Talk:AboutUs

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

Great feature?

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 The Wiki Way? 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 The Wiki Way - 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