Wikipedia Creator Working On Online Gaming Mag

Ars Technica reports on the intention of the Wikia group to create a wiki-based open source gaming magazine. The gaming.wikia site is intended to be a fully editable source of information for game news consumers. From the lips of Dan Lewis, VP of business development at Wikia: "The 'open-source magazines' we're unveiling today are focused largely around topics where passionate people have already started collaborating online. The launch of Tunes, Cars, Gaming and Health is a continuation of our mission to open-source the creation and development of content around every topic imaginable — so we are obviously not stopping here."

Pretty interesting

There are a lot of wiki's available today, but a magazine type wiki? Definitely makes you think about the future of paper magazines. Some people say you can't replace the feeling of getting a paper magazine once a month in the mail, but (especially in the gaming community) you can see something like this evolving into a great source of information.

Re:Pretty interesting

Isn't the whole point of Wikipedia to have the data available in a single source?

No [wikipedia.org]. See especially "Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought" and "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information".

dept?

Posted by Zonk on Friday March 16, @11:07AM
from the still-a-big-fan-of-edited-news dept.

Then you, sir, have come to the wrong place.

I keed, I keed.

paper

They going to print think?

New gambling magazine?

Good Jimmy Wales, you look kinda cool now.

Those talk pages are going to fun...

The flame wars between fan boys could really damage something like this. Often the smaller wikis don't get policed as well so might as well get some popcorn.

Reviews

I think we can expect the review for Halo 3 to give it a 10, followed by a 3, then a 8, and finally a -eleventy jillion.

Too Many Fanbois

Take the worst problems with Wikipedia, multiply then by 1000, and then you'll have the gaming wiki. I recall the PS3 product description Wiki on Amazon being edited about a thousand times daily right around the PS3 release. XBox fanbois would drop in crap about how "PS3 is an inferior system" and then the PS3 fanbois would delete it and post their own propaganda.

For a gaming wiki to succeed you will have to find some way to ban the fanbois.

What about accuracy?

While this kind of online gaming magazine seems interesting, I suspect that many people will post completely unsubstantiated rumors as articles. On the Internet, lots of idiots post misleading info just for the fun of it.

At least most editor-controlled magazines try for accuracy. They don't always get it right, but at least a good editor will post a correction if it is wrong initially. Other than the occasional April Fool joke, the information is usually based on reality rather than just wishful thinking.

mag, or fansite?

I have a feeling this is going to end up being a massive, confusing replacement for WoWwiki, GuildWiki, etc.

Breaking Gaming News from gaming.wikia

Breaking Gaming News - The population of elephants in Second Life has tripled in the past year!

Wikipedia creater NOT working on online gaming mag

For those unfamiliar with Wikia, the work isn't actually all done by the one organization. Anyone can come up with an idea for a wiki, write up a mission statement, and submit it to Wikia. If the admins like, then you've got yourself a host for your wiki.

Wikipedia creator Jimbo Wales may have started Wikia itself, the engine behind this and the other bajillion wikia out there, [wikia.com] but he doesn't seem to be actually working on this particular wiki.

That site will make you cringe

I took a look at it the other day linked from ars and again today. It's mostly a bunch of fanboys jerking each other off, and spreading misinformation. Also everyone is modded down around -1 to -5 no matter what they say in general. I saw posts saying "you can't run Linux on PS3 / can't use Cell from hypervisor" all over the place and corrections marked down to -6. I'm using PS3 as an example, since I know that hardware best. Imagine if someone came on slashdot and started spouting out misinformation to push some agenda for their love of Microsoft. It would be better if it wasn't some horrible mix of digg and a blog. They need to setup wiki pages for some community quality control, and remove the trolling box too. I don't think a thousand fanboys telling you how they feel about the Wii controller or an uninformed or purposely misleading blog entry contributes anything.

What a peice of garbage, and a blight to wikis everywhere. I only give it 1/5, because you can't give 0/5. ;)

Finally...

It's nice to have somewhere to spread my great expertise! After all, I'm a tenured professor of computer science at a private university, and have a PhD in videogameology and a degree in IP law.

-Essjay