2009/4/22 Anthony <wikim...@inbox.org>: > On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 10:46 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dal...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> >> 2009/4/22 doc <doc.wikipe...@ntlworld.com>: >> > I'd say that "the reader question" is less pertinent for any start up >> > than the "writer question". >> >> I don't think the two questions can be separated. Without the feedback >> between the two (readers becoming writers) you'll never get >> exponential growth and without that you'll never reach a size where >> you are useful. > > What is the minimum size a project must be in order to be "useful"?
I don't know. It depends on the intended breadth of the project, for a start. A general encyclopaedia needs to be bigger than a specialist one. A Wikipedia-like project becomes useful when you can be reasonably confident that it will have the information you seek (if that information is within its intended bounds). If you can't be reasonably confident of that then you would probably go somewhere else for the information. People may find useful information on a smaller project via search engines, but few people will go directly to the project as their first port of call, as people often do with Wikipedia (although a very large proportion of our readers still come from search engines). Perhaps "useful" is too strong a term, "useful enough to rival Wikipedia" would be better. Doc said, 'Success is where someone looking for a source they can quote in their school essay says "better try Otherpedia.com".' That will never happen until that someone can be reasonable confident that they will find what they need on Otherpedia.com. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
