Knowino talk:About

Contents 1 Ruling by committee 2 Differences 3 Maintainability 4 Historic screenshot 5 What makes Knowino different? 6 POV 7 Just encyclopedia?

[edit] Ruling by committee

Ruling by committee just seems to be difficult for an online community, specially a new one. Too many decisions need to be made in "real time" and you need someone empowered to make those decisions. At most I think the a committee should be used to 1) pick who is "in charge" and 2) to handle content and users disputes that shouldn't be ruled on by fiat. Tmtoulouse 07:34, 24 November 2010

Hello, and thanks for your feedback.

At this stage I only plan to have one "committee", the Community Council (CC). Obviously the community is too small for CC elections to be held at this stage, so the CC won't exist until there is actually a need for it. I anticipate administrators making most day-to-day decisions about, well, administrative matters; the CC would merely be responsible for resolving intractable disputes, appointing administrators, and making legal and financial decisions. (Obviously, that's looking a long time ahead into a possible future.)

So, at this stage, while there's no CC, I'm reserving the right to make decisions about the way the project moves forward—I hope that doesn't sound too dictatorial. Then, if and when the community gets large enough, we can have elect a CC which will then take over completely from me.—Thomas Larsen 09:37, 24 November 2010

[edit] Differences

I'm brainstorming ideas:

• different writing style
• different culture
• better mechanisms for dealing with vandalism to high-traffic articles
• a community project
• minimal set of rules
• anyone can edit
• experts invited to review articles
• effective dispute resolution system
• better structure
• balanced article content
• better organisation of information
• other ideas:
  • allow (how-to?) guides (in a dedicated namespace) alongside some articles?
    • could include things like:
      • travel guides
      • recipes
      • usage examples for mathematical formulas
      • instructions for non-dangerous chemistry experiments
      • program source code examples
    • would be appealing to educators
    • sections in guides could be signed?
  • allow event timelines (in a dedicated namespace?) that are updated as events take place

Feel free to add more.—Thomas Larsen (talk) 21:30, 13 December 2010 (CST)

[edit] Maintainability

One of the first things the first post-Charter Editorial Council did was to revise the Maintainability policy. We don't talk about Maintainability any more, so your comparison would be more accurate if it summarised the revised policy instead:

Citizendium's Article Inclusion Policy is the policy that allows an article to be deleted by editorial decision in cases where all three of the following criteria are met: a) it has significant weaknesses; b) that deleting its content would remove nothing of importance from the project; and c) that the article is unlikely to be improved as there is no active interest from any member of Citizendium in developing it.

Johan Förberg 12:42, 15 December 2010 (CST)

Thanks for the pointer, Johan! I've updated the comparison, although I think Citizendium's article inclusion policy could be summarised in a better way than I managed. The comparison table will probably be restructured, and maybe even removed and replaced, anyway.—Thomas Larsen (talk) 16:11, 15 December 2010 (CST)

[edit] Historic screenshot

It should be a small thumbnail, of course. But for now thumbnails cannot be generated yet. --Boris Tsirelson 06:59, 17 December 2010 (EST)

It's okay, I'll sort it out tomorrow.—Thomas Larsen (talk) 07:02, 17 December 2010 (EST)

[edit] What makes Knowino different?

The section "What makes Knowino different?" could be construed as confusing. Different from what? The first line:

• Anyone can contribute. Creating an account is recommended, but not mandatory.

Is the same as WP. The next line:

• We invite expert contributors to become reviewers.

Sounds a bit like CZ. Remember not everybody (or perhaps anybody) will understand how CZ works. Then we have:

• We try to supplement articles with:
  • a bibliography that lists relevant, useful resources
  • a collection of helpful external links
  • a "guide" that contains additional practical information in the form of examples and tutorials.

Some of which is like WP. And so on. I'm afraid that I don't see your "unique selling point" or what's really different. What I see instead is a number of areas where it's like something else. Perhaps it's elsewhere on the wiki, but I'm afraid that I don't see it here. I'm honestly trying to be constructive here and I hope it's taken as such.--Bob M 09:28, 22 December 2010 (EST)

Bob, you may know that Citizendium aims to correct some of the flaws of Wikipedia. We agree with Citizendium that Wikipedia has flaws and we aim to correct them too, more or less in the same way. (By having verified experts check the articles). On the other hand, we feel that Citizendium is too strict by accepting only contributors who are willing to use their own names. So, we are not reinventing any new wheels, but are trying to improve the existing wheels.--Paul Wormer 09:52, 22 December 2010 (EST)

OK. But you are still not staring explicitly how this project differs from those two. Anyway let's take another "How we are different" line:

• We intend to establish an efficient and effective dispute-resolution system.

Having an intention to do something makes you different from something else? How so?

Apart from that, you state that: Wikipedia has flaws. This may we be taken for granted by the CZ community - after all they are not at WP for some reason - but these "flaws" will need to be explicitly described for those new to the debate. I can understand that you may not want to be negative but for those not presently involved you will need to say "This is what is wrong with these two projects and this is how we are going to fix it in ours." I feel that your present "What makes Knowino different?" does not do that.--Bob M 10:01, 22 December 2010 (EST)

┌──────┘

I expanded the page, explaining some of the problems with Wikipedia and Citizendium and providing some background information into the creation of Tendrl/Knowino. Of course, that doesn't tell readers what we're going to do to stop (or at least minimise) those problems, but it's a start. Anyone is welcome to aggressively rewrite the page. :-) —Thomas Larsen (talk) 04:18, 26 December 2010 (EST)

[edit] POV

Further to the above I think you've got to work on - or clarify - a Point Of View.
Wikipedia goes for NPOV - (Neutral POV) everything must have been said before by an approved source.
Rationalwiki goes for SPOV (Scientific POV or snarky) - Everything must be in accordance with the scientific method.
ASK goes for the BPOV (Biblical POV) - Eveything must be in accordance with a literal interpretation of The Bible.
Conservapedia goes for the Christian Right POV. and so on.

How does an expert Wiki deal with this? If you are going to have experts reviewing these articles then does the point of view of that expert trump all other ideas or opinions? I'm guessing that it does other wise why have experts, and I'm also guessing that this has been covered before at CZ - but for people like me who are not familiar with that project it would be best to put it up front.--Bob M 08:43, 23 December 2010 (EST)

[edit] Just encyclopedia?

"dedicated to creating a free general encyclopedia" — I'd say, much wider; practical guides for instance are hardly encyclopedic (definitely not in wikipedia). Everything acceptable on wikipedia, wikiversity, wikibook, wiktionary etc could be acceptable here. I'd say, just everything useful and intended for expert assessment. --Boris Tsirelson 01:57, 26 December 2010 (EST)

Good point. I'll change the page to reflect that.—Thomas Larsen (talk) 02:01, 26 December 2010 (EST)

Looking at WP:Reference work I feel that compendium is less restrictive; wikiversity content fits to the latter, probably not to the former. CZ has found a good word "compendium", probably the best one. "The 21st century has seen the rise of democratized, online compendia in various fields." - from the WP:Compendium article. --Boris Tsirelson 03:37, 26 December 2010 (EST)

"Compendium" is probably better; I'll try it.—Thomas Larsen (talk) 04:00, 26 December 2010 (EST)