OrthodoxWiki:Meta Reflections

This is the place for thinking about the project we're engaged in together at OrthodoxWiki.

Interesting discussion of the whole WikiPedia concept

Just ran across an interesting discussion of the whole WikiPedia concept started by an OpEd piece by one of its co-founders, Larry Sanger. Sanger's article and the ensuing discussion can be found here.

Yep, that's interesting. It's definitely worth thinking through these things a little bit. Regarding the concerns brought up in that article, I suspect we have an advantage in that, even if this site takes off wonderfully, we will still be a small community limited in scope, with recognizable "experts" in church life. I think also the sysops/moderators should have a broad enough knowledge of Orthodox matters to be able to tell if something is really off base. Also, we can be stricter in dealing with trolls (although that can certainly be a challenge on an open site like this one). I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on this article with regard to OrthodoxWiki (and perhaps you'd want to login or otherwise identify yourself). Thanks, FrJohn 22:36, 20 Jan 2005 (CST)

It occurs to me that, aside from what FrJohn says here (with which I thoroughly agree), the Orthodox Church is by its nature in some ways already prepared in terms of its phronema to embark on a project like OrthodoxWiki. The whole Church is the guardian of the truth, after all, and we are essentially trying to submit ourselves to the public proclamation of the Gospel, not become researchers in obscure academic fields. Thus, while there are certainly things that are good for specialists and experts to work on for OrthodoxWiki, the real meat of our content is something that we should already in many ways have a consensus on.

The other thing that occurs to me is that it's unlikely that OrthodoxWiki would get infectected with anti-elitism. The Orthodox Church is hierarchical, and respect and obedience toward authority are a standard, normal part of our Church life. --Rdr. Andrew 06:13, 21 Jan 2005 (CST)