Talk:Whykipedia
Add topicI like the idea. I'm curious exactly what you want the set-up to be like. I was toying with the idea of suggesting a similar proposal and stumbled onto this. I think it would be neat to have a collaborative version of Google Answers, but I am worried that like many other Wikimedia/Wikicities projects (notably Wikinews)the Media Wiki software will be slightly less conducive to what users would like. (the problem tends not to be collaboration, but generally in finding desired articles. In Wikinews for instance, it is difficult to know the exact name for a news story and many news stories will have similar names. Worse, Wikinews is not conducive to net surfing--one goes to the Times and browses through sections, headlines etc.) For a Whykipedia, the problem might be more difficult as users would not know what to type in the standard search bar. Another problem might lie in naming; we cannot make as many pages as there are questions. And by definition information in this project should be very redundant. I'm not sure how this could be addressed, though I suppose that a great deal of merging, deletion and answer editing could make it work. All in all though, I think it would be fantastic to have some kind of analogue to Google Answers; which would have the benefit of a large existing pool of users (expert and novice) and could help stimulate further expansion of the Encyclopedia, WikiBooks etc.
--Ampersand 04:30, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
PS here I've mostly written about my own ideas and (perhaps completely wrong) understanding of your proposal. Please email me or add to this discussion page or both.