Setting up your own wiki encyclopaedia Options

[A User]

Can anyone recommend any sites that show step by step how to set up your own wiki encyclopaedia?

[wikademia.org]

you do know about Encyc.org, right?!

[A User]

you do know about Encyc.org, right?!

I don't think Encyc.org will challenge wikipedia anytime soon. All their articles are basically one to two sentence stubs.

[thekohser]

I don't think Encyc.org will challenge wikipedia anytime soon. All their articles are basically one to two sentence stubs.

WikiWatch, who are you? (If you're disclosing.)

What are you trying to accomplish? Trying to challenge Wikipedia with an alternate venue? Do you have at least $1,000,000? Because those are the bare minimum table stakes to create a site that will get into the Alexa 1000.

What is your unique proposition that will make your site a challenge to Wikipedia?

On my site, I dreamed optimistically that editors' "ownership" of articles about yourself or your business, plus transitory ownership of articles about other legal entities, coupled with the ability to earn AdSense revenues (keeping 100% of them for themselves), topped off with the wonders of Semantic Web architecture for search engine optimization and internal multi-layered search capabilities, would have me at 3% of Wikipedia's market share within two years.

Well, after two years, my site earns 0.000856% of the English Wikipedia's page traffic, as the 37,789th most visited site on the Internet, among Americans.

Although (according to Alexa), my site has a wider global reach than the web home of the Brazilian government (brasil.gov.br), as well as the home page of the 10th largest company in America (Valero.com).

So, while you're pooh-poohing Encyc.org, let me just say that your asking how to install wiki software suggests to me that you likewise don't have what it takes to "challenge Wikipedia anytime soon".

This post has been edited by thekohser:

[anthony]

Well, after two years, my site earns 0.000856% of the English Wikipedia's page traffic, as the 37,789th most visited site on the Internet, among Americans.

Ha, did you know you're more popular than Citizendium?

[DawnofMan]

Would someone just hurry up and create an alternate Wiki where I can start working on articles without having to deal with all of Wikipedia's trolls and tyrants (ie. admins and arbcons).

Kohs's site seems to be about self-promotion and Neutralpedia is so far only about climate issues. I don't like the citizendium model and am not prepared to give up my anonymity to work with a bunch of self-appointed "experts". One Willy Connelly is bad enough.

[thekohser]

I don't like the citizendium model and am not prepared to give up my anonymity to work with a bunch of self-appointed "experts". One Willy Connelly is bad enough.

I'm still curious what the motivation is for someone to want anonymity while writing an encyclopedia. For hundreds of years, encyclopedias have had named authors and editors. What's so different about your objectives from theirs? Also, the "self-appointed" experts on Citizendium provide their biographical background, so that you may fairly weigh whether they are indeed an expert or not. Or, are you one of those "newfangled" types who doesn't "believe" in advanced degrees and the teaching experience and publication history?

[anthony]

I don't like the citizendium model and am not prepared to give up my anonymity to work with a bunch of self-appointed "experts". One Willy Connelly is bad enough.

I'm still curious what the motivation is for someone to want anonymity while writing an encyclopedia. For hundreds of years, encyclopedias have had named authors and editors. What's so different about your objectives from theirs?

Hundreds of years of encyclopedia writing and the current methods of "writing an encyclopedia" using a wiki are pretty much completely incomparable. With the wiki model, there's no profit incentive, there's no real copyright protection, and every rough draft is accessible forever on the Internet.

I can see the motivation to want anonymity while writing an encyclopedia using a wiki. For hundreds of years, the building of an encyclopedia happened behind closed doors, and only the final product was distributed to the public. I'd say in many ways the wiki model itself (even ignoring the notion of "anyone can edit") is hostile to experts.

Also, the "self-appointed" experts on Citizendium provide their biographical background, so that you may fairly weigh whether they are indeed an expert or not. Or, are you one of those "newfangled" types who doesn't "believe" in advanced degrees and the teaching experience and publication history?

Take a look at some of the bios on Citizendium some time, though. It's pretty hard to distinguish the geniuses from the nutcases solely from their bio. There are lots of nutcases with advanced degrees, teaching experience, and even publication history.

I like Citizendium's idea of approved articles. While the fact that an article is approved does not indicate that it is reliable, I like the fact that you at least have a short list of whom to blame for the flaws therein. But even that doesn't require all editors to be named individuals, only the ones that approve the articles.

Of course, the biggest problem with Citizendium isn't the structure. But that's all I'm going to say about that.

This post has been edited by anthony: