Talk:AboutUs

Ray, something's up with your statistics. TedErnst | talk 16:47, 18 October 2006 (EDT)

GreatFeature?

This wiki has some extraordinary stuff, like user rating, Google maps support, and linking titles. – Smiddle / T·C·@ 03:05, 7 December 2006 (EST)

Stick my neck out . . .

OK, time to pin my colours to the mast - in my opinion, AboutUs is definately NOT a wiki. According to their stats, as of 11:14, 29 June 2011 (PDT), "There are 20,445,421 total pages in the database, 983,674 of which have been edited. This includes "talk" pages, pages about AboutUs, minimal "stub" pages and redirects." - these figures prove it is NOT a wiki. From over 20 million 'pages' on their site, less than 1 million pages (which include "talk" pages, pages about AboutUs, minimal "stub" pages and redirects) are 'editable'. The whole point of a wiki is that person A creates a 'page' from scratch, person B adds a bit more, person C changes it some more . . . etc.

Futhermore, it is clear from their home page, the title bar of the browser states "AboutUs: Easy-To-Understand Tools & Resources For SEO and Web Marketing".; and their licence states "Editable content is available under the terms of the GFDL and the CC By-SA License. All non-editable content and all content in the Learn section are copyrighted by AboutUs Inc."

Therefore, because 'AboutUs' does NOT evoke the entire spirit of a wiki (including wholly attribitable edit summaries), I'm gonna add the {{Not a wiki}} tag, and change the page stats to ZERO! Hoof Hearted 11:14, 29 June 2011 (PDT)

It most certainly is a wiki :-). We only use a MediaWiki skeleton anymore. The stats don't reflect any reality. Nearly all of the pages on AboutUs.org are editable. Have you seen http://AboutUs.org/TheWikiWay ? and the weblog. Best, MarkDilley

Yes it's a wiki, definitely. Not only Mark is active there (the one who kept this wiki alive for years), but also Ward, the father of the wiki idea. :) Sure, the most pages there are created and forgotten after that. But: to be a wiki means not to force anyone to edit.Best regards, Wolf | talk 11:45, 29 June 2011 (PDT)

You both missed my point! I'm certainly NOT doubting that pages can be edited — but IMVHO, the crucial factor is that the content on AboutUs was NOT created BY AboutUs. The fundamental ethos of a wiki is that you can look through the entire edit history of every article — right back to the start of the article to the 'original' page creator, and attribute those said edits to those individual authors. This is NOT the case with AboutUs - just because some pages on AboutUs are editable, that does NOT make the entire AboutUs site be classed as a wiki. Maybe we need to strike a compromise — maybe a new category for sites like this which 'harvest' other sites works? Regarding TheWikiWay - yes, I freely agree that it is editable (and has history with attribution, etc); but what about the 19 million pages which are NOT editable or have no edit history - which have been 'scraped' from other sites - where is the attribition to its editors for those 19 million pages? There is obviously some 'conflict of interest', in that AboutUs is a highly commercial site (and no doubt makes handsome revenues for its owners) — whereas WikiIndex has a different take — but Mark is involved in both sites. I need to chew over the fat again . . . Rgds, Hoof Hearted 13:20, 29 June 2011 (PDT)

Hi - I think I understand your point fully. I struggled for several months before committing to the idea of AboutUs. I think you are possibly conflating some Wikipedia values with general Wiki values. For example, the original wiki, and many of the wiki I started on were heavy into WikiNow - and as such, history was only kept for x versions or x time. MediaWiki, which came out of those wiki, was for a product - an encyclopedia - and needed to keep all that history. Another thought I have along this line, is that Wikipedia started off with several thousand pages from a 1911 encyclopedia. This is not correct: "what about the 19 million pages which are NOT editable" because they are editable. Empty canvas pages are started to help people start somewhere. Thanks for talking about this, I appreciate that. Best, MarkDilley