single website can reasonably hope to cater to everyone's interests > Why? Should there be pictures of Mohammed on the website? Yes or no? Should homosexuality be mentioned at all? Yes or no? Does homeopathy work? Yes or no? Some issues have no middle ground, or at least no factually-supported middle ground. Therefore, to even address some topics, you have to take a stand, which necessarily means you alienate some people.
a3_nm 12y ago
Wikia is not a satisfactory alternative to Wikipedia, at least in terms of ethical status of the host (Wikia is a company and there are ads on Wikia wikis), in terms of internal consistency, and in terms of content licensing and of availability of dumps.
- jiggy2011 12y ago
  There are open source wiki platforms so wikia is not the only option.
  - a3_nm 12y ago
    The problem is not the license of the software. I think Wikia also uses MediaWiki which is free software. For the other points that I mentioned, I'm not sure I know many wiki hosts which are free as in free beer, run by a nonprofit, sustainable through donations, show no ads, have their content under a free license and dump it in a way comparable to http://dumps.wikimedia.org/ http://dumps.wikimedia.org/.
- abvdasker 12y ago
  The quality is also much, much worse.
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    Right. Which is why Wikipedia is the way it is.
- cbd1984 12y ago
  If you want internal consistency, you have to have some centralized way to enforce that, and you're back where you started.
DanBC 12y ago
People don't want a webpage on some random website. They want their Truth in Wikipedia.

Isn't that what Wikia is for? No single website can reasonably hope to cater to everyone's interests but luckily the web makes it very easy to create alternatives.

brazzy 12y ago

> Isn't that what Wikia is for? Says who? > No single website can reasonably hope to cater to everyone's interests Why?

cbd1984 12y ago
>> No single website can reasonably hope to cater to everyone's interests > Why? Should there be pictures of Mohammed on the website? Yes or no? Should homosexuality be mentioned at all? Yes or no? Does homeopathy work? Yes or no? Some issues have no middle ground, or at least no factually-supported middle ground. Therefore, to even address some topics, you have to take a stand, which necessarily means you alienate some people.

a3_nm 12y ago

Wikia is not a satisfactory alternative to Wikipedia, at least in terms of ethical status of the host (Wikia is a company and there are ads on Wikia wikis), in terms of internal consistency, and in terms of content licensing and of availability of dumps.

jiggy2011 12y ago
There are open source wiki platforms so wikia is not the only option.
- a3_nm 12y ago
  The problem is not the license of the software. I think Wikia also uses MediaWiki which is free software. For the other points that I mentioned, I'm not sure I know many wiki hosts which are free as in free beer, run by a nonprofit, sustainable through donations, show no ads, have their content under a free license and dump it in a way comparable to http://dumps.wikimedia.org/ http://dumps.wikimedia.org/.
abvdasker 12y ago
The quality is also much, much worse.
- cbd1984 12y ago
  Right. Which is why Wikipedia is the way it is.
cbd1984 12y ago
If you want internal consistency, you have to have some centralized way to enforce that, and you're back where you started.

DanBC 12y ago

People don't want a webpage on some random website. They want their Truth in Wikipedia.