User talk:Barkeep49/Death of Wikipedia

Forks and competitive schisms

I'd like to add that for wikis, forks are rarely migrations but schisms. There is some ideological rift in the community that forces some contingent to form a new community aligned with its goals. This can be salutatory like when C2 forked its meta content to meatball, or it can be competitive like when Nupedia forked an ideologically incompatible version of Wikipedia. Competitive forks work well when the fork is of some critical mass, often a total migration or at least migration of the core maintainers. This happens in FOSS more often than wikis and can be seen in the OpenOffice->LibreOffice, Audacity->Tenacity, and Freenode->LiberaChat forks. These work because the number of maintainers is relatively small and maintenance of these projects relies on technocracy; should the technocrats leave, the old project simply ceases to function. With wikis though, maintenance is broadly distributed and the population of maintainers is relatively large (theoretically, every reader). Competitive wiki forks are less common, especially compared to salutatory wiki forks. Historically speaking, competitive wiki forks rarely succeed, and because of Wikipedia's licensing, any maintenance on the fork could just be reincorporated into Wikipedia. — Wug·a·po·des​ 18:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

@Barkeep49 and Wugapodes: Just going to drop a book recommendation: Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness by Nathaniel Tkacz. The idea of the book is using Wikipedia as a case study to critique the concept (or the inherently utopian virtue) of openness as an organizing principle, and to develop a "politics of openness." In doing so he spends a good amount of time on forking. While it does provide perhaps the strongest evidence for his central argument, personally I found it the least interesting (it wasn't relevant to why I was reading it at the time and I guess I just take for granted that yeah, of course it's not realistic to fork the English Wikipedia). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:47, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: My library has it in storage so I'll give it a read whenever they manage to excavate it. It sounds like a very interesting book from your description and a couple reviews I skimmed. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:21, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Suggest move to Wikimedia essay space

The New York Times featured this essay. Barkeep49 would you consider moving it to Wikipedia essay space? If you personally do not want to do this, would you object to my moving it?

I think it should be in mainspace because it is now a complement to a major journalistic presentation. Bluerasberry (talk) 16:58, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Obviously our license would allow this essay to be copied to Wikipedia space but I am very intentional about when I create an essay in Wikipedia namespace (e.g. WP:MUSHROOM) and when I create an essay in userspace. I intentionally created this in my userspace and wish for it to remain here. This is an essay that advances my individual thinking about the topic of what will cause Wikipedia to lose its cultural prominence. It is not meant to, nor do I want it to, to reflect consensus thinking about the topic. In fact under the logic of "the New York Times has written about it" having others change what it says would make the historical record of it misleading since the Times mentioned my thinking about it specifically. Perhaps some kind of redirect from Wikipedia space to my userspace would accomplish your goals? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:28, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: My objective is to invite others to develop your ideas through the medium of a Wikipedia essay while also preserving the good foundation you established. How would you feel about me running this through ChatGPT to depersonalize the text, then posting the derivative in Wikipedia essay space so that others can develop the conversation?

These ideas are great but every year forever technology and ethics will change, and I want to invite others into the convo. Can you help me navigate matching your ideas with opportunities for others to edit? I could link to this essay at the bottom of a new community one.

For context - I am exploring options to scale up wiki community conversation about AI ethics. I also set up predictions of the end of Wikipedia, which is related. You may be aware of community conversations about existential threats to Wikipedia, which I think are hot right now. Thanks for writing this and good job speaking with the journalist, whom you impressed. Bluerasberry (talk) 14:45, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I guess what I'm missing @Bluerasberry is why you need my essay to have a collaborative essay on the end of Wikipedia? WP:Death of Wikipedia is out there as is WP:Wikipedia predictions and any number of other titles. By all means use and reference my ideas as you see fit, I would just like my 2021 analysis of this topic to remain here, unchanged by others. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:36, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: When I asked about migrating text it was a courtesy for credit. I might have copied your essay somewhere, credited you, then left the text for development by others. It seems that is not what you prefer.

As a working plan, I think I will re-write and adapt your ideas to put them into Wikipedia:Threats to Wikipedia, which I think is the first serious essay exploring these ideas. Earlier was Wikipedia:Imminent death of Wikipedia predicted, but that is a humorous essay, and not the best place I think. If you have any request for credit then suggest something. You say your text "It is not meant to, nor do I want it to, to reflect consensus thinking about the topic". When ideas go into Wikipedia essay space then they get developed toward consensus. As I understand, you do not want this essay's text directly adapted and credit to you toward this kind of group development.

I have everything I need; thanks. Advise me if you have anything to say about my plan. Bluerasberry (talk) 15:56, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry, we should avoid forking essays whenever possible. Given that, and Barkeep49's (totally reasonable/valid) choice to keep this a user essay, I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to copy it to WP-space. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:23, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

@Sdkb: I intend use my own words to integrate the ideas from this essay into Wikipedia:Threats to Wikipedia. Anyone who finds similar ideas anywhere could also put them into that essay. That is the best way, right? Bluerasberry (talk) 18:26, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

NYT article

Congratulations on being name-checked in the New York Times Magazine!

• Jon Gertner (July 18, 2023). "Wikipedia's Moment of Truth". New York Times. Retrieved July 23, 2023.

Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:19, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Another possible way for Wikipedia to die

One possible end is the model presented by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy : a free encyclopedia created & maintained by experts. Or a series of these encyclopedias each devoted to a specific topic or discipline. After all, getting a byline on an article for an online encyclopedia will contribute to an academic's publication record, whereas writing one for Wikipedia -- due to its anonymous or corporate nature -- does not. (And the academic does not need to pay for publication.) While this possible cause of death is not very likely -- I'd judge its odds to be lower than another possible death, that Wikipedia exhausts its pool of possible contributors -- it is still a possibility. It all depends on how willing academics are to setup not only a website, but creating the structure for accepting & managing such a project. -- llywrch (talk) 22:44, 11 December 2023 (UTC)