I have a vague idea to create a wiki for politics-related data. Basically, I’m annoyed with how low-effort, entirely un-researched content dominates modern politics. I think a big part of the problem is that modern political figures use social media platforms that are hostile to context and citing sources.
So my idea for a solution is to create a wiki where original research is not just allowed but encouraged. For example, you could have an article that’s a breakdown of the relative costs to society of private vs public transportation, with calculations and sources and tables and whatnot. It wouldn’t exactly be an argument, but all the data you’d need to make one. And like wikipedia, anyone can edit it, allowing otherwise massive research tasks to be broken up.
The problem is - who creates a wiki nowadays? It feels like getting such a site and community up and running would be hopeless in a landscape dominated by social media. Will this be a pointless waste of time? Is there a more modern way to do this? All thoughts welcome.
Yes.
And you think a wiki will solve that? Lol… yeah this is a bad idea.
No one should trust a wiki for anything other than information on a tv show or a boss, and even then trust but verify. And this is something that you would need to trust.
You’re better off creating a blog, or find already established blogs who do this, because stuff like Five Three Eight exists. ’
There’s a reason peer reviewed research is practically required, and even then there’s HUGE problems with that model, but having people go out for original research is basically saying “Let people make up bullshit.”… not a good idea.
Yeah, I’ve seen what this does to fan wikis. There is a certain type of personality that thrives on having their version of reality be what is reflected in wiki articles, and they will revert any and all attempts to excise their personal theories. If admins step in to break up the edit war, it’s clearly “favoritism” and “admins should only exist in service to the users and have no say in content”. Some of these wiki addicts go out of their way to become the wiki equivalent of Reddit’s supermods in order to ensure that they have the upper hand in these content disputes.
“No original research” is one of the core pillars of your ability to push back against delusional nonsense. If you’re determined to live without it, you need to have very strong content standards in its place to decide the difference between objective fact and someone’s conspiracy vomit. Good content policies save you from having to waste a bunch of time on bad faith arguments about why the content of your wiki pages have to abandon fact for massaging someone’s ego.
(Somewhat of a tangent, but if you’re bored you can look into a brief history of AlexShepherd’s crusade against circumcision in the Silent Hill fandom. He’s not the only person I’ve seen thrive on wikis who don’t adopt an original research policy, but definitely the most entertaining read.)