Why Use Qwiki

From Qwiki

Why use Qwiki (instead of Wikipedia)?

Wikipedia, among other sites, has a growing number of entries containing useful information. So you might reasonably ask the question: why should I post content at Qwiki instead? Here we address this question as fully as we can. Let us know what you think at the discussion section at the bottom of the page.

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A Future with Multiple Wikis

Thanks to the capability and generosity of some open-source software engineers, starting a wiki is very easy (we did it after all). As a result, there are an increasing number of wikis of many scales for many purposes. Wikipedia is the clear leader to be the large, expansive encyclopedia reference for a general audience. On the other end of the extreme, there will be many small wikis for specialized purposes (e.g., organizing the content for a college course or a club). At a medium scale, many community-based wikis (like this one) will sprout up to contain more focused technical information.

The success of Wikipedia is already assured for the role that it plays. The success of very small scale wikis is easy to achieve when the goals are modest. However, for intermediate scale wikis it remains to be seen how popular they can become relative to other available resources. The success of any given effort depends a lot on the community, the design of the site, and many other factors. We believe that a wiki like this one can be popular, although we admit that our design or timing may not be perfect. In the event that this site is not popular, we will simply scale back the goals with minimal effort lost.

Here we list some reasons why, given the choice between Qwiki and Wikipedia, you might decide to post information here. For further detailed discussion along these lines go here or here.

• A Community Forum

A smaller site with a specific focus will have more of a sense of community between the participants than what is possible with a site that has as many users as Wikipedia.

• Flexibility

A smaller site is more flexible and can quickly change the design or rules of the site to meet the needs of the community. In contrast, Wikipedia has a lot of inertia due to the number of users they have to satisfy. When it becomes clear that one design format works better than another we can adapt smoothly with little constraint. For example, based on user feedback we decided to add categories for useful practical information (experimental advice, how-to's, tutorials, lab lore) in addition to standard encyclopedia style entries.

• Author Identification

As opposed to Wikipedia, we strongly encourage all users to use their real names to ensure that edits can be traced back to a person. We feel that while anonymous entries are a good thing for a general resource like Wikipedia, they are not a good thing for a small, friendly technical community like this. When reviewing a technical contribution, trust, reputation, and identifiability of authors play non-negligible roles. Of course, reputation shouldn't play a complete role, but requiring a contributor to show a face and name does provide a healthy barrier for contribution. Author identification also encourages the growth of a more visible and friendly scientific community.

• Free Webspace and Advertising

Even if you don't contribute content, at least adding a profile for yourself gives you identifiability and visibility within the community. Think of it as free webspace. User profiles are easily the most frequently Googled pages on this site.

• Focus and Audience

We hope that focusing on a particular field will lead to increased participation by experts and hence higher quality entries. The target audience of Qwiki consists of people who post content to (or read) the Arxiv, and more specifically quant-ph/.

• Technicality

When it comes to to technical information, Wikipedia is faced with a challenge. They encourage the inclusion of technical information, but they also encourage the complicating goal of accessibility to a lay audience. This Wikipedia page, listing articles that are too technical, demonstrates this problem. At Qwiki, the target audience is at a graduate student level, negating the need for excessive dumbing down.

• Inter-linking and Transferability

At the end of the day, we encourage cooperation and linking to other sites so there really isn't any meaningful competition between sites. Because all sites are googled on a level playing field, the best content will be found. Also, all of the information you post here can be easily transferred to other sites, so if this site phases out, your contributions won't go for naught.

• New ideas

Wikipedia is not about original research and discourages adding new ideas.