Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'intrate, Tangent To The Dark Wood Of Wiki Bios Options Rating

[Jon Awbrey]

Through Me Is The Way Into The Woeful Wiki

Through Me Is The Way Into The Eternal Woe

Through Me Is The Way Among The Lost People

[BobbyBombastic]

I've come across another lawsuit waiting to happen, and this time it's a site chock full of underage, COPPA-threshold girls. Check out WikiBios.com, owned by WikiBios LLC, which I can't seem to find in real life anywhere.

An interesting "rule" on the site:

What if someone vandalizes or deletes my WikiBio?

We realize that, because everyone has access to your WikiBio, there is a possibility that someone can vandalize or even delete whole parts of your WikiBio. While we firmly believe in our community's dedication to the project and upholding honor in writing WikiBios, we do understand that we don't live in a utopia. This is why we have implemented the rollback feature on all sections of all WikiBios. Once you are logged in, you can revert your WikiBio to an earlier version before any vandalism or deletion occurred with just one click. In addition, we regularly log IP addresses and recall them when rollbacks occur, so that we can review cases and block people from the website when necessary.

Sounds like they have an airtight "it's not my problem, it's your problem" system there.

Yes that is what it sounds like. It seems like most wikis are like that. It's just another annoying aspect of "internet culture" that Wikipedia has promoted, I guess! It's the gift that keeps giving...

At this moment, this type of site (and Wikipedia) reminds me of any other internet fad that eventually passes. For example, at one time it seemed like everyone (that was nerdy enough or obsessed enough) had a free site that they posted whatever inane nonsense that interested them on geocities or angelfire. Now I guess people post that inane nonsense on their myspaces, facebooks, and blogs. Perhaps even that isn't a good parallel though, because I certainly remember geocities and angelfire sites that I liked and found informative, but I really never found a myspace or facebook page that I found informative...blogs on the other hand are a different story, I guess. However, there are more blogs now than there were angelfire sites, so fighting through the noise to find information is more difficult than previously. :/ Or at least that's how it seems.

I think that in a few years we'll be the nerds on the internet telling people how wikis used to be, while the majority of internet users are off doing some different type of internet hijinks, paying little attention to us because wikis have become irrelevant. At least that is what I hope. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

As annoying as angelfire and geocities sites were, they could never be more annoying than the poorly administered Wikipedia and its copycats. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wacko.gif)

[Milton Roe]

I think that in a few years we'll be the nerds on the internet telling people how wikis used to be, while the majority of internet users are off doing some different type of internet hijinks, paying little attention to us because wikis have become irrelevant. At least that is what I hope. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

You can abandon THAT hope. Wikis (I don't mean Wikipedia Wikis-- I mean all types of collaborative Wikis) are destined to be a core feature of human networked collaboration into the forseeable future for as long as humans (as we know them) work on projects on the internet (as we know it). So don't hold your breath. You might as well wait for websites or bulletin boards or blogs to end.

The good news: most of the bad features of Wikipedia are NOT, repeat NOT, intrinsic features of Wikis themselves.

M