Wikimedia Meta-Wiki

WikiAsk (recreated)

This is a proposal for a new Wikimedia sister project.
Status of the proposal
Statusstalled
Reasonthis is nearing 5 years old with minimal participation and no consensus formed Dronebogus (talk) 07:57, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Technical requirements

Wikiask is a proposal for a community constructed Q&A website, in which users can freely share their knowledge and discuss certain questions. The project will be non-profit, open to anyone and a reliable source of information. (The initial proposal was a combination of both a guidebook and a Q&A platform, however, due to the availability of Wikibooks and wikiversity, the idea was withdrawn, and changed into an independent Q&A)
This project was created on the personal motto –“When society comes together, Knowledge has no bounds.”. I personally believe that the society altogether can create a stronger source of knowledge than all that exists, and reliability must be built upon the hands of each other. A source in which we can freely speak and communicate. A society that is free and credible. The WMF represents global freedom of knowledge, and almost all the Q&A’s present are for-profit organizations. The general idea is to create a Wikimedia-version of Q&A’s, That is non-profit, widely available, multi-lingual and resourceful.
Q&A’s are a growing genre of websites. Over 300 million users have registered accounts in Quora alone. It is not an abandoned field of information. Hundreds of millions of users log in to Query or respond. It’s a brand new way of data sharing.

What's the difference from the existing Q&A’s?

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Unlike other Q&A’s Wikiask would be a non-profit website. It would not hold any disruptive policies, no upgraded passes or bigoted gestures. It would be an open collaboration of society. Within the internet, profit-oriented websites have been using information distribution a personal benefit. Some sites pay users for employment in their websites while some sites ask users pay for registration. Wikiask would not perform in such ways. It would not promote, it would not be an imbalanced website

  • "Q&A websites curate user-generated questions and answers on all sorts of topics. More than 400,000 subjects are discussed on Quora alone. Q&A sites allow you to gain exposure to a wide audience. Given the variety of topics, it is likely that your company can find its target audience in one of the Q&A website niches.”
Referenced Website-https://clutch.co/agencies/digital-marketing/resources/how-use-qa-websites-promote-your-business
http://www.ether.com/HowItWorks/
http://www.experts-exchange.com/
https://www.lawpivot.com/
https://www.liveperson.com/
http://www.mahalo.com/answers
http://www.mancx.com/
http://uclue.com/?section=all
https://www.qurito.io/

All these websites pay users for asking or answering questions, They are non-Free, for profit websites. Showing how wikiask would be a perfect source of information. Even Quora is an open space for niche advertisements. These are evident references that show that most of these websites are inequitable, erratic, and inconsistent.

Open advertising on web pages has lead to corruption. They make the websites relentlessly infuriating. Some websites decline to provide access to their resources if the user does not agree to follow ridiculous instructions. Some site automatically redirect to websites advertising ineffectual software or pirate websites.

Differences from existing wikiprojects

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Up-to-date, no wikiprojects has had a similar scope. Even though wikiversity does suggest open collaborative learning resources, it partakes content articles instead of Interactive platforms. It is not necessarily a Q&A. A personal platform known as wikidebat is also available within the website, however, it’s a discussion for internal snags. It doesn’t involve much features that consents it to be qualified as a general Q&A.

Initiative

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  • The main proposal is a soft launch, A beta version which would observe how the wiki would function in the open, and get involved with the community. We would retrieve information from the temporary beta site and conclude the official answer. If the website does not gain enough registrations or interest of the public, the project will be withdrawn. Nonetheless, if the beta site does gain a positive reaction from the public, it will be presented officially as a sister-project of Wikipedia.

Beta version

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The beta version would include the classic representation of a Q&A with a minor volunteered staff who would maintain the website for the time being. It would be open to the web for a specified time period, in which a perfectly planned test would be carried out to observe the opening functioning of the site in its prime. The site will be openly available with all facilities. IF the trial project proves to be successful. The beta project will be created in a test wiki, most probably will be created from localhost php and moved into an operational server.

Technical requirements

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Since this is a new proposal for the foundation, a few tools will be needed for the development of the webpage. Including a new data representation format suitable to be the background of a functional Q&A. More technical requirements will be listed in Wikiask/Technical req which is still bieng developed.

Further reading

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Launch of Wikiask.org

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In October 2022, the website Wikiask.org was launched. Wikiask.org is in line with this Wikiask proposal: a MediaWiki platform for questions and answers, with the content being CC BY-SA, and where the community can work together on answering questions.

Alternative names

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A few alternate names for the wiki, I do not intend to center-stone the name at the moment, Feel free to suggest any new ones. Wikiquestions, WikiQuery, community-media

Similar projects

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Interested Participants.

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‘’Please add your signature if you are interested’’

Communication

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Please ping the proposer (User:Arepticous) when adding your message

More information

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People interested

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Supporting

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  1.   Support- Per proposal Arep Ticous 10:56, 10 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Hey, I'm interested in starting this project. I already have the wikiask.org and wikiask.com domain names. Do reach out and we can get this going. BillWikiAsk (talk) 11:23, 7 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    We are very glad to announce that Wikiask.org is live!
    We already have many Wikipedians registered and contributing answers. Feedback from all the community is very much appreciated. Please feel free to reach out over my talk page or email. WikiaskOrg (talk) 07:33, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  2.   Support Seems good. We need a competitor to WikiHow. Calvinkulit (talk) 11:13, 12 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  3.   SupportIt is a great idea Omda4wady (talk) 07:45, 17 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  4.   Support - Good plan :) Josephine W. (talk) 01:09, 28 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  5.   Support Good idea. JackCrazy5 (talk) 23:20, 30 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  6.   Support - Finally! A new guide wiki other than WikiHow! I can’t wait for this wiki to be created! Arthurfan828 (talk) 23:47, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  7.   Strong support.A place where everybody can ask and perhaps see an answer. Not only limited within an encyclopedic article. BoldLuis (talk) 00:54, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  8.   Support Wikilife just like Quora, Zhihu and Baidu Knows. --Kitabc12345 (talk) 05:49, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  9.   SupportChibiLink 17 January 2020
  10.   Support, if this project will compete with Quora, q.yandex.ru, BolshoyVopros.ru, Otvet.mail.ru etc. Фред-Продавец звёзд (talk) 19:35, 28 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  11.   Support, Good idea, idea for this would be split into two sections to be competing with more websites, How, to compete with WikiHow, and Ask, to compete with Quora. Another Wiki User the 2nd (talk) 13:50, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  12.   Support- I confirm that this is a really good idea! --80.183.24.222 17:16, 30 July 2020 (UTC)Agnese93[reply]
  13.   Support- I fully agree PastelKos (talk) 13:19, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  14.   Support per others. ThadeusOfNazereth (talk) 21:10, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  15.   Strong support Long time most popular Q&A website Yahoo!Answers shut down recently without even an archival. All the hardwork of millions of volunteers extinguished just like that. A wiki Q&A site would ensure that such knowledge contributions are given the proper respect, attribution, and guarantee that it will not go to oblivion at the will of a few in power in some for-profit company like Yahoo or Quora. Free & Open Wikis are the best for crowdsourced content and there should be a wiki for this essential crowdsourced knowledge format.Vis M (talk) 08:34, 22 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  16.   Support Tentative support. The basic idea is good, but details are worrying. See discussion subpage. — Robert Važan (talk) 23:24, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  17.   Strong supportTidini (talk) 16:07, 15 October 2021 (UTC)This looks similar to one I was just close to bringing to the fore. I would would have called it-Wikiimaginations,it would have been a problem but a solution oriented platform, such that worldilly problems could be solved through other peoples contributions.For that, i suport it.Tidini (talk) 16:07, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  18.   За Now, this type of sites really popular and i think WA will be good alternative due to it will be wiki-based. WA - won`t be guidebook, and won`t be like a "Coursera" (like a WV). So, may be it`s the best idea for wiki-project now. Kylaix (talk) 06:03, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Conditional   Support: This is a really nice idea that would flourish on our wiki model, but I have the same reservations as SelfieCity in the oppose camp. This project can be easily abused as a POV-pusher site, that'll be very attractive to all types of wiki-vandals. A remedy as suggested by Robert Važan seems appropriate. —‍CX Zoom (A/अ/অ) (let's talk|contribs) 10:06, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  20.   Support: popular, important, and needs a wiki touch (as opposed to the answer-ownership and "flood of different answers" touch that existing sites provide). At the very least, this would be a better place for distilled evergreen questions, and could connect WikiHow, WP refdesks, and search queries. Having a discoverable place to import and archive other Q&A site that go offline would just be a bonus. –SJ talk  00:01, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Opposing

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  1.   Oppose Guidebooks belong on b:, collaborative learning projects on v:. This seems redundant. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:05, 23 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Koavf and Rubbish computer: I have asked about this on Wikibooks and no, short HOWTOs are not acceptable unless they are part of a larger book. Ditto for FAQs. I want to ask the same at Wikiversity, but I first have to make sense of Wikiversity. :) — Robert Važan (talk) 18:49, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  2.   Oppose I think this belongs on Wikibooks rather than needing to be a fully seperate project. Rubbish computer (Talk: Contribs) 16:03, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  3.   Oppose per others AnotherEditor144 t - c 13:14, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  4.   Oppose I like the idea, but I'm pretty sure there's dozens of other websites that are Q&As, and they are very popular already. max20characters🇺🇸 19:59, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  5.    Oppose - Hérisson grognon 12:09, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  6.   Oppose Collaborative learning projects, including Q&A, are supported by the v:Wikiversity:Mission. Please start there. -- Dave Braunschweig (talk) 15:54, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  7.   Oppose I had a thought about this one, and my oppose is a weak oppose, not a strong one. However, I have occasionally used Quora, etc. to read — not to contribute — and found it attracts those with an axe to grind. Wikimedia is supposed to be a beacon of factual information, and while we'll never be 100% perfect, there's no better way to spread misinformation than set up a forum that would doubtless attract all the vandals and sockpuppets across WMF projects, not to mention trolls! It should be a great idea, but unfortunately, a Q&A would attract this. WikiHow is a great place that is monitored to keep its Q&A's accurate, and we shouldn't try to occupy its niche. SelfieCity (talk) 12:30, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @SelfieCity: StackOverflow/StackExchange is a better example than Quora. Questions with primarily opinion-based answers are banned there. — Robert Važan (talk) 02:33, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreeing with Robert: I see a successful version of this as a wiki parallel to Stack Overflow (which is nicely licensed and open for comparison, but not easy to cross-link with other wiki projects and not integrated with Wikidata or Commons). –SJ talk  23:57, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  8.   Oppose I can see this being conflated with WikiHow, but Koavf sums it up nicely. —Fredddie™ 04:01, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  9.   Oppose Redundant due to the existence of Wikibooks. --V0lkanic (talk) 22:49, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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  • The discussion section has now been moved due to certain difficulties... please visit the Discussion page

references

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