Would you contribute more if the wiki were blank?

[Nancy Sculerati]

If there is a way to do a pilot, let's do it. Even writing this message in the "box" here leaves me unsure of how it will really be once I post it, I think we'd all benefit from the experiment of actually seeing the pilot wiki if everything but CZ live articles were suppressed. Is it technically feasible to do that for a four-hour trial or something? I will say, in one sense we have done it with the images, since we did not import those, and when it comes to them- its very apparent that we need a CZ commons. Do we yet have a server that can handle it? 

[Larry Sanger]

Here are a passle of advantages, I humbly submit, of not forking Wikipedia. The main advantage of not forking Wikipedia, I think, is that people will be more motivated to work on CZ if we delete all the non-live articles.  First let me elaborate this advantage, in several parts.  It has a lot to do with psychology, as we were saying earlier.

(1) The very existence of WP articles on CZ.

The very existence of a page on CZ at a minimum suggests that people should at least read the article and consider whether they should revise that article.  But many people might prefer to start over entirely.  This, by the way, is the reason that many people used to (and still do) oppose the presence of "stubs" on Wikipedia; stubs scratch the itch and turn the red link blue.

By contrast, as Wikipedians well know, waving a red link at a wiki contributor is in many cases like waving a red flag in front of a bull.  It is a scratch that needs to be itched.  Put that together with the fact that CZ contributors will feel obligated to outdo WP (in order to justify their existence), and I think we'd have large numbers of new articles in very short order--and thus more contributors, more activity, more community, and a more certain future.

(2) It's often faster to start from scratch, even if an article is improvable.

It is true that many WP articles are improvable and can be rewritten.  But every good writer knows that editing something mediocre, particularly work that someone else has written, so that it is "absolutely wonderful" is very hard work.  It's often faster to start over.  Surely our experience with the "Biology" article supports this claim.

If we don't fork Wikipedia, then our contributors won't feel obligated to spend their time editing mediocre work.  In many cases, a better article will result more quickly.  Besides, we can always continue to use Wikipedia's own articles as guidelines for our own work.

In fairness I must admit that some people will be able to produce an approvable article by editing an advanced WP article more quickly than if they were to start over from scratch.  I guess the question here is what proportion of articles are so close to "finished" that improving them would, for the average Citizen, result in an approved article faster rewriting them from scratch.  Pretty small, I suspect, folks.

So, we could delete all but the featured articles, y'know, on the theory that the featured articles would be faster to improve than to totally rewrite.

(3) Motivation requires a sense of ownership.

Even if we do manage to create something approvable by editing the WP article, will we take pride in it as we would if we edited it ourselves?  I doubt it.  We'll be more motivated to write another article, then another, if we are fully invested in our work.  If we are constantly starting with dodgy Wikipedia content, we'll be depressed by the fact that we aren't editing our own work.

The viper articles are an interesting case.  Here's someone who wrote those articles for Wikipedia and decided to come here and work on them here.  He's taken ownership of them here on CZ, and our community has reacted positively.

(4) Editing other people's mediocre work is drudgery.

Need I say more?  It's just dull to edit what other people have written, particularly if it isn't particularly good.  Starting over afresh is exciting, by contrast.  It's like the difference between designing a brand new house and trying to fix up an old house that was never that great to begin with.

(5) Dismantling other people's work without them there feels rude.

When rewriting a WP article, it's as if you're negotiating with ghosts, as it were, with people who aren't there.  You take all the responsibility upon yourself, against the potentially hundreds of people who have worked on the article over at WP, for making radical changes.  This seems immodest to many modest folks, I'm sure.  You have to be quite sure of yourself and your changes--a Nancy Sculerati or a Gareth Leng--if you are spend large amounts of time contradicting large amounts of people who aren't there to defend their work.

So starting over is not only more fun, it's more modest.  I actually think this might explain why editors have worked on the wiki more than authors.

(6) Would be an incentive to Wikipedians to get involved.

For two reasons, in fact.

First, if CZ is the gold standard, Wikipedians will want to see their articles (articles on which they've worked much, anyway) included in CZ.  Then they'll be motivated to copy it over and, presumably, work toward approval.

Second, a lot of Wikipedians will not be comfortable editing WP articles on CZ because it seems immodest (as explained above) and because it might smack of, well, treason.  The opportunity to start over, well, that's different.  Nothing treasonous about writing a whole new article on the same topic!  Let's get to work!


So much for how not forking would increase Citizendians' motivation.  Now some other advantages, more briefly.

(7) The overall level of quality will be higher.

Since all articles on the wiki would be under the purview of CZ, and CZ is gently guided by expert editors, it follows (with mere probability, of course) that the average level of quality will be higher.  Of course, we'll have a lot more stubs; but even our stubs will be of higher quality, I dare say!

(8 ) This one is important: we're not stuck with Wikipedia's decisions; it's easier to rethink them.

Basically, forking Wikipedia makes it very difficult to change habits that Wikipedia articles encourage.  Maybe we don't want so many infoboxes.  OK, if we start from scratch, we don't create so many infoboxes; great!  Similarly, perhaps we don't want to use categories, or we want to use them in a different way.

In short, if we want our own project, one that we're fully invested in, not forking Wikipedia appears to be the only way we're going to get that.

(9) We can choose a Creative Commons license.

(10) We don't have to think in advance about whole classes of images.  We can upload the images one-by-one, or upload them all and create a front-end that allows us to pick and choose which of them we want to put in articles.

(11) The project would require less bandwidth and thus we might be able to launch much sooner--possibly with just one more hard drive.

I'm probably leaving some things out...

--Larry

[Larry Sanger]

...its very apparent that we need a CZ commons. Do we yet have a server that can handle it? 

We have three new hard disks, so yes, we have the disk space for it anyway.

[Nancy Sculerati]

Well, I agree with everything you have said, except- of course, that either Gareth or I are not actually totally humble folk. We truly are!

[Larry Sanger]

Well, I agree with everything you have said, except- of course, that either Gareth or I are not actually totally humble folk. We truly are!

Self-confidence is not incompatible with humility, of course. 

[Nicholas Kaye-Smith]

1)  On the issue of CC, I feel good about donating my time to public learning but not about donating my time to someone else's wallet.  I like the idea of the non-commercial CC license and I gather that a rewrite would help make this easier to implement.

Does everyone agree with this point?
Surely Wikipedia must have had a reason for choosing the GFDL? Perhaps allowing commercial companies to develop their work? Is there is a condition that allows this while making sure that companies only profit from what they write. Something like notifying buyers that a free version is available from Citizendium, for example.

[Deleted User]

no, bad idea.  authors and editors should be able to tell when paragraphs need to be removed completely and start fresh.  However, to erase every article is crazy.  Pick 100 articles that need to be erased and start fresh and do those, not all of them.

[Larry Sanger]

1)  On the issue of CC, I feel good about donating my time to public learning but not about donating my time to someone else's wallet.  I like the idea of the non-commercial CC license and I gather that a rewrite would help make this easier to implement.

Does everyone agree with this point?
Surely Wikipedia must have had a reason for choosing the GFDL? Perhaps allowing commercial companies to develop their work? Is there is a condition that allows this while making sure that companies only profit from what they write. Something like notifying buyers that a free version is available from Citizendium, for example.

Well, that's a tangential point.  Personally, I think keeping the content open to commercial use increases the power and reach of the content, and the extent to which the whole world can benefit.  As long as there isn't any specific business that profits from it, well, I'm not sure I see the problem.  This, anyway, was our reasoning with regard to commercial use and the GFDL on Wikipedia.

[Larry Sanger]

no, bad idea.  authors and editors should be able to tell when paragraphs need to be removed completely and start fresh.  However, to erase every article is crazy.  Pick 100 articles that need to be erased and start fresh and do those, not all of them.

But what if we give people an easy way to upload the Wikipedia article if they want to?  The question is, what should the default be: we work on the WP article, or we start from scratch?  Both are permitted, but what's the default?

[Deleted User]

i think this is a biased poll. 

this poll is of writers.  the majority of people that use wikipedia do not write, they read.  If you want to attract them, I'd say have the default be copy the wikipedia articles.  If you only want to attract writers and people who can dedicate a lot of time to this, then blank them and I'll go back to wikipedia for everything and then come back to CZ in 3 years.  Right now, I like the ideas behind CZ and am willing to work with red tape, however, wikipedia rocks for so many things and I don't think you should start fresh.

gut feeling - bad idea.  do as you want.
gut feeling - if you do this CZ will not be as popular at the launch, but i'm sure you could spin it the right way with a good PR team.
gut feeling - bad idea (did I say that yet?)

cz is trying to rewrite the entire encyclopeida.  this is very unlike a small group trying to write one branch of one field.  the project is too big for such a radical change.  Don't you want to attract people to CZ who just want to type into the search box and see articles?  I think a disclaimer is better than a blank page.

I'd rather see that workgroups mark 100 articles they want to start from scratch.  have discussions on how they envision the structure of the article changing, then wiping it and starting over. 

I'm going by my gut - that's all, back to learning spanish.

[Larry Sanger]

i think this is a biased poll. 

It's not a poll at all.  I am going to decide this one myself.  But am reading everything everyone is writing very carefully and I will try my best to make the wisest possible decision.

[Versuri]

1)  On the issue of CC, I feel good about donating my time to public learning but not about donating my time to someone else's wallet.  I like the idea of the non-commercial CC license and I gather that a rewrite would help make this easier to implement.

Does everyone agree with this point?
Surely Wikipedia must have had a reason for choosing the GFDL? Perhaps allowing commercial companies to develop their work? Is there is a condition that allows this while making sure that companies only profit from what they write. Something like notifying buyers that a free version is available from Citizendium, for example.

Yes, I do agree as I said before:

Why should be allowed commercial use? That idea is good for software, but why for an encyclopedia? Only a few people in the world would be able to buy a wonderful printed encyclopedia. Why not the same rights for everyone? And why some people have to work for free and others earn money with this?

As long as there isn't any specific business that profits from it, well, I'm not sure I see the problem.  This, anyway, was our reasoning with regard to commercial use and the GFDL on Wikipedia.

It does not mean that any business will not gain with CZ.

[Joe Quick]

Well, that's a tangential point.  Personally, I think keeping the content open to commercial use increases the power and reach of the content, and the extent to which the whole world can benefit.  As long as there isn't any specific business that profits from it, well, I'm not sure I see the problem.  This, anyway, was our reasoning with regard to commercial use and the GFDL on Wikipedia.

Could you elaborate?  Just what types of commercial use are allowed under GFDL?  What would be possible if we create new content under a new license?

I would agree that "as long as there isn't any specific business that profits from it," there is no problem, but I got the impression that specific businesses are allowed to profit under GFDL but are not allowed to profit under CC nc.  If I've missed the point of that debate, then this isn't really pertinent to the current discussion.

I don't want to limit the potential of the project, but if starting from scratch means that others aren't allowed to simply "copy and earn" then I think it's important to think about.

[Joe Quick]

If there is a way to do a pilot, let's do it. Even writing this message in the "box" here leaves me unsure of how it will really be once I post it, I think we'd all benefit from the experiment of actually seeing the pilot wiki if everything but CZ live articles were suppressed. Is it technically feasible to do that for a four-hour trial or something?

I think this is a good idea.  I would suggest more than four hours, though - maybe a couple of weeks.

[David Tribe]

My first (gut) reaction was that this restart from blankness was a bad idea.

Then, having been triggered by Larrys question, I realised how worthwhile the proposal might be and think that floating the idea was a first rate way of keeping everyone informed of options on the table. I gave serious consideration to the advantages and they are many.( Bandwidth, quickness to going open, elimination of dross, focus...)

(Im assuming we keep all CZ live stuff).

I then thought of the question asked. Would I write more.? Possibly, but I have already written a lot.  I dont think it would depress my input though.

As far as content and structure many articles will benefit from a completely new slate. My experience with editing existing WP structures is that one can be trapped in a rut for various reasons already mentioned. A blank slate will avoid this.

We will also differentiate (brand ourselves) as distinctly not WP. And as far as using existing useful WP material, thats still easy. Its still fully accessible.


In short, I can run with this option.