Talk:Wikithink

An alternative way to share your ideas and turn them into true working paradigms.

Cross-Wiki references

It sounds like a great idea. It's a place where people can put those things that are deleted from the regular Wikipedia on the grounds of "original research". If this project gets off the ground, I suggest modifying all tags connected with the "original research" policy so that they contain a live link to the project's main page. The tag might go on the talk page where the deleting editor explains his or her reason for the deletion. The text might read something like this:

"Wikipedia policy does not allow original research, but only referenced, published material. See [[guideline page]] for policy and guidelines. In the meantime, please check out [[Wikithink:Main page]], where original, creative, unreferenced ideas have a home."

Of course, there should also be appropriate cross-references on all policy pages and editorial guidelines.

I kind of suspect that the format of the Wikithink pages will resemble talk pages more than mainspace pages, but I think the format will evolve naturally into what's most appropriate. Cbdorsett 05:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

This is great! I answered to you exactly the same thing on the wiki page! I also had in mind not such a general redirection, but a close connection between topics, where there is a wikipedia link to wikithink and vice-versaDps 11:44, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea; I especially like the idea raised above that it is an interwiki option for articles deleted at wikipedia on the grounds of original research. I'm quite sure the idea would have a fair bit of support, had there been more response to the front page notice. Anthonycfc ^{[T • C]} 07:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Any ideas for publicity? Dps 18:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Meta front page? Deletion debates - I'd keep an eye on enwiki's, and when a potential WikiThink candidate is spotted, inform that it could be moved there instead of deleted. Anthonycfc ^{[T • C]} 21:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for not posting in your user page, I have to setup a simple english account and I already have enough! Thanks for posting the WikiThink anouncement on the front page! And sorry for the delay in answering, I rarely login to my meta account :-/ Please also note that there is an article related to WikiThin research! http://wikithink.wiki-site.com/index.php/WikiThink_Research. I believe your contribution along with everybody else's will be extremely important! Dps 22:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

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Fancruft

Speaking of cross-wiki and original research, this could be a haven for fancruft material (something like what we see on an overgrown "Trivia" section of a WP article). While that might differ from what you have in mind, do you intend that to be or are the fan hypotheses on fictional works going to be discouraged? --朝彦 (Asahiko) 04:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I would say that many mainstream stuff today was fancruft some years ago... So in my opinion, this should make it to the wiki. However there may be some context for this, for example there is little sense in having an article for the local country singer... It should always involve research, evolution and new ideas. Youcan also place it as an issue in http://wikithink.wiki-site.com/index.php/WikiThink_Research Dps 23:07, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

"I would say that many mainstream stuff today was fancruft some years ago." For example? —Alexnye 22:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The Internet Dps 23:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

difference between wikithink and wikireason

All these wikis are getting too complicated. It's also annoying to sign up a username for each new wiki i join (it should be changed so that one username satisfies all the different types of wikis out there). Anyway, what is the difference between wikithink and wikireason?

You don't have to sign up but it is nice to sign ;-) Anyway, the difference is fundamental: wikireason is a place where there is intensive discussion and debate about well established issues while wikithink is a place where new ideas should emerge. To put it in other words: wikireason is an extensive discussion page of a wikipedia article. Wikithink is the original research that is expelled even from the discussion page. Moreover, it is the original research related to articles that don't even exist on wikipedia! It is the opposite of an encyclopedia.Dps 10:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think people need a wiki to do research. If I need a place to write things down, I can always use a pencil and paper. Or, if I'm on my computer, I can use notepad, or a word processor if I want to get a bunch of fancy formatting in. I understand the importance of collaboration in doing research, but once again, I still don't see why a wiki is necessary for this. Decades of communication have allowed me to send ideas to whoever so much I want by e-mail, phone, my own websites, mailing lists, etc. Talking with partners is not an issue.

Your point here is true, but I am still unsure about this wiki. It could provide useful additional data to articles. But then is that what Wikireason does? If what Dps is suggesting is a free-content peer-review system, I'm definitely for it. But I am still wary of how much will be worthwhile on here. The problem is that it's easier to manage Wikipedia... no source?--Delete. And on Wikipedia, we have experts help in well established areas, but would they be willing to use this system for their own ideas, or would the wiki just be full of proofs of 1=2? —Alexnye 22:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

As for bringing together people who work, or want to work on similar things, there are already networks of communication within industry communities for that.

Furthermore, the very nature of a research-based wiki is problematic. What if Bill and Bob get together there and do research. It's under the public domain, but how do you cite a wiki? I guess you list date of access. But seriously, how can you trust that any of it is true. Under a professional research environment, there are restrictions and checks in place to make sure that people don't fake research. With some anonymous face on the internet, there is no such ability to trust any of their data.

The problem is that we'd have the anonymous' sloppy work making the trusted professionals who do work on there look bad, or we'd have the professionals on there making the anonymous sloppy work seem more creditable. I say let the sensitive field of research and innovation stay careful, and don't encourage it to relax. Outside of research, we just have people who are philosophizing or have 'big ideas' or are planning something on their own. None of these require a wiki. As far as I'm concerned, there are enough professionals and people in the world that if I want advice on a topic, I can just go out on the real world and do it and meet face to face with someone else.

The idea for this wiki just seems half-baked. I don't see the need for it, and I think if anything it would be damaging to the name of serious research. -69.207.224.204 22:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I share your thoughts and concerns. I have to say that I imagine this exact criticism is what wikipedia must have been receiving. Indeed, in these writings I find exactly the reason why I had been working on this idea for a long time. I admit that from time to time I also have such second thoughts. So let me start with two major issues for my motivation:

1) The most interesting things and findings I am unable to publish. Just because they might have fragments of creativity and innovation, I cannot share them. To some extent this is due to the stiffness of the journal system and the way it has evolved. Unfortunatelly this has been encouraged by the many serious sensitive expert professionals stuck in the near-cubicles of their universities that understand only what's already there: many people in academia are turning into networked encyclopedias - or not even that: overtrained neural networks unable to accept even justified changes. Remember, most breakthroughs in all fields came from those that where philosophizing and had big ideas, the rest just go on chewing the same old gum for years. I am surprised that the industries are further away in research than the networked industrial research academia! And what about basic research?

2) Having switched research fields and gained interest in different issues than those I started with, I realised that the most important element of creativity is combining disciplines. This is quite difficult to do when you're stuck with the same old people in the same old lab and cannot review what's going on in other fields. Moreover, it is difficult to ask for the help of someone in another field. In most journals, conferences, meetings etc the same people are being recycled. I have considered it a personal failure to realize that major issues in my field where already resolved in another and nobody knew (or talked) about it.

The issue here is not citation. If you solve a problem, or make progress whatsoever, this is a self-proof of the value. Pencil and paper is useful, but I am afraid that working in the same old way does not leave room to innovation: we would be still living in caves trying to figure out what's round and rolls. Anonymity is a no-issue. Have an account with your full cv on it. I think that people would dislike such an idea for very simple reasons: they don't get money for it, they don't get reputation for it and everybody gets access to what they keep as a bonding device that satisfies their need to be part of a members' only group of people and legends in their own mind. That's anyway the problem of any open initiative.

On the other hand, I admit that there are moderation issues. Wikipedia had it also, and to my understanding, in the beginning it was supposed to be like this, that everyone does anything he likes. After a while people started to setup rules and enforce them. Any self regulating and healthy community would go that way. I am not sure where this leads but for the moment it makes sense. Dps 00:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Will people want to share their ideas, half-cooked and creative (think of Darwin back in his day) or will they want to keep it silent for their personal Nobel prize glory?

I do think there is value in allowing other people to process ideas, and to add to it - especially people outside the discipline under discussion, or people foreign to a certain way of thinking. Lawyers think differently to engineers, and may be able to add significantly to certain mathematical philosophies and general theories, more so than any mathematician ever could, simply by the virtue of being different, and thinking differently. They see things from different angles. Perhaps some sort of legal way of analysing a problem could equally well be applied in mathematics. The glory of wikis are that they allow people from a whole variety of backgrounds to cheaply look at ideas, to process and critique them. Knowledge can thus be rapidly gained simply because people will see things from a different angle. Such wikis encourage inspiration. As someone said above, you can communicate via pen and paper, but the problem here is that you are communicating to a person YOU choose, and to a certain person (most probably within your field, and who has a certain way of thinking). If you communicate the same information in a wiki it is under the scrutiny of the WHOLE WORLD (from many people in different disciplines), and can, if people of worth read it, be equally as good as receiving feedback from a colleague via the pen and paper method. --ToyotaPanasonic 03:34, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

It is a good idea, simply for the fact it will accelerate the research process for reasons listed above. It's about mass collaboration. No matter how brilliant an individual or organization is, there are always brighter and more creative people outside of the organization. Consider the size of Wikipedia compared to printed encyclopedias, and the growth rate it has achieved. This type of collaboration, when moderated properly, can shave years off the process. --Millarmachine 19:38, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, this idea looks semi-similar to a project I had been thinking of, and thought maybe the two ideas could go together. My idea stems from a belief that innovation happens when people have a problem to solve. The issue is that those with possible answers don't always know the problems. Imagine a place where people from all fields could post the problems and idio-syncratic short comings of their various fields, so as to provide an arena for people to know all the problems out in the world that could use fixing. I'm not talking about big problems like hunger and disease and things like that. I'm talking about down and dirty specific problems that could have very specific solutions.

Let me share the story that made me think a project like this was necessary. First, I have many friends in engineering schools who have time on thier ends and have an "invention bug", except that they always tell me, "but I'm not sure what to go after... I don't know what specifically to focus on". And then, totally seperately, I read that the national weather institute had an issue with losing over 75% of the thousands of probes they send into our atmosphere every year for the purpose of gathering weather related information. These probes cost around $130 each, and the institute loses hundreds of these per year. That means a lot of money is simply thrown away, if only someone could think of a way to get a higher capture rate on these things.

It turns out that, in this particular story, a few kids from my school were lucky enough to know of this problem, and they put their minds to work and won an invention contest by coming up with just such a system to retrieve more weather probes, and increase the retention rate up to 75%, from 25%. That's hundreds of thousdands of dollars per year saved because a few kids knew what to work on.

I envision a place where people can come and post their own "weather probe" problems in their fields, or from their life. There are those who have the time, and will and knowledge to help the world with its problems, but don't know who to help. Each page could contain information on, perhaps, current ideas to solve the problem, and information about how many people the problem might affect; what kind of money is lost or possibly made from coming up with a solution, as well as a forum to discuss possible solutions. A wiki like this would indeed be a future looking wiki, and I think it might be a facet of the wiki you are currently proposing; or if you think it is a seperate project, I would love help to pursue it on its own. Thanks, e-mail me with your thoughts.

Front page

I would like some feedback on the front page. It should be certainly aestheticaly ameliorated but probably there may be some comments on the text. Please comment. There are two proposals for translation into German and Spanish, so I would like to have a version of the frontpage that is somewhat acceptable.Dps 22:28, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment

This is a very neat idea. It is great! It will not become a wikimedia project though :( Still, make a wiki for it anyway. Peace:) --La gloria è a dio 20:04, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

And this is a very neat attitude :-) Dps 22:18, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

• this had such hope-- it should be resurrected. --Alecmconroy 13:47, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Progress?

Has any progress been achieved? There seems to be quite a few similar projects, I suggest we create a new one unifying all the concepts and renaming it. In my opinion the name, "Wikiresearch" is more appropiate and fitting for such project.

--Faustodc (talk) 17:18, 22 August 2015 (UTC)