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?

[John Limey]

There are a very large number of considerations to make in order to create a viable Wikipedia rival. I started on a list of questions to consider a few weeks ago, but got sidetracked. Perhaps I'll publish it at some point.

Yes please do.

I'd like to shamelessly promote my own thoughts, which are sort of connected to this (see On Citizendium, which niftily is one of the top 10 google results for the search term "Citizendium"). Basically, I think that an effective Wikipedia rival is essentially impossible. In the post linked, I introduce the concept of the "paradox of Wikipedia" - that the same factors that make Wikipedia a successful web community and attract editors make it inherently unreliable and that the same things that make Wikipedia stronger as an encyclopedia weaken it as a web community.

I think that it's really impossible (without incredible financial backing) to beat Wikipedia by emphasizing the encyclopedia over the community. Citizendium tried to do that and has, well, failed. If you overemphasize the encyclopedia you lose the hordes of free labor that make Wikipedia work. I think it's also pretty much impossible to beat Wikipedia by going in the other direction - emphasizing the community aspects at the expense of the encyclopedia. Wikipedia already has enough problems as an encyclopedia, and (at least around here) no one wants an even less reliable version. If Interpedia were worth mentioning, it would be worth holding up as a failure that went too far towards community. That leaves the option of striking about the same balance as Wikipedia between encyclopedia and community (perhaps with some twists), but in this arena Wikipedia has all the power and momentum and (short of massive backing) your little project won't stand a chance.

You could always do something radically different - an entirely new paradigm, but then you probably wouldn't be asking about wikis.

This post has been edited by John Limey: Sat 13th March 2010, 12:42am

[Milton Roe]

There are a very large number of considerations to make in order to create a viable Wikipedia rival. I started on a list of questions to consider a few weeks ago, but got sidetracked. Perhaps I'll publish it at some point.

Yes please do.

I'd like to shamelessly promote my own thoughts, which are sort of connected to this (see On Citizendium, which niftily is one of the top 10 google results for the search term "Citizendium").

It's actually the top three, but the WP article on Citizendium is #4.

Here's an article on why Sanger is growing tired of Citizenium and wants to leave.


http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2009/08/citiz...y-to-jump-ship/