[Nupedia-l] Let's make a wiki

No, this is not an indecent proposal. It's an idea to add a little feature to Nupedia. Jimmy Wales thinks that many people might find the idea objectionable, but I think not. "Wiki," pronounced \wee'-kee\, derives from a Polynesian word, "wikiwiki," but what it means is a VERY open, VERY publicly-editable series of web pages. For example, I can start a page called EpistemicCircularity and write anything I want in it. Anyone else (yes, absolutely anyone else) can come along and make absolutely any changes to it that he wants to. (The editing interface is very simple; anyone intelligent enough to write or edit a Nupedia article will be able to figure it out without any trouble.) On the page I create, I can link to any other pages, and of course anyone can link to mine. The project is billed and pursued as a public resource. There are a few announced suggestions or rules. The concept actually seems to work well, as you can see here with the original wiki: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki Links are indicated by using CapitalizedWordsBunchedTogetherLikeThis. If a wiki page exists, the word is underlined; if not, there is a question mark after the word, which is clickable, and which anyone can use to go and write something about the topic. Setting up a wiki for Nupedia would be very easy; it can be done in literally ten minutes. (We've already found this out.) As to Nupedia's use of a wiki, this is the ULTIMATE "open" and simple format for developing content. We have occasionally bandied about ideas for simpler, more open projects to either replace or supplement Nupedia. It seems to me wikis can be implemented practically instantly, need very little maintenance, and in general are very low-risk. They're also a potentially great source for content. So there's little downside, as far as I can see. We can make wiki versions of all new Nupedia articles, too, and that can be a place where additional changes and commentary can be gleaned (authors could ignore what goes on on the wiki, of course--it's up to them). The content can be licensed under an open content license. A Nupedia wiki would instruct users to try to make their entries resemble encyclopedia articles, but the usual wiki sort of banter would be permitted. This would make things more interesting to many users, who could *instantly* create, edit, and comment on articles. If a wiki article got to a high level it could be put into the regular Nupedia editorial process. We would not integrate the Nupedia wiki into the rest of Nupedia (though wiki pages could link to regular Nupedia pages, there wouldn't be links back). It would be a completely separate part of the website. The search engine would not return wiki pages, and wiki pages wouldn't be listed among other regular Nupedia pages. We'd just have a link on the left or right hand column of the website, "Nupedia Wiki", and let people explore it if they're curious what it is. On the front page of the Nupedia wiki we'd make it ABSOLUTELY clear that this is experimental, that Nupedia editors don't have control of what goes on here, and that the quality of articles, discussion, etc., should not be taken as a reflection of the quality of articles, review, etc. on the main part of the Nupedia website. Does anyone have an objection to our trying this out? Larry