Brain MRI

Fragment of a discussion from User talk:Nx
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That's what's weird about RW. It's this very inbetween space, on lots of things. Not quite taken seriously in the real world, but taken far more seriously than something like CP. Not quite big enough to be "all serious, all the time", but too big to have the same, snarky voice that we all know and love on the bigger articles. Not big enough to really start justifying "rules and regulations", but too big to let anarchy rule.

It's a very hard but interesting world to navigate.

Pink mowse.pngGodotThe Peyote God awaits21:25, 26 September 2011

I think this phase kills off so many projects. Thing is, we've ridden it for at least two years now. It's showing some signs of wearing off, though.

ADK...I'll dehydrate your squibble!21:28, 26 September 2011
 

Thing is, RW is actually taken seriously, and people do read it as a (rather niche) resource. We get quoted in blogs, a few news articles and even an academic paper, and not once in those mentions do the authors qualify us as a joke site. We are a site with a serious purpose, if not a serious tone or policy structure.

Blue (is useful)02:40, 27 September 2011

Academic paper? Got a cite for that?

here apparently.

TyTy02:44, 27 September 2011

I'm not sure that such a cite really makes any point that we are "taken seriously" on the net.

I would be curious how many hits we get, that are not reg editors of course, and how that compares with something like PZ Meyers. I really have no other context to say "people visit" than that kind of a thing....

Pink mowse.pngGodotThe Peyote God awaits02:57, 27 September 2011

People visit. And even though WIGO:CP consistently gets the most pageviews, people who find us generally aren't searching for Conservapedia stuff.

Blue (is useful)03:04, 27 September 2011

It's them constantly refreshing the page to gawk at some irreverence.

TyTy03:07, 27 September 2011
 
 
 
 

Other than the Lenski (sp) stuff, I find that fairly dubious. I think we can be, but I don't see us quoted outside of that one thing, and i do see several references to us being fairly biased (which is good, we are).

I don't think it's a bad thing to admit where we are, and where we want to be, but a google search of Rational wiki, really doesn't produce much beyond "attacks CP" or the Lenski.

Pink mowse.pngGodotThe Peyote God awaits02:56, 27 September 2011

Well for one, we were quoted from extensively by this Telegraph article. And this academic paper also gives us a "cameo." I'm sure there are more.

Blue (is useful)03:00, 27 September 2011

Blue, to me i would say "look at what the article is about", it's about internet memes, and laws that are ripe for this kind of page. and it's 3 links.

Don't get me wrong, that's uber great. but it's not "serious" it's "getting there".

at least to me.

Pink mowse.pngGodotThe Peyote God awaits03:10, 27 September 2011

I'm not trying to say "we're there." We're not, you're right. But we do need to actively work toward wherever "there" is, which in my mind (getting back to the topic at hand) is helped by further organizing the article rating system.

Blue (is useful)03:14, 27 September 2011

Unfortunately, Blue, getting "there" whatever that means, is going to mean lots of changes that cause the same problems you all fight for, and get into battles over. (I avoid, intentially). Which as ADK says, often makes projects like this fail, or make other people bail.

That said, the wiki will, if it really wants to be serious, need to decide what that means. It's one thing to say "we have a mission statement", it's another for that mission statement to mean anything. Half our articles are pure crap. 1/3 of our articles are ok, but they don't really say anything other than "wiki pedia light", and those few gems that really say "THIS IS RATIONAL WIKI" (like gold brain articles) are 10? 100? so so few.

But what do you focus on? making articles more factual? making articles more informative? making articles more critical? All the funny one liners get stripped from good articles, cause they sorta lessen the impact, but then you say "wait, now it's back to wiki light'.

It's going to be painful, i suspect. But at the same time, something great to be part of, i think.

Pink mowse.pngGodotThe Peyote God awaits03:19, 27 September 2011

The wikipedia light articles are good support articles, their purpose is to help you if you don't know what something means. We could of course link to WP as well, but WP is tl;dr and doesn't really serve that purpose (quickly finding out what that term means) well. WP is better when you want to know all the gory details.

-- Nx / talk03:25, 27 September 2011

NX, i do think they have their place - I just think right now, we do more wp light, than the really amazing gold articles that brought me hear 2 years ago.

And that's not criticism. those are hard to write, they are hard to even conceptualize. What makes a really snappy RW article, that says to the world, you MUST read this.

It's not surprising we have so few, I just am eager to see the new ones the editors write in the future.

I'm guessing those "gold" articles are usually on Evo, since the entire world does politics, and with the new project you all had started when i returned (It looked like you were taking over the intellectual property of an evo site) it will probably be another evo article that is the kind of Gold Brain.

Pink mowse.pngGodotThe Peyote God awaits03:30, 27 September 2011

Interesting point, I think I have been side-tracked into doing things that WP does already but more snarky. But we get things right occasionally. Comet Elenin and Project Blue Beam being the two most prominent of the last 12 months or so. The trouble is finding the right thing.

ADK...I'll meditate your fat!11:26, 27 September 2011

Well that's exactly right, and i'm not sure it's something you can set out to do, but more "this is the right time and the right place for this article", and it really does a job of the topic.

As a personal writer/editor, I'm not that clever, nor insightful. I don't have much that is novel or interesting to say, I'm better at summarizing what others have to say. I can distill Pinker and Levinson and explain cognitive linguists, but i can't say "so here's why you should care". So I can improve our "wiki light", but I'm not sure how i could even add to a really stellar gold. But I assure you, if i come up with something, I'll share it. muwhahahaha.

I've read the Elenin (and it was timely and good), but what is "blue beam".

Pink mowse.pngGodotThe Peyote God awaits14:02, 27 September 2011
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The place got so much traffic for one of our tumbleweed pages a while ago we had to upgrade our hosting

TyTy03:00, 27 September 2011

That article doesn't cite us as much as it does point to us as an example of something. As it does for another website you might know.

 

what's a tumbleweed page?

And my problem is, I don't know how to compare. is "a lot of traffic" the same as so-and-so page, or more than some-other-page.

Saying "we got 100,000 hits" sounds like a lot - but is it? That's why it's hard for me to see this project as "serious" YET. we're getting there, but there's so much identity issues like how serious we will be, and how much we are "straight" in our articles about facts, and do we bash religions, and on and on.

I think ADK is so on the money. this is going the right way, but it would be bad to say "it's there", or that it's even "serious" yet.

Pink mowse.pngGodotThe Peyote God awaits03:06, 27 September 2011
TyTy03:08, 27 September 2011

excellent. what is 400,000 hits in the webworld?

I'm asking honestly.

Pink mowse.pngGodotThe Peyote God awaits03:12, 27 September 2011

enough to crash the wiki.

TyTy03:13, 27 September 2011
 

Ohhh, the "tumbleweed pages'. I love those.

I link them to all my facebook pages, cause they are so good! :-)

Pink mowse.pngGodotThe Peyote God awaits03:13, 27 September 2011

Yeah, it does the rounds every now and then. Grinds the place to a halt, everyone has a laugh about it, and perhaps another blogger keeps an eye on the site because of it.

ADK...I'll refill your polyethylene!11:27, 27 September 2011