Talk:Christian wikis/discussion
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This page is a discussion forum for people to leave short comments and opinions about the topic. Please add your viewpoint without changing the comments of others.
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There are too many Christian wikis for the current number of users unfortunately. With time I can foresee one of two things happening. Either, some or most of the current Christian wikis close down; or more people start using them and keep them alive. There are only two "safe" ones as I see it - Theopedia and OrthodoxWiki. The are a few border-line-ones that may succeed or may disappear - WikiChristian and Christian Knowledge Base and Wikible. The rest I think are going to one by one, fade away unless more people take an interest in Christian wikis soon. --Muser 17:54, 11 November 2006 (EST)
- I'd disagree that those are the only "borderline" ones. I'd personally rank CreationWiki as the most active Christian Wiki (as far as I've seen), followed by Theopedia, Christian Knowledge Base, Wikible, WikiChristian, etc. BibleWiki (bible.tmtm.com) is getting less and less active as time goes on. As an admin at each of these, and WikiChristian as well, I've been trying to get them to unify a little more. I don't mean one wiki, but mainly to stop duplicating content. For example, CreationWiki does a superb job on their creation-related articles, and there is absolutely no reason why WikiChristian or any other wiki needs to duplicate that. We just need to make redirects and interwiki links to those wikis.
- Different genres of ChristianWikis
- It seems there's a split between Bible Encyclopedias and Christianity Encyclopedias. Wikible and BibleWiki are probably the most extensive Bible Enc's, while Wikible the most technologically advanced. Then there's the "everything else relating to Christianity wikis... Theopedia, WikiChristian, Christianity Wikia (C Knowledge Base), etc. There's even a new one called Jesus-wiki (jesus-wiki.org).
- Biggest problem I see with Christian wikis
- We already know duplication of content is a problem, and there probably is too many of the same type of Christian wiki which could make it confusing to new users. However, I think an even larger problem is disorganization. My personal feeling is that WikiChristian is far beyond hope, atleast with the current amount of people editing on it. Many wikis run into these issues of importing a lot of content and either don't know how to use the advanced features of the wiki to organize it, they're too lazy, or they don't have the ability be cause the wiki software is outdated.
- --Tom 21:12, 14 November 2006 (EST)
CreationWiki is indeed probably the most active of the wikis as Tom points out. I have trouble thinking of it specifically as a Christian wiki. It takes a specific "creation-science" point of view, and from this expands into the realms of biology and Christianity. The majority of its articles are actually about animals, for example its article on dolphins.
Unfortuately, I agree that WikiChristian is a "borderline" wiki at the moment, but it still has a few users that are writing new material. I think the Bible encyclopedias are in an even more static state. BibleWiki is rarely having any new material added, and although Wikible may be technologically the most advanced, it has very little actual Bible-related content being added either. Jesus-Wiki, at least in English, is basically empty. Nope, I agree that very few Christian wikis are succeeding, which is sad but, that's life. I'm sure eventually one or two will take off. At least Theopedia and OrthodoxWiki are growing.
For WikiChristian to grow, we just need to keep plugging away and writing new articles about Christian related topics. --Graham grove 04:59, 15 November 2006 (EST)
- When I say Christian wiki, I mean anything that is a Christian wiki. Contrasting that to Christianity Encyclopedia wiki, which would be WikiChristian, Theopedia, etc. ;-). As far as the progress of different wikis, there's a few ways to view it.
- Number of users...
- I don't necessarily view the number of users as a very clear sign of progress on a wiki. I think there's atleast 5 registrations at Theopedia every day (atleast it seems that way), but not many of them ever edit anything. Most likely a lot of them are spam accounts. So amount of users is sort of a relative thing.
- Amount of 'legitimate' articles...
- This can also be a relative thing. BibleWiki and WikiChristian both use a system which, by it's very nature, inflates the statistics. It may not have been intended that way, but that's what it does in a technical sense. What's happening is there is a page for every verse of the Bible, which isn't bad, but not necessarily done in the most efficient way. I would personally put those pages, unless they also have commentary on them, in another namespace and therefore not inflate the statistics. So statistics can also be relative.
- Professionalism...
- Now I know this comes with time, but even so it is needed. No body wants to read a so-called 'encyclopedia' that looks like it was formatted and designed by children. One of the reasons, I think, Theopedia has done so well is because it does have a professional feel to it. It's not necessarily the most technologically advanced or active, but I think it has a respect because of the way it looks and the standards they have developed. Other wikis, including Wikible are still behind in that area.
- Planning before implementing...
- This is huge. It's great to have a wiki full of content, but if for example, you don't plan ahead of time what kinds of categories, semantic relations, and a general system for implementation, everything goes crazy. Then it is such a hard/huge task later that nobody wants to do it and they claim that it is 'good enough the way it is.' It's like neglecting homework. That is one of the main reasons that Wikible is a little slower on content, because we're trying to get the proper technology and organization sorted out, so newcomers can easily add content efficiently.
- --Tom 11:04, 15 November 2006 (EST)
- Being aware of other wikis...
- I think it's also important to learn from other wikis. I think if we are to be effective in organizing the wiki, we can't just rely on our own organizational skills to get us through. Many of the things on Wikible are adaptations/improvements of ideas from other wikis. Isolating oneself does not really help.
- --Tom 11:10, 15 November 2006 (EST)
- Integrating information from other wikis
- I am helping to integrate the categories, topics and people we have brought over from ChristianMedia.ca in WikiChristian.
--DavidSpencer.ca 01:48, 1 January 2009 (PST)
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