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Re: Apple II Wikipedia articles

Warren Ernst wrote:

Paul,

Basically, the question you're asking is "Why should there ever be a
separate wiki for any topic when Wikipedia can handle being centralized
resource for everything?"

The answer, of course, is level of detail. Just like a real
encyclopedia, really.

Say you're doing a report on moon landings, and you're in the 3rd
grade. The World Book encyclopedia should have everything a 3rd grader
needs to deliver a 3rd-grade-level report on the subject. Now fast
forward a dozen years. You're in college and need to write an essay on
the moon landings. Are you going to revisit the World Book again? Nope.
You're expected to deliver a lot more detail. You're going to find a
specialized, 500 page book and start reading.

The Apple II wiki is basically the same thing as that specialized book
you go to for detailed information. The Wikipedia entries are fine for
a general summary of the Apple II platform. But would you really go
there to learn how to format a disk, learn the differences between DOS
3.3 and ProDOS, how to set the DIP switches on a Super Serial Card or
ZipGSX card, and so on? Nope.

This isn't a unique situation.

For example, there's a good summary of Ubuntu Linux at wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Linux), and then there's the
Ubuntu Wiki (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/) that goes over all the details
one would actually need to run an Ubuntu system. With this in mind, if
*you* (yes, you) learned how to do something new with Ubuntu, where
would you post it? Where would it belong? Why, it would belong at the
Ubuntu wiki, not Wikipedia.

Or to use a retrocomputing example, there's the Amiga wikipedia entry
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga) and the Amiga Wiki
(http://www.amigawiki.com/). Quick, where would you go to learn how to
upgrade Workbench versions? Where *should* you go?

Today, the only reason why anyone would go to the Wikipedia site for
Apple II info is because the dedicated Apple II wiki is so young and, I
hate to say it, empty, and just getting started. All it needs is
writers and editors to fill it out, just like my previous two examples.

For these reasons, I don't like the idea of a lot of effort being put
into Apple II articles at Wikipedia instead of a dedicated Apple II
wiki. And copying stuff out of the Apple II wiki and putting it into
Wikipedia articles almost seems like a slap in the face to those
working on the Apple II wiki.

Heck, I'm surprised I feel that strongly about it, and I'm not even
invested in it. But the idea of a dedicated Apple II wiki is sound.

I would welcome being convinced otherwise.

-Warr
(former Beagle Bros employee)


I think that one of the ways that the web changes things is that there
is no longer a real tradeoff relating depth and breadth of information.

In other words, there is no reason that a single reference could not
contain entries suitable for a cursory understanding linked to in-depth
entries that would take you all the way down to the level of quarks.

There is no logical or technical problem with such a reference.  The
only possible difficulty might be that the proprietors are in some way
threatened by a relative "explosion" in depth in some area, so that the
resources of the reference as a whole are dominated by a small number
of specialties.  They might consider this to be "hijacking" the
reference--or they might not...gigabytes are cheap, and hits are
valuable.

Is there any practical concern about a "mega-wiki" simply incorporating
all the specilized wikis?  And wouldn't a single "mega-reference" be
preferable to a lot of specialized un-crosslinked references?

If not for the difficulty in archiving (!), the whole web is, actually,
a "giga-reference" which is non-uniformly edited and sparsely cross-
linked.

Viewed in this way, why not direct one's efforts toward contributions to
a "mega-reference" (with the advantages of cultural momentum, economic
stability, and organizational support) rather than to specialized references? 

-michael

Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it is seriously underused."