User talk:Lostart
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Welcome to my talk page.--Lostart (talk) 17:40, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Contents |
[edit] Predictions
[edit] Citizendium
I just discovered Citizendium and took a look at it. Of course it in it's early stage, and can't be properly judged in it's merits yet. It's an appealing concept, but I believe it's doomed to failure. It's aim is to write an encyclopedia with all high quality articles. Right now they have 47 approved articles. Wikipedia's equivalent are featured articles, which are at 1800. But Wikipedia puts out a net gain of about 500 featured articles per year. Even though Citizendium might be able to speed up their pace, no way are they going to match Wikipedia's pace in high quality articles.
The other matter of importance is minor academic and reference articles. The major articles (in Wikipedia) of all types are generally well written (even if they aren't featured articles), and are heavily monitored for abuse. There is no way Citizendium is going to create what Wikipedia has on the breath of minor articles. (Unless they just mass copy the entries, but then they just become outdated.) The problems with Wikipedia are well known, vandalism, biased writing, etc. But much of this activity is a problem with less prominent controversial and cultural articles (ie. famous/semi-famous people). In minor science, academic and reference articles, the main problem I find is poor writing skills. This maybe an annoyance, but the breath of useful--and up to date--information in Wikipedia is simply staggering. Citizendium, or any other encyclopedia cannot hope to compete.
My prediction is Citizendium will fail. In fact, I believe all existing, general purpose encyclopedias will eventually fail.--Lostart (talk) 18:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] WikiNews
The question here is not whether WikiNews will fail; it can't really fail just as long it has a guaranteed spot on the Wikipedia's home page. The question is it can be a high quality new sources. It's looking like it can't. Every now and again I take another look and see if it's worth adding to my regularly visited news spots. Every time, I'm disappointed. What I find is either generic stories of the current top news items, which I can get just about anywhere, or very weird obscure stories that some individual decided is front page news (with very biased writing).
What a good, or great media source needs are:
- 1. Experienced reporters, who know how to write, and know how to find interesting stories, and can afford the time (ie gets paid) to do proper in-depth investigating.
- 2. A talented editor with a good eye for what's important, and what will be interesting, in picking out, or assigning, articles.
Unfortunately, the collaborative nature of wikis do not provide either of these.--Lostart (talk) 19:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Wikia Search
Very recently released project I find quite promising and exciting. I give it a 50-50 chance to become a top search engine (ie top 3). Actually these are rather good odds, considering the dominance of Google, and the logistics involved in the project.--Lostart (talk) 19:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
