Why does no one compete against Wikimedia?, Decentralization of wiki hosting Options

[Lir]

This is the question I ask myself over and over again. Why does nobody try to decentralize the wiki world by competing against Wikimedia? Many people complain about Wikimedia's projects, but they do nothing to compete against it. There's no initiative to build big wikis outside Wikimedia. Why?

[Selina]

The biggest most obvious one has to be money, pure and simple - Look at the amount of money Wikipedia uses to keep running - It's easy to say "fork off", but nearly no one has the money required to run a working site with as much hardware and bandwidth requirements as Wikipedia...

[vulchy]

I believe there are some lower-level sites that do, but the simple fact is, Wikipedia has a monopoly over this area, and not much can be done about it. This isn't a bad thing, of course.

See, all the cheap-o celebrity sites and/or biographical sites copy Wikipedia's info directly, as do the mirror sites. This is one of the major monetary incomes for Wikipedia, and it would be near-impossible for any competitor to take over.

It would need to be a site of much greater quality and comprehensiveness.

[Blu Aardvark]

It would need to be a site of much greater quality and comprehensiveness.

There is another alternative - a series of sites, all comprehensive on specific topics, and all interconnected via interwiki. This would actually be both cheaper, and in the long run, better, than a single site on general topics, which cannot be comprehensive by nature. In addition, it would solve many of the systematic problems present in the single-site model.

[Lir]

Wikipedia is after some National Endowment for Humanities money.

Thats awful hypocritical of Jimbo, since he is the guy who said using taxpayer money to help victims of Hurricane Katrina was 'fascism'. Apparently, however, its ok if the taxpayers fund Jimbo.

[emesee]

Good question.

You might check out

http://encyc.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://wikademia.org/Main

and http://wikademia.org/Decentralizing_wiki_technology

Cheers.

[Eva Destruction]

Somey, please ban him from resurrecting threads. This is getting ridiculous.

[John Limey]

It would need to be a site of much greater quality and comprehensiveness.

There is another alternative - a series of sites, all comprehensive on specific topics, and all interconnected via interwiki. This would actually be both cheaper, and in the long run, better, than a single site on general topics, which cannot be comprehensive by nature. In addition, it would solve many of the systematic problems present in the single-site model.

This is an intriguing idea, and I think you're absolutely right. Specialization would have many benefits, and it is certainly the norm of academia, etc. I think, though, that an even more interesting idea (if one were a businessman) would be to somehow link together specialized professional reference works into a single, high-quality encyclopedia (e.g., Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Grove Dictionary of Art, and hundreds of smaller and even more specialized works).

If someone could create such a work and find a way to put in online for free, it would destroy Wikipedia almost immediately. Of course, it just might not be economically viable and figuring out to gain the rights to hundreds of different works would be a very difficult task. I think, though, if say Oxford University Press were to make a serious attempt at doing something like this, the results would be excellent. (Sadly?), they seem to have other things to do with their time.

[Guido den Broeder]

This is the question I ask myself over and over again. Why does nobody try to decentralize the wiki world by competing against Wikimedia? Many people complain about Wikimedia's projects, but they do nothing to compete against it.

Actually, some do.

[Kato]

This is the question I ask myself over and over again. Why does nobody try to decentralize the wiki world by competing against Wikimedia? Many people complain about Wikimedia's projects, but they do nothing to compete against it.

Actually, some do.

This thread is THREE AND A HALF YEARS OLD and needs to be closed.

[Sarcasticidealist]

Somey, please ban him. This is getting ridiculous.

Fixed.

[Milton Roe]

This is the question I ask myself over and over again. Why does nobody try to decentralize the wiki world by competing against Wikimedia? Many people complain about Wikimedia's projects, but they do nothing to compete against it.

Actually, some do.

This thread is THREE AND A HALF YEARS OLD and needs to be closed.

Zombie police!

[CharlotteWebb]

This is the question I ask myself over and over again. Why does nobody try to decentralize the wiki world by competing against Wikimedia? Many people complain about Wikimedia's projects, but they do nothing to compete against it.

Actually, some do.

But for the most part they only attempt to compete against small portions of Wikimedia projects, typically those which affect them personally or which they simply feel are poorly done. You and I can take a few pages and publish them in a manner modified to suit our needs and tastes, but what would we do for the other 99.999%:
A. Leave them blank because they are Shit We Don't Care About, and not pretend to be a serious competitor.
B. Import them from a database dump because we suppose any problems we inherit can be fixed more expediently on our fledgling wiki than in the original.
C. Wait for them to be written as a revenge platform by other people who are banned from WP (and whose POVs seem as irrational to us as ours do to them).
D. Other, please explain.

[sbrown]

Good question.

You might check out

http://encyc.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://wikademia.org/Main

and http://wikademia.org/Decentralizing_wiki_technology

Cheers.

Ive checked them out already.

[emesee]

Good question.

You might check out

http://encyc.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://wikademia.org/Main

and http://wikademia.org/Decentralizing_wiki_technology

Cheers.

Ive checked them out already.

Bless you!

This is the question I ask myself over and over again. Why does nobody try to decentralize the wiki world by competing against Wikimedia? Many people complain about Wikimedia's projects, but they do nothing to compete against it.

Actually, some do.

But for the most part they only attempt to compete against small portions of Wikimedia projects, typically those which affect them personally or which they simply feel are poorly done. You and I can take a few pages and publish them in a manner modified to suit our needs and tastes, but what would we do for the other 99.999%:
A. Leave them blank because they are Shit We Don't Care About, and not pretend to be a serious competitor.
B. Import them from a database dump because we suppose any problems we inherit can be fixed more expediently on our fledgling wiki than in the original.
C. Wait for them to be written as a revenge platform by other people who are banned from WP (and whose POVs seem as irrational to us as ours do to them).
D. Other, please explain.

That is why it seems to me that eventually ever Wiki-Communist Foundation Wiki have its own forked counterpart. That is including Wikia.

This is the question I ask myself over and over again. Why does nobody try to decentralize the wiki world by competing against Wikimedia? Many people complain about Wikimedia's projects, but they do nothing to compete against it.

Actually, some do.

This thread is THREE AND A HALF YEARS OLD and needs to be closed.

Zombie police!

BLARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

This is the question I ask myself over and over again. Why does nobody try to decentralize the wiki world by competing against Wikimedia? Many people complain about Wikimedia's projects, but they do nothing to compete against it.

Actually, some do.

More powerz to them.

It would need to be a site of much greater quality and comprehensiveness.

There is another alternative - a series of sites, all comprehensive on specific topics, and all interconnected via interwiki. This would actually be both cheaper, and in the long run, better, than a single site on general topics, which cannot be comprehensive by nature. In addition, it would solve many of the systematic problems present in the single-site model.

This is an intriguing idea, and I think you're absolutely right. Specialization would have many benefits, and it is certainly the norm of academia, etc. I think, though, that an even more interesting idea (if one were a businessman) would be to somehow link together specialized professional reference works into a single, high-quality encyclopedia (e.g., Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Grove Dictionary of Art, and hundreds of smaller and even more specialized works).

If someone could create such a work and find a way to put in online for free, it would destroy Wikipedia almost immediately. Of course, it just might not be economically viable and figuring out to gain the rights to hundreds of different works would be a very difficult task. I think, though, if say Oxford University Press were to make a serious attempt at doing something like this, the results would be excellent. (Sadly?), they seem to have other things to do with their time.

Yes, and immediate fix would be nice, but I guess we'll (or at least I) will have to be patient.

And to all trolls: go eat your trollishness with some vinaigrette and bacon bits.



This post has been edited by emesee: Sat 8th August 2009, 10:19pm

[Guido den Broeder]

But for the most part they only attempt to compete against small portions of Wikimedia projects, typically those which affect them personally or which they simply feel are poorly done.

Well, that latter criterium makes us target the lot.

[Emperor]

Wow, Lir, qwerty, Selina, Blu Aardvark. Classic WR, kids, check it out!

[sbrown]

Wow, Lir, qwerty, Selina, Blu Aardvark. Classic WR, kids, check it out!

Serious question why is qwerty shown as the thread starter when its Lir?

[Guido den Broeder]

More powerz to them.

Emesee, I suggest that you stop account-spamming at Wikisage. In contrast to Wikipedia, there is no advantage to having more than one.

[Grep]

Somey, please ban him from resurrecting threads. This is getting ridiculous.

If there's something interesting to be said on the subject, why care about when the thread started?