Consumerpedia: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:19, 2 April 2004

The Consumerpedia is a GodKing-and-sysop power structure-based project to create a GFDL corpus resource specifically to enable moral purchasing, which means only what the GodKing and his sysops say it means.

It claims to provide information that consumers need to develop strategies for engaging in moral purchasing and moral living, to evaluate the morality behind their purchases, and to locate enterprises or products they need. It is a direct competitor to the Research Wiki in which Consumerium gathers similar information, but has no consistent template for such pages.

It was initiated by DanKeshet and it runs MediaWiki. Although its content is under GFDL, it is guilty of some GFDL violations already, which is not a good sign. It might be useful as a gathering place for Company and Boycott info so that the Development Wiki can focus only on use cases that actually move us forward towards pilot projects. However, it appears to simply be getting in the way of a real Research Wiki at this point. Among other things it has no standard wiki URI, i.e.

http://www.channel1.com/users/dkesh/consumerpedia/index.php/Main_Page

is relatively impossible to remember, and thus unfit to use as a real address.

relationship

Something like Consumerpedia could be established and might work so well that it could become the Research Wiki - pages would be XML imported to the Publish Wiki where they'd be turned into a Consumerium buying signal, get only a final touch up for legal and language/translation/simplicity concerns, and reflect the buying criteria the user wants. There'd be no work for "our own" Research Wiki to do!

This sounds wonderful, but it's a fantasy. Without more structure and extremely consistent naming, it's going to be impossible to tell which companies or products are violating what criteria. Consumerium:intermediate pages are supposed to standardize that data in the Research Wiki. So, very likely, the best cases where we don't need it at all, aren't realistic, they're just visions worth working towards but not to be expected as an outcome.

Much more likely, Consumerpedia, Recyclopedia, Disinfopedia and Wikipedia will all serve in parallel as GFDL text corpus sources, and only limited standards will be applied in them all, hopefully based on terms and mandatory labels and comprehensive outcome names (like deforestation, slavery, ape extinction) that are already titles of articles in GFDL corpus. Deviating from such standard terms is a disaster, as, it makes it impossible to tell which buying criteria are being violated! So, it's worth every effort to keep all four major sources in line, and to work hard to translate these terms consistently into all other languages (so far, only a concern at Wikipedia)

This is a responsibility that User:Juxo and User:N8chz and User:Venceremos might choose to undertake, but which User:DanKeshet has so far actively resisted. There's danger it may become an enemy project, applying political norms unfit for any cooperation. It is off to a bad start by violating the GFDL just to exclude some trolls.

See Research Wiki pilots for some conditions of converging with other public wikis.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-'''The Consumerpedia''' is a collaborative project to create a [[GFDL corpus]] resource specifically to enable [[moral purchasing]].  It will provide information that consumers need to develop strategies for engaging in moral purchasing and moral living, to evaluate the morality behind their purchases, and to locate enterprises or products they need.
+'''The Consumerpedia''' is a [[GodKing]]-and-[[sysop power structure]]-based project to create a [[GFDL corpus]] resource specifically to enable [[moral purchasing]], which means only what the GodKing and his sysops say it means.
-It was initiated by [[User:DanKeshet|DanKeshet]] and it runs [[MediaWiki]] and content is under [[GFDL]] so it can be useful as a gathering place for [[Company]] and [[Boycott]] info so that the [[Development Wiki]] can focus only on [[use case]]s that actually move us forward towards [[pilot project]]s.
+It claims to provide information that consumers need to develop strategies for engaging in moral purchasing and moral living, to evaluate the morality behind their purchases, and to locate enterprises or products they need.  It is a direct competitor to the [[Research Wiki]] in which [[Consumerium]] gathers similar information, but has no [[Consumerium:intermediate page|consistent template for such pages]].
+It was initiated by [[User:DanKeshet|DanKeshet]] and it runs [[MediaWiki]]. Although its content is under [[GFDL]], it is guilty of some [[GFDL violation]]s already, which is not a good sign.   It might be useful as a gathering place for [[Company]] and [[Boycott]] info so that the [[Development Wiki]] can focus only on [[use case]]s that actually move us forward towards [[pilot project]]s.  However, it appears to simply be getting in the way of a real [[Research Wiki]] at this point.  Among other things it has no [[standard wiki URI]], i.e.
 http://www.channel1.com/users/dkesh/consumerpedia/index.php/Main_Page
+is relatively impossible to remember, and thus unfit to use as a real address.
 == relationship ==
-Ideally, Consumerpedia would work so well that it could become the [[Research Wiki]] - pages would be [[XML import]]ed to the [[Publish Wiki]] where they'd be turned into a [[Consumerium buying signal]], get only a final touch up for legal and language/translation/simplicity concerns, and reflect the [[buying criteria]] the user wants.  There'd be no work for "our own" [[Research Wiki]] to do!
+Something like Consumerpedia could be established and might work so well that it could become the [[Research Wiki]] - pages would be [[XML import]]ed to the [[Publish Wiki]] where they'd be turned into a [[Consumerium buying signal]], get only a final touch up for legal and language/translation/simplicity concerns, and reflect the [[buying criteria]] the user wants.  There'd be no work for "our own" [[Research Wiki]] to do!
-This sounds wonderful, but it's a fantasy.  Without more structure and extremely consistent naming, it's going to be impossible to tell which companies or products are violating what criteria.  The [[Consumerium:intermediate page]]s are supposed to standardize that data in the [[Research Wiki]].  So, very likely, the [[best cases]] where we don't need it at all, aren't realistic, they're just [[visions]] worth working towards but not to be expected as an outcome.
+This sounds wonderful, but it's a fantasy.  Without more structure and extremely consistent naming, it's going to be impossible to tell which companies or products are violating what criteria. [[Consumerium:intermediate page]]s are supposed to standardize that data in the [[Research Wiki]].  So, very likely, the [[best cases]] where we don't need it at all, aren't realistic, they're just [[visions]] worth working towards but not to be expected as an outcome.
 Much more likely, [[Consumerpedia]], [[Recyclopedia]], [[Disinfopedia]] and [[Wikipedia]] will all serve in parallel as [[GFDL text corpus]] sources, and only limited standards will be applied in them all, hopefully based on terms and [[mandatory label]]s and [[comprehensive outcome]] names (like [[deforestation]], [[slavery]], [[ape extinction]]) that are already titles of articles in [[GFDL corpus]].  Deviating from such standard terms is a disaster, as, it makes it impossible to tell which [[buying criteria]] are being violated!  So, it's worth every effort to keep all four major sources in line, and to work hard to translate these terms consistently into all other languages (so far, only a concern at [[Wikipedia]])
-=== convergence ===
+This is a responsibility that [[User:Juxo]] and [[User:N8chz]] and [[User:Venceremos]] might choose to undertake, but which [[User:DanKeshet]] has so far actively resisted.  There's danger it may become an [[enemy projects|enemy project]], applying political norms unfit for any cooperation.  It is off to a bad start by violating the GFDL just to exclude some [[trolls]].
-[[Consumerium:We|We]] all seem to agree that a close relationship is desirable.  Convergence is far simpler if some basic conventions are followed very early, and some essential concepts have the same names everywhere: [[buying criteria]], [[comprehensive outcome]], [[economic choice]], [[moral purchasing]], [[political consumerism]], [[fair trade]], [[safe trade]], and [[externalities]] like [[deforestation]], [[extinction]], [[slavery]], etc.
-From [[Consumerpedia point of view]], different [[GFDL corpus]] might well be appropriate, and they might not always converge with those of [[Consumerium itself]].  But, it's easier to track that by making sure that [http://www.channel1.com/users/dkesh/consumerpedia/index.php/Consumerpedia:We en: Consumerpedia: "we"],[http://www.channel1.com/users/dkesh/consumerpedia/index.php/Consumerpedia:Policy en: Consumerpedia: "Policy"] and
-[http://www.channel1.com/users/dkesh/consumerpedia/index.php/Consumerpedia:itself en: Consumerpedia: "itself"] have the usual meanings.  ''An [[interwiki link standard]] would be handy about now!''
-However, they need to get off on the right foot:  [[Gus Kouwenhoven]] (perhaps [[CIV]] should be high on the investigation priorities list.  If after all that work you're still buying from Gus via CIV, then, '''Consumerpedia''' will just be an [[enemy project|enemy projects]] that distracts and distorts the reality.
-=== near-convergence ===
-[[Consumerium Service access]] that doesn't need [[worn device]]s could all happen through '''Consumerpedia''' if they converged perfectly on definitions of some concepts:
-We must at least share [[comprehensive outcome]] and [[economic choice]] and very exact descriptions of [[externalities]] is a real mistake.  It's going to take work to get everyone agreeing on all that!  But without it, you have no [[consensus]] about what is actually worth documenting about a company, no standard terms to use, "what links here" becomes useless, and etc.
-=== managing ===
-They don't have a lot of [[wiki management]] problems yet.  The above are the minimum required to achieve at least near-convergence.  Other structural stuff like [[best cases]], [[worst cases]], [[user stories]], etc., [[trolls]] leave to you to manage.  It's probably best to avoid that structure for now - it only starts to matter once there is a very rigorous mission, that fails easily, or, far too many people involved.  '''Consumerpedia'' isn't there.
-Beware in particular if Angela gets involved.  She'll kill it in ten minutes if she gets sysop status, and you will never be able to use one scrap of what's at [[Consumerpedia]] to create a [[Consumerium:intermediate page]] or ever affect a [[Consumerium buying signal]].  She is absolute poison to projects that have to work from actual user [[buying criteria]].
+''See [[Research Wiki pilot]]s for some conditions of converging with other [[public wiki]]s.''