Post-hoc analysis—Wikipedia relies on a relatively small number of people who have the unusual motives/dispositions necessary to write for it, so it doesn’t have to cater to the masses or even the typical elite. However, that doesn’t explain how enough people got interested in the first place. Maybe it had to do with there being fewer alternative venues back then. Also, I’m not so familiar with the history, but I am guessing it grew out of a fairly vibrant community of wiki users. Arbital, on the other hand, tried to bootstrap in relative isolation. (Sadly the vibrant community of LWers didn’t serve the same function, likely because the use-case for Arbital 1.0 was too different from the use-case for LW.)
I’m sad I didn’t think of it before, but hosting LW content on Arbital might just be amazing. In particular, I’d like some kind of way of keeping track of networks of related claims with community ratings and counter-claims clearly visible.
Sound correct to me. Also, I think it’s much easier to start / contribute to a page on Wikipedia. Arbital’s pages were trying to be educational and readable, which, I think is a higher bar.
Post-hoc analysis—Wikipedia relies on a relatively small number of people who have the unusual motives/dispositions necessary to write for it, so it doesn’t have to cater to the masses or even the typical elite. However, that doesn’t explain how enough people got interested in the first place. Maybe it had to do with there being fewer alternative venues back then. Also, I’m not so familiar with the history, but I am guessing it grew out of a fairly vibrant community of wiki users. Arbital, on the other hand, tried to bootstrap in relative isolation. (Sadly the vibrant community of LWers didn’t serve the same function, likely because the use-case for Arbital 1.0 was too different from the use-case for LW.)
I’m sad I didn’t think of it before, but hosting LW content on Arbital might just be amazing. In particular, I’d like some kind of way of keeping track of networks of related claims with community ratings and counter-claims clearly visible.
Sound correct to me. Also, I think it’s much easier to start / contribute to a page on Wikipedia. Arbital’s pages were trying to be educational and readable, which, I think is a higher bar.