Re: ANN: Bicycle wiki online .

In article <1144017211.433150.97990@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"velowiki@xxxxxxxxx" <velowiki@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Tim McNamara wrote:
In article <1144004698.986927.29520@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"velowiki@xxxxxxxxx" <velowiki@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Indeed, discussion is not necessarily the purpose of a wiki, and
I feel that area is already well covered by newsgroups, mailing
lists and bulletin boards. Discussion of wiki articles is
encouraged on each pages 'talk page', and is not what the wiki
page itself is meant for.

Wiki pages are frequently used to spin and bias information
according to the agenda of the author. And get re-edited and
re-spun by the next author. Etc.


Empirical evidence tells me that "spin and bias" are prominent in
most forms of writing, including college textbooks, advertisements,
wikis and newsgroup postings. The advantage of wikis is that _you are
encouraged_ to question, review and modify the content.

The best we can hope for is to minimize the unfounded "spin and
bias", which is where the concept of peer review can be a strong
point. In my experience, Ideas and concepts that are well presented
will beat arguments of the "____ sucks!" and "because everyone knows
its true" variety every time, particularly among those who care to
think for themselves.

"Peer review" is a misnomer on wiki pages, because *anyone* can revise
the page. "Peer review" in literature is restricted to people who
actually are experts in a field, and not merely people with an opinion.
Wiki pages are not "peer reviewed" in the correct sense of the term.
Unfortunately, most people who will be contributing to your wiki will be
self-appointed experts who may or may not know what they are talking
about.

Wikipedia has had to take steps to reduce the problems of pages being
written with malicious intent, written and rewritten with political,
religious or other biases. You may find yourself having to do some
editorial management on your site as well.

You seem to be under the false impression that only one point of
view is allowed on each article at a given time. If two points of
view are presented in an intelligent manner, there is no reason
why they should not both be represented on a subjects wiki page,
allowing the reader to draw his own conclusions. In fact, I
believe this to be a wiki strong point.

Unfortunately there is nothing about the wiki model that actually
makes this a strong point- no more so than a Usenet newsgroup, just
a little less convenient.

The convenience of wikis vs. newsgroups is really an issue of
personal preference. I find lingering posts with misleading or
blatantly incorrect information inconvenient (most newsgroup archives
have many examples). I find redundant posts that ask the same
question and repeatedly solicit the same responses inconvenient. The
wiki in my mind provides an opportunity to create a resource for
information containing all the valid and meaningful qualities of
newsgroups without much of the irrelevant noise.

Sorry, I didn't phrase that very well. Wiki pages are a less convenient
way to post blather and disinformation than is a Usenet newsgroup, and
as a result people approach Usenet with a degree of wariness. Wiki
pages tend to be seen as authoritative, and tend to be approached less
critically by the readers.

Very much like newsgroups, the quality of velowiki.com will
ultimately be determined by those who care to contribute.

Of course. And therein lies the potential for serious problems in the
quality of the information available.

Additionally I have some difficulty in distinguishing the "why" of doing
this, given that there is already a massive repository of bike
information online.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/index.html#articles
.

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