Monday, September 25, 2006
Forking Wikipedia
Forking Wikipedia – this was a message to a Citizendium list (Citizendium is a proposed fork of Wikipedia by Larry Sanger et al) but applies to other competitors to Wikipedia – and I hope there are many that flourish.
Re: On Transversality -- Communication Between Different
Levels Of Experience on Citizendium
I've long advocated a "Simpleopedia" in addition to Wikipedia (which could link to the latter, or Cit http://citizendium.org/.) Not merely for the less educated, informed, or younger students, but as a quick overview which could also serve as an introduction in case that's all that's needed. It's another question, however, as to Whether Cit [http://citizendium.org/] should start by undertaking this task, too. If it would be an effective initial marketing tool for Cit, then sure. Otherwise, maybe one thing at a time makes more sense.
Re: Fork Viability, and establishing beachheads.
I wanted to retail my experience with three different similar (non Wikipedia) projects that I won't name, one of which was in fact a fork of Wikipedia. None worked out. (Forgive me if this has been discussed elsewhere - I'll be quick.)
Cause of the other failures (imho): It's difficult to fork all articles all at once as soon as anyone wants to add a single sentence, at least until the new project gains enormous momentum. The danger is that the small changes in your fork will be swamped soon enough by the as yet larger project with a larger community; and that many of your forked articles will for this reason gradually become inferior, dragging down the project as a whole.
Deliberately focusing your volunteers efforts on only some articles for a while so that your forked articles will both supercede and continue to supercede the originals is, experience tells me, necessary. Not for ever, but for some while.
Meanwhile, Cit could accumulate proposed additions to future forks, and notes on what could be added. When these accumulate to a very substantial change in the article, and it's clear that volunteer interest will sustain and update the forked article ever after, then it can be safely forked.
Premature forking that results, eventually, in many inferior articles within Cit that will drag down the search engine reputation of all articles, including the dazzling ones, is the easiest way to sink Cit (imho, and experience.)
The bonus is that concentrating efforts where possible, for a while, will ensure at least some search engine attention comes to CIt early on.
This is analogous to establishing a new species - which doesn't tend to happen everywhere at once, but in small relatively isolated "island populations" at first, and only then spreads throughout a geographical range.
Re: On Transversality -- Communication Between Different
Levels Of Experience on Citizendium
I've long advocated a "Simpleopedia" in addition to Wikipedia (which could link to the latter, or Cit http://citizendium.org/.) Not merely for the less educated, informed, or younger students, but as a quick overview which could also serve as an introduction in case that's all that's needed. It's another question, however, as to Whether Cit [http://citizendium.org/] should start by undertaking this task, too. If it would be an effective initial marketing tool for Cit, then sure. Otherwise, maybe one thing at a time makes more sense.
Re: Fork Viability, and establishing beachheads.
I wanted to retail my experience with three different similar (non Wikipedia) projects that I won't name, one of which was in fact a fork of Wikipedia. None worked out. (Forgive me if this has been discussed elsewhere - I'll be quick.)
Cause of the other failures (imho): It's difficult to fork all articles all at once as soon as anyone wants to add a single sentence, at least until the new project gains enormous momentum. The danger is that the small changes in your fork will be swamped soon enough by the as yet larger project with a larger community; and that many of your forked articles will for this reason gradually become inferior, dragging down the project as a whole.
Deliberately focusing your volunteers efforts on only some articles for a while so that your forked articles will both supercede and continue to supercede the originals is, experience tells me, necessary. Not for ever, but for some while.
Meanwhile, Cit could accumulate proposed additions to future forks, and notes on what could be added. When these accumulate to a very substantial change in the article, and it's clear that volunteer interest will sustain and update the forked article ever after, then it can be safely forked.
Premature forking that results, eventually, in many inferior articles within Cit that will drag down the search engine reputation of all articles, including the dazzling ones, is the easiest way to sink Cit (imho, and experience.)
The bonus is that concentrating efforts where possible, for a while, will ensure at least some search engine attention comes to CIt early on.
This is analogous to establishing a new species - which doesn't tend to happen everywhere at once, but in small relatively isolated "island populations" at first, and only then spreads throughout a geographical range.
