Electowiki:FAQ: Difference between revisions

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Why not just use Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is a free content encyclopedia with an extensive section on voting systems. The election-methods mailing list community has "adopted" the Wikipedia section to some degree; most people who edit Wikipedia voting pages are aware of the mailing list and vice-versa. Wikipedia is a great encyclopedia project. However:

Wikipedia is not a research community. Wikipedia only wants well-established ideas and facts. New systems, new methods for evaluating systems, new insight, and new jargon are invented frequently on the mailing list. These ideas need a place to grow up to before they are notable enough to be included in Wikipedia. Electowiki can be this research community; Wikipedia cannot.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia Electowiki strives to be accurate and informative. But many of us research not just for knowledge, but also for change. Electowiki can be the place where we collaborate on arguments for change, craft draft letters to use when we write to groups where we are involved, et cetera.

Because Electowiki and Wikipedia's content are both governned by the GFDL, they can be perfect complements to one another, incorporating content from the other whenever useful.

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 == Why not just use Wikipedia? ==
-As background, [[wikipedia:Wikipedia|Wikipedia]] is a free content encyclopedia with an extensive section on [[wikipedia:voting systems|voting systems]].  The community surrounding the election-methods mailing list has "adopted" this section to some degree and most people on the Wikipedia voting pages are aware of the mailing list and vice-versa.  However, there are many reasons why this isn't good enough, and why Electowiki can be a good complement to Wikipedia:
+[[wikipedia:Wikipedia|Wikipedia]] is a free content encyclopedia with an extensive section on [[wikipedia:voting systems|voting systems]].  The election-methods mailing list community has "adopted" the Wikipedia section to some degree; most people who edit Wikipedia voting pages are aware of the mailing list and vice-versa.  Wikipedia is a great encyclopedia project.  However:
-#'''Wikipedia is not a research community.'''  Wikipedia only wants things that are well-established and agreed to fact.  The election-methods mailing list ''is'', among other things, a research community.  There are new systems, new methods for evaluating systems, new insight about systems, and new jargon being invented frequently on the mailing list.  Eventually, if these survive the test of time, they will belong in Wikipedia.  Meanwhile, Electowiki can help people interested in election-methods think about them.  Electowiki is the research community that Wikipedia may, eventually, rely on.
+#'''Wikipedia is not a research community.'''  Wikipedia only wants well-established ideas and facts.  New systems, new methods for evaluating systems, new insight, and new jargon are invented frequently on the mailing list.  These ideas need a place to grow up to before they are notable enough to be included in Wikipedia.  Electowiki can be this research community; Wikipedia cannot.
-#'''Wikipedia is an encyclopedia'''  Electowiki also strives to be accurate and informative.  But here, we can also lobby.  For example, on the election-methods mailing list, many people have been collectively working on a letter to [[IRV]] advocates informing them about [[Condorcet method]]s.  A wiki is the perfect medium for working on such a letter.
+#'''Wikipedia is an encyclopedia'''  Electowiki strives to be accurate and informative.  But many of us research not just for knowledge, but also for change.  Electowiki can be the place where we collaborate on arguments for change, craft draft letters to use when we write to groups where we are involved, et cetera.
+Because Electowiki and Wikipedia's content are both governned by the GFDL, they can be perfect complements to one another, incorporating content from the other whenever useful.
-Anyway, because our content is GFDL, we can reincorporate it into Wikipedia as necessary.