What is Digg?Sponsored by Threadless
1 Comments
- geodescent, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I take issue with this article because the author consistently says that rectifying his 3 problems would cause the Wikipedia "system to collapse." Yet, this is just something he gleaned from some folks at a Wiki conference. What do they know? I certainly wouldn't take the opinion of some folks as fact without investigating it myself, and then I'd be sure to post the result of my investigation in my blog. You know, that pesky thing called source citation they taught us about in college.
Now, aside from being negative, I'll bring up my opinions on each of the 3 "problems." Maybe they are valid. Maybe not.
1) Wikipedia pages have become increasingly complex and Wikipedia doesn't support a WYSIWYG editor.
This is good, because Wikipedia does wonderful things with what you write, as long as you use the Wikicode properly. Think of it more like a database, where if you write [Date=11.20.2006], the backend will auto-format and linkify your text. In a WYSIWYG editor mode, you'd have a lot more people making edits but not bothering to linkify any of their relevant content.
The benefit is that you are empowered to improve the *quality* of your contributed content much faster. A WYSIWYG editor would likely have tons of buttons for identifying linkifiable elements that would go unheeded.
2) The Wikipedia uses "Discussion pages" to reach consensus, and these pages are also coded in mediaWiki so that 99% of people can't figure them out.
The discussion page reminds me of a CVS system, even though I have never used one myself. It seems that its purpose is to facilitate the method whereby Wikipedia stores a history about an article. This way, your discussion can have the benefit of *context.* Otherwise, you're just mouthing off in a forumn like everybody else about why you think W's middle name should be "Rummy." Additionally, some of my point from #1 comes back into play. This is a database, not a Word document.
3) The Wikipeda uses IRC chat, which 99% of folks don't know how to use
As for the last item, I cannot find Wikipedia's chat thing at all, so I will concede some of the point. But I will offer this: traditionally, there is a web-based client offered when the chat server is IRC. Plus you have the added benefit of maintaining a chat server FOR FREE. I've yet to hear of a FREE web-based chat system that *doesn't* involve an IRC backend. The technology is developed, mature, and you don't need to know a bunch of arcane commands to use IRC through a web chat or even a simple client. The author assumes we're all back on DALnet in the late nineties.
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is