Talk:AboutUs: Difference between revisions

== [[great feature]]? ==

 

== 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 [http://www.aboutus.org/Special/stats/site stats], as of 11:14, 29 June 2011 (PDT), <cite>"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."</cite> - 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.

: 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 [http://blog.aboutus.org/2011/06/13/are-my-updates-safe-on-aboutus/ the weblog]. Best, [[MarkDilley]]

:: Yes it's a wiki, definitely. Not only [[MarkDilley|Mark]] is active there (the one who kept [[Welcome|this wiki]] alive for years), but also [[Ward Cunningham|Ward]], the father of the wiki idea. :) Sure, the most pages there are created and forgotten after that. But: ''to be a wiki'' means <u>not</u> to force anyone to edit.Best regards, [[Wolf Peuker|Wolf]] | <small>[[User talk:Peu|talk]]</small> 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 <u>on</u> 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 [http://AboutUs.org/TheWikiWay 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, [[User:Hoof Hearted|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]]''