5 ms·

It's not the keyboards that are the problem. Wikipedia will not survive because the site has a huge amount of software issues, the most notable being the wiki-s

It's not the keyboards that are the problem. Wikipedia will not survive because the site has a huge amount of software issues, the most notable being the wiki-software itself, which is almost 15 years old and simply not suited to the demands of the modern web. The software is the cause of almost every problem the site has (including bias, harassment, censorship, Gender Gap, lack of media support, hideous textbook like formatting and more) but the cult-like status attached to it ensures it cannot be meaningfully updated. Decline is inevitable. For more on these issues see this blog post [1] Wikipedia is a victim of its own success. While it was dealing with "encyclopedic" topics it was fine, but now that the encyclopedia part is pretty much done, editors are building up pages that are actually news archives, a task the wiki software does not handle well. As for the author's claims that that Wikipedia has no substantial competition -- it's coming. My site, Newslines, aims to take away all Wikipedia's news and biography pages, replacing Wikipedia's article-based writing system with a news event-driven approach that results in far less bias, and pages that readers can sort and filter. We even have video! You can see a couple of pages we are working on here [2][3]. So far our writers, who receive revenue share for their efforts, have added over 30,000 posts on 8000 different topics. [1] http://newslines.org/blog/wikipedias-13-deadly-sins/ http://newslines.org/blog/wikipedias-13-deadly-sins/ [2] http://newslines.org/dylann-roof/?order=ASC http://newslines.org/dylann-roof/?order=ASC [3] http://newslines.org/emma-sulkowicz/?order=ASC http://newslines.org/emma-sulkowicz/?order=ASC

zachrose 11y ago
... which is almost 15 years old and simply not suited to the demands of the modern web. What are the demands of the modern web?
- setpatchaddress 11y ago
  Insatiable lust for cat/kitten videos, probably.
- sparkzilla 11y ago
  How about video and document embedding for a start. Wikipedia has almost zero embedding, which is kind of useful when you want to see more about news events (video and document embedding directly in the page), or even see an actor's performance, or a trailer, or a music clip. Wikipedia looks and acts like a textbook on the web, instead of a purpose-designed site that includes all relevant media about a topic. People have just got so used to it that they can't imagine doing things another way.
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    Video and audio embedding can certainly be done (if not because of MediaWiki directly, through virtue of HTML5 alone... though I believe MW has plenty of its own scaffolding), and is present where necessary for things like pronunciation, song samples, speech excerpts and so on. Not sure exactly what you mean by "document embedding". Is that some Xanadu-grade transclusion thing? If so, can't blame the WWW much for the lack of it.
    - sparkzilla 11y ago
      Like Scribd or even including PDFs of source material. There's also a policy issue in that Wikipedia does not like primary sources, and prefers secondary sources.
      - cdcarter 11y ago
        I don't think that that's so much a policy "issue" as just the policy of an encyclopedia. They're made of editors, not researchers.
- cdcarter 11y ago
  I'm particularly interested in how the MediaWiki software is the cause of harassment and gender inequity. I think there may be a good argument for it, but I'd love to hear what GP thinks.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    One theory is that the wp interface is off-putting to most women and some men, which leads to a gender imbalance. That gender imbalance leads to odd situations. Many wp arguments are won by the people who have the time to outlast their opponents. So, for a long time some rape scenes in films were described as sex scenes, and the rape word was being removed. That's pretty hostile.
  - sparkzilla 11y ago
    I wrote a blog post on how Wikipedia's software choices cause the Gender Gap [1]. In short, the MediaWiki software gave power to the initial users of the software, who were mainly men. As the site grew, the software was not updated to devolve power to other groups, such as women and minorities, in part because the dominant group thought they were/are doing good work. In Wikipedia might is right and the end justifies the means. It's not just women, men find themselves routinely harassed on Wikipedia, and that's IMHO a fault of software, that doesn't have enough checks and balances on its various power structures. I came to realize this empirically because my site, which also crowdsources news and biographies, has up to 80% female participation. [1] http://newslines.org/blog/the-sexists-at-the-top-of-wikipedia/ http://newslines.org/blog/the-sexists-at-the-top-of-wikipedi...
jchrisa 11y ago
You might like Federated Wiki http://fed.wiki.org/view/welcome-visitors http://fed.wiki.org/view/welcome-visitors
- sparkzilla 11y ago
  I've seen Federated wiki. Distributed publishing is interesting, but I think the wiki format, and even the article-based format of wikis and news sites is not suited to news on the web. We are basically making a database on news events that can be sorted and filtered by the readers, and wikis are not good at on-page sorting etc.
vidarh 11y ago
Your site seems interesting as a tool to look up chronology and deep dive into information, but it seems to me that the focus is completely different to Wikipedia even when it comes specifically to news events. If you see yourself as providing competition to Wikipedia in the news space, your aim is frankly off. I'm saying that not as criticism of your site, which seems interesting and might be useful, but because if I go back to your site in the future, it will be for entirely different purposes than the purposes I'd have for going to Wikipedia: If I go to Wikipedia to look up a recent news event, what I expect is a summary, and condensed background, coupled with references for further reading. In other words: I expect the starts of encyclopaedic information about the subject. I don't expect an in depth timeline of events.
- sparkzilla 11y ago
  You are correct. We are not a direct competitor, but fit into a space between Wikipedia and news sites, with a bit of YouTube thrown in.
cbd1984 11y ago
> My site, Newslines, aims to take away all Wikipedia's news and biography pages "Take away" is an odd turn of phrase: You're of course free to mirror them and to update the mirrors as much as you like (within reason), but that won't remove them from Wikipedia's own servers, and any attempt to do that would rightly be seen as vandalism and stopped. Quickly. Wikipedia is explicitly not a newspaper. It can be a source of information about recent, newsworthy events, but it isn't written with headlines in mind and editors are encouraged to wait a bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:NOTNEWS https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:NOTNEWS As for biographies, Wikipedia articles have to adhere to stringent standards (too stringent, perhaps) by policy. This is something your site could profitably focus on: Provide a platform for information about living people that Wikipedia doesn't think it's worth the risk to host: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:BLP https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:BLP

zachrose 11y ago

... which is almost 15 years old and simply not suited to the demands of the modern web. What are the demands of the modern web?

setpatchaddress 11y ago
Insatiable lust for cat/kitten videos, probably.
sparkzilla 11y ago
How about video and document embedding for a start. Wikipedia has almost zero embedding, which is kind of useful when you want to see more about news events (video and document embedding directly in the page), or even see an actor's performance, or a trailer, or a music clip. Wikipedia looks and acts like a textbook on the web, instead of a purpose-designed site that includes all relevant media about a topic. People have just got so used to it that they can't imagine doing things another way.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  Video and audio embedding can certainly be done (if not because of MediaWiki directly, through virtue of HTML5 alone... though I believe MW has plenty of its own scaffolding), and is present where necessary for things like pronunciation, song samples, speech excerpts and so on. Not sure exactly what you mean by "document embedding". Is that some Xanadu-grade transclusion thing? If so, can't blame the WWW much for the lack of it.
  - sparkzilla 11y ago
    Like Scribd or even including PDFs of source material. There's also a policy issue in that Wikipedia does not like primary sources, and prefers secondary sources.
    - cdcarter 11y ago
      I don't think that that's so much a policy "issue" as just the policy of an encyclopedia. They're made of editors, not researchers.
cdcarter 11y ago
I'm particularly interested in how the MediaWiki software is the cause of harassment and gender inequity. I think there may be a good argument for it, but I'd love to hear what GP thinks.
- DanBC 11y ago
  One theory is that the wp interface is off-putting to most women and some men, which leads to a gender imbalance. That gender imbalance leads to odd situations. Many wp arguments are won by the people who have the time to outlast their opponents. So, for a long time some rape scenes in films were described as sex scenes, and the rape word was being removed. That's pretty hostile.
- sparkzilla 11y ago
  I wrote a blog post on how Wikipedia's software choices cause the Gender Gap [1]. In short, the MediaWiki software gave power to the initial users of the software, who were mainly men. As the site grew, the software was not updated to devolve power to other groups, such as women and minorities, in part because the dominant group thought they were/are doing good work. In Wikipedia might is right and the end justifies the means. It's not just women, men find themselves routinely harassed on Wikipedia, and that's IMHO a fault of software, that doesn't have enough checks and balances on its various power structures. I came to realize this empirically because my site, which also crowdsources news and biographies, has up to 80% female participation. [1] http://newslines.org/blog/the-sexists-at-the-top-of-wikipedia/ http://newslines.org/blog/the-sexists-at-the-top-of-wikipedi...

jchrisa 11y ago

You might like Federated Wiki http://fed.wiki.org/view/welcome-visitors http://fed.wiki.org/view/welcome-visitors

sparkzilla 11y ago
I've seen Federated wiki. Distributed publishing is interesting, but I think the wiki format, and even the article-based format of wikis and news sites is not suited to news on the web. We are basically making a database on news events that can be sorted and filtered by the readers, and wikis are not good at on-page sorting etc.

vidarh 11y ago

Your site seems interesting as a tool to look up chronology and deep dive into information, but it seems to me that the focus is completely different to Wikipedia even when it comes specifically to news events. If you see yourself as providing competition to Wikipedia in the news space, your aim is frankly off. I'm saying that not as criticism of your site, which seems interesting and might be useful, but because if I go back to your site in the future, it will be for entirely different purposes than the purposes I'd have for going to Wikipedia: If I go to Wikipedia to look up a recent news event, what I expect is a summary, and condensed background, coupled with references for further reading. In other words: I expect the starts of encyclopaedic information about the subject. I don't expect an in depth timeline of events.

sparkzilla 11y ago
You are correct. We are not a direct competitor, but fit into a space between Wikipedia and news sites, with a bit of YouTube thrown in.

cbd1984 11y ago

> My site, Newslines, aims to take away all Wikipedia's news and biography pages "Take away" is an odd turn of phrase: You're of course free to mirror them and to update the mirrors as much as you like (within reason), but that won't remove them from Wikipedia's own servers, and any attempt to do that would rightly be seen as vandalism and stopped. Quickly. Wikipedia is explicitly not a newspaper. It can be a source of information about recent, newsworthy events, but it isn't written with headlines in mind and editors are encouraged to wait a bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:NOTNEWS https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:NOTNEWS As for biographies, Wikipedia articles have to adhere to stringent standards (too stringent, perhaps) by policy. This is something your site could profitably focus on: Provide a platform for information about living people that Wikipedia doesn't think it's worth the risk to host: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:BLP https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:BLP