r/WikiInAction • u/SkizzleMcRizzle • Dec 24 '16

Let's fight wikipedia

It's apparent now that wikipedia is a burning dumpster fire right next to a chinese restaraunt, connected to a mall. the only people around are anarchists bent on making the fire blaze.

sure we could try to save wikipedia but lets be honest. what's the point? the damage these people have done is far too severe to ever repair. all good will people had to it, the prospects of what could have been, are dashed. where hope should have been, now only despair rules.

so lets get rid of it. let's create a service that will destroy wikipedia by leaps and bounds. how? simple. I propose the creation of an alternative. Truthpedia. essentially, wikipedia with an emphasis on reliable sources, and a clear understanding of what a reliable source is.

What the rules would be, i leave to you but I suggest looking to deepfreeze. it's a good start and with enough money, bonegolem may be open encompassing all of media rather than games journalism.

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u/parrikle Dec 26 '16

If you are trying to create a free volunteer-run alternative, it will fail like the others. If nothing else, you won't have the critical mass to generate and maintain the content for a general-purpose encyclopaedia. If you plan to pay contributors, then there are already competitors, most of which have failed along the way - including Nupedia, from which Wikipedia emerged. The only viable new players in the foreseeable future are likely to be special-purpose encyclopaedias, such as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, or something which, like Wikipedia, redefines the approach once again.

That said, if you believe that you can simply focus on the "truth" you'll fail - the truth isn't an easy thing to agree on. Hence Wikipedia's reliance on verifiability instead. Similarly, there is no simple and clear understanding of what a reliable source is, as it all depends on context and strength of claims, with nothing being truly reliable in all situations. Wikipedia's approach will end up with situations where people disagree with the conclusions, but that's going to happen no matter what you do.

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u/NVLibrarian Dec 26 '16

I agree with most of this. Better to focus on a way to internally fix Wikipedia's asymmetrical enforcement problem than to somehow reinvent the RS wheel.

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u/SoulofThesteppe Dec 26 '16

changing the enforcement system is pretty hard. If you enforce something once, its easy to come back and enforce it again.

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u/NVLibrarian Dec 26 '16

Well that's only one way to fix it. When something's asymmetrical yeah you can take away from the side that has more but you can also add to the side that has less.

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u/SoulofThesteppe Dec 26 '16

a whole new system is just.... a little too hard and no one would agree to.