Why Not Wiki?

Prompted by this thread, I visited:

http://www.stampsoftheworld.co.uk/w...of_the_World

http://philatelicweb.com/pmks/

I could contribute UK postmarks to the latter, but to whom am I contributing? Philately, or Phil Webmeister? Who owns my contribution? What can/will happen to it? On what basis do I decide to contribute my time to this database project, or another?

An open wiki, owned by its community of contributors, has a certain attraction.

Trust in our own community - and/or our lack thereof - seems to be a recurring theme in these threads. We all are all competing for scarce resources (stamps, covers, etc) with scarce resources (brains, talent, cash).

But, then, so are the world's scientists. Somehow, the wikipedia entries on physics, biology, and chemistry - never mind the niche stuff, like electro-optics - have grown to be a magnificent & reliable resource.

Q/ Why are we so sure that we cannot do the same?




One advantage of The Stamping Archipelago (to coin a phrase) is that whole resources can disappear without all being lost.

OTOH, searching can be pretty tiresome.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

KJH, you make very good points, and they are well taken. :)

I especially agree that "getting people involved long-term" is perhaps one of the biggest challenges of any online collaborative project.

I think 1847USA is a fantastic resource, and it would be nice if something like the Stamps of the World wiki could eventually get there. Even providing basic info and cross references for different catalogs or online references might be a start.

Usually, when someone first starts the ball rolling on something that may seem daunting at first, others usually also step up to the plate and add their things to it too. It already happens on forums like this all the time now. However, the beginning is usually the hardest to get started on a project. Sometimes after one completes something they worked on bit by bit, one sometimes asks oneself "How did I ever do that?"

Owsi15797,
I am well aware of the nature of a Wiki; including their 'pros and cons'. I am also well aware of the value of the 1847usa site (since I host it). I am an retired IS/IT professional and delivering quality digital information was part of my career for several decades.

You are correct that the true value is the 'crowd source' nature of a Wiki. And this is also it biggest problem (diffusion of responsibility). As such, it takes a strong sense of direction and a well defined scope. This was the point of my first post. So far, I have not seen anything posted which provides this. I have seen only a general consensus that 'Wikis are a good thing' and would help our hobby. While true, this is far from being a well thought out and focused vision for generating a ton of support.

I was trying to help you. But if you cannot even define if this is to be a general Wiki on stamp collecting, a more detailed one concerning Topical collecting, or a country specific collecting; the chances of success will not be as great.
Don

I see a wiki as an empty space. People need to go and fill it. The more, the better.

I wouldn't think that errors like the Lindbergh one above mean a wiki is not worth it - it just tells me that there are errors, which can and will be corrected as time goes on. And so, the reliability and scope of the wiki improves - from tiny acorns, mighty oak trees grow. It's never a finished article.

There. Now it reads "The stamp depicts the aircraft, and names the pilot at the top", which is correct.

http://www.stampsoftheworld.co.uk/w..._sheet_stamp

I notice the page also shows a used example, and a booklet pane. Great resource!

Perhaps a bigger problem is that there is so much accumulated knowledge that hasn't made it onto the web anywhere, in any form. Archives of various philatelic journals, old auction catalogs, issues of now-defunct publications, etc. Most of that will probably never be online, or at least anytime soon. Some of this may be due to copyright issues, others just because these things have been forgotten about or lost altogether, or they may be sitting in the bottom of a junk box in someone's attic, destined to be discarded someday.

There is also the issue of how stamps would be identified on the Wiki. You can't use existing catalog numbers without a licensing agreement. Honestly, I think the best way for something like this (a central knowledge repository) to happen would be for the catalog publishers to do something. If and when they ever get their entire catalog online, it would be relatively easy for them to add a comment/blog section, either right along the standard catalog listings or on a separate site.

Ringo,

Thanks for posting the link to the SOTW Wiki. It takes a lot of people and a lot of work to get a wiki up to speed. This wiki has some potential. I'm going to work with it for a while to see how it goes.
If it gets populated with enough stamps, it would certainly be a help to me and others who have to suffer with catalogs that don't picture every stamp. At least it could point me in the right direction for a catalog search.
It also could get younger collectors interested in stamp collecting. Younger people simply aren't going to spend time thumbing through catalogs; they would more likely check a wiki. Heck, one can encourage kids to collect stamps so they can help populate the wiki. It might help.

Dan

Good points danstamps !

And the Wiki was set up by a young'un too !

Just wondering, is it really worth re-inventing the wheel when Wikipedia itself has some of the kinds of info available for certain countries already, all that would be needed would be to perhaps expand on details for some issues and for countries with no listings for their stamps just start one their and perhaps more collectors would join the project when they discover it. I'm all for people wanting to create their own, but I think in terms of broader accessibility to the masses, having complete and thorough articles on the main Wikipedia would be a bigger potential boon to the hobby as a whole. Just my 5 cents, I don't have time in my schedule to undertake such a project (though the idea does interest me).

Personally I don't think you need WIKI with its re-edits and re-edits and re-edits..There is a massive amount of information available if ONLY you knew where to find it..What you (we) need is ONE WEBSITE with links to everything that can be found..Not rocket science just logical thinking...IMHO

Robert

I'm not sure Wikipedia itself is the ideal place for what I envision my ideal Online Stamp Mecca to be, although I'd certainly like the two to be intertwined somewhat. I'd like to see very detailed information such as pictures of watermarks, quantities issued, information about forgeries, identification assistance, etc. I think Wikipedia actually has a rule that articles must be written in layman's terms, and much of this would essentially fall into the category of being too technical. Wikipedia has a lot of great stamp articles on it already, all of them accessible and comprehensible to the non-collector. But I think a lot of us are looking to get a little deeper into the weeds than Wikipedia allows for, but it would be a great source to link to for information on the stamp subject, printing methods, or just about anything.

My 2c:

The ITU country codes come sans copyright, are universally understandable, are 1-3 digits (easily extended to three digits). That makes the USA 001, the UK 044, etc. One would need to do something about the Canadians - who would also be 001 - and the pre-ITU countries & colonies.

The ISO country codes come sans copyright, are universally understandable, are 2 letters. There would be the same quibbling about the colonies, uncountries, occupations, etc, that we have today in Album World. I would add a preceding non-alpha character for all the invented/extended codes, eg #BY or &BY for Bayern, but that's me.

As to the remainder of the non-catalog ID number, we could use date of issue (known & agreed for ?99% of worldwide issues) in the format YYYYMMDD. The use of EKU (Earliest Known Use) for the rest would give us Alex-Rodriguez-vs-Willie Mays (American baseball) arguments to keep some of us aggrieved & insulted, and three more digits would take care of multiple issues by one country on one date, and the minor varieties.

Clumsy, to be sure, but it tells us why asset ID numbers in museums & archives are so awfully long.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey