On 24 Jul 2010, at 23:01, Jakob wrote: > ...to attract more then a little fraction of the declining > number of Wikipedia authors we need a clear mission and usable > software for this task - I seen neither the one nor the other.
I think focusing on Wikimedia's citation needs is the most promising, especially if this is intended to be a WMF project. As for mission -- yes -- let's talk about what problem we're trying to solve. Two central ones come to mind: 1. Improve verifiability by making it possible to start with a source and verify all claims made by referencing that source [1] 2. Make it easier for editors to give references, and readers to use them [2] Are those the right problems? Are there others? [3] To figure out what the right problems are, I think it would help to look at the pain points -- and their solutions -- the hacks and proposals related to citations. Hacks include plugins and templates people have made to make MediaWiki more citation-friendly. Proposals include the ones on strategy wiki. Anybody want to take a look through? Some of the hacks and proposals are listed here: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Proposals_related_to_citations Could you add other hacks, proposals, and conversations related to citations, if you know of them? -Jodi [1] This can be done using backlinks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Greenwood%26Earnshaw ) [2] I think of this as "actionable references" -- we'd have to explain exactly what the desirable qualities are. Adding to bilbiographic managers in one click is one of mine. :) [3] Other side-effects might be helping to identify what's highly cited in Wikipedia (which would be interesting -- and might help prioritize Wikisource additions), automatically adding quotes to Wikiquote, ...
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