Re: Apple II Wikipedia articles

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

"PZ" <skierpaul@yahoo.com> wrote:

>2 years ago, a site like gabriels might make more sense, but with the
>new tools (Portals, wikiprojects and the Wikibooks site) I don't
>believe that starting a site like the Guide is a good idea.  If we roll
>on an Apple II guide wikibook right now, we can get right into the
>details of how to get stuff done on the Apple II, rather than trying to
>redescribe what already exists in a great encyclopedia.

    My concern is the long term future of the Apple II Guide--will it still
exist several years or even months from now? All the information on
the site was lost a few weeks ago and almost not recovered.

>Obviously, we both feel very strongly about the Apple II, I've
>evaluated the options and I'm going to have to continue doing my edits
>in the same encyclopedia which Mich Spector and Jerry Kindal and many
>others have already heavily contributed to.

Incidentally, I wrote these new articles recently...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIc_Plus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_IIGS_games
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIgs#Trivia

>Likewise, I feel its important to keep adding Apple II content to
>wikipedia, because its far more likely that someone will "stumble" upon
>Apple II content there than anywhere else.  I consider myself to be
>somewhat of an evangilist, and I strongly feel that at this point we
>can get our userbase to grow.  Apple II Wikipedia simply gets more
>"eyeballs."

    That's one of the reasons I felt it beneficial to write articles for each
Apple II model. If you search for "Apple IIe", "Apple IIc" or "IIc Plus"
in Google, my Wikipedia articles show up as the fifth or sixth listing.
I'm sure countless people probably use Google to find information on 
a particular Apple II model they pick up at a thrift shop, garage sale
or eBay, I figured my articles should get them going information wise.

    Ultimately searching comp.sys.apple2's archives through Google
Groups (formerly Dejanews) is the best Apple II information resource
on the planet in my opinion, assuming you know of it, use the right
keywords and have patience to dig through many articles. 

    Writing articles for Wikipedia has been fun although I wouldn't 
consider it the overall best solution as a resource. I dislike that other
people can modify your writings in negative ways (I've had my articles
vandalized, or in the case of the introduction write up for the Apple II
series, completely removed and erased). I'm also finding they're overly
picky with photograph copyrights on Wikipedia, even when you've 
obtained written permission.

    I still have an Apple IIGS FAQ I started almost a decade ago, one
of these days I'll probably finish it up. At least it's in my control and 
there's no worry of having it modified in a negative way.

>- [[PZ]] on wikipedia
>- Paul (here)

Mitchell Spector
("apple2gs" on Wikipedia)