[Air-l] Trusted Wikipedia

[Alex Halavais]

Yes, I have, and I support Larry Sanger's efforts generally, though
I've been critical in the particulars in the past. Let a thousand
flowers bloom. As I noted, there are also projects "from within"
Wikipedia to provide a mechanism for fact-checking and indications by
the community of confidence in particular articles.

Here is where I think this project is different:

* It's not a "fork" so much as a stable version: i.e., looking for
mutualism, not parasitism. There are several efforts at making
"stable" versions of Wikipedia, this is one of those, and one I think
could be particularly successful.

* One of the reasons I think it could be successful is that it is
modest in scope. Nupedia and later attempts failed, I think, to gather
a critical mass of well-known, "credentialed" academic folks in any
one area. If we can do that here, within the more limited realm of
Internet Studies / CMC / HCI, we would be far ahead of the game. I
would venture to claim that a good number of the most well-known
people in this area follow this list.

* Another is that I am not hoping to create a heavy infrastructure. I
want to apply existing "technologies" of peer review to the resource.
Again, I am thinking the lighter the better. Any heavy editing would
continue to occur on Wikipedia proper, but the certified versions
would be kept segmented (with the appropriate links back to Wikipedia
for current versions).

I'm a small thinker! If this can work in the limited way suggested, it
can serve as a model for others to do the same in their own fields.

- Alex


On 9/21/06, paolo massa <massa at itc.it> wrote:
> I guess you have heard of the recently launched Citizendium.
> See "New Citizendium to correct Wikipedia's wrongs?" at
> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060919-7775.html
>
> How does your idea relates to Citizendium?

<snip>

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// Alexander C. Halavais
// Social Architect
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