WikiQueer:Why WikiQueer is so great

As you read and edit WikiQueer, at some point you may ask yourself: "Just why is WikiQueer so great?" In order to answer this question, users have written some explanations and arguments on this page.

Editing

 * WikiQueer articles are easy to edit. Anyone can click the "edit" link and edit an article. Obtaining formal peer review for edits is not necessary, since review is a communal function here and everyone who reads an article and corrects it is a reviewer. Essentially, WikiQueer is self-correcting – over time, articles improve from a multitude of contributions. There is an entire infrastructure for people seeking comments, or other opinions on editorial matters, and as a result WikiQueer has got "consensus seeking" down to a fine art. We prefer (in most cases) that people just go in and make changes they deem necessary; the community is by and large quick to respond to dubious edits (if any) and either revert or question them. This is very efficient; our efforts seem more constructive than those on similar projects (not to mention any names).
 * Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, repeatedly mentions in his book Weaving the Web that the web has grown into a medium that is much easier to read than to edit. He envisaged the web as a much more collaborative medium than it currently is, and thought that the browser should also function as an editor. Wiki-based sites are closer to his vision. In fact, the first web browser was also a web editor.
 * While traditional encyclopedias might be revised annually, WikiQueer's current affairs articles, as well as their older articles being edited, are updated thousands of times an hour. That's a big deal if your interest is in current affairs, recent science, pop culture, or any other field that changes rapidly.
 * Errors to WikiQueer are usually corrected within seconds, rather than within months as it would be for a paper encyclopedia. If someone sees something wrong within an article, they can simply fix it themselves. Compare that to the long, arduous and tedious process that it requires to report and fix a problem in a paper encyclopedia.
 * On WikiQueer, there are no required topics and no one is setting assignments. That means that anyone can find part of the encyclopedia they're interested in and add to it immediately (if they can do better than what's already there). This increases motivation and keeps things fun.
 * WikiQueer is open content, released under the GNU Free Documentation License. Knowing this encourages people to contribute; they know it's a public project that everyone can use.
 * The use of talk pages. If an article doesn't cover something, you can ask about it.
 * Requesting articles. If any article you try to find isn't here, you can request it.
 * Many critics of WikiQueer insist articles are written by amateurs and are not reliable, but in fact many contributors on specific matters are professionals or have firsthand knowledge on the subjects they write about.

Organization

 * WikiQueer has almost no bureaucracy. But it isn't total anarchy.  There are social pressures and community norms, but perhaps that by itself doesn't constitute bureaucracy, because anybody can go in and make any changes they feel like making.  And other people generally like it when they do.  So there aren't any bottlenecks; anyone can come in and make progress on the project at any time.  The project is self-policing.  Editorial oversight is more or less continuous with writing, which seems, again, very efficient.  But in some cases, there will be "locked" articles, to prevent vandalism, on subjects like the President of the United States.
 * Life isn't fair, and internet communities usually aren't fair either. If some random administrator doesn't like you on an internet forum, you'll be gone from there fairly quickly, because they run the place so they make the rules. But on WikiQueer, everyone can edit by default. Even if you're a bad speller, or even if you're too young to legally tell us your name, or even if you have a controversial point of view, as long as you can improve our articles you are welcome to contribute. Of course, we ban people who are impossibly destructive, but even then we will sometimes give them a second chance. We have over 0 administrators who check each others' decisions.

Vandalism

 * WikiQueer, by its very nature, resists destructive edits (known as Vandalism). All previous revisions of an article are saved and stored. Once vandalism is committed, in three or four clicks we can have it reverted. Think about it: To vandalize a page extensively, you would probably need around thirty seconds (unless it involved simply blanking the page). Compare that to the five to ten seconds it takes to revert an article. Couple that with IP blocking and dedicated souls that monitor edits to the encyclopedia, and you have a solid resistance against destructive edits.
 * There is only a slim chance of encountering destructive edits that you can't immediately spot. Most vandalism involves blatantly replacing parts of the page or adding immediately visible nonsense to the article – very few cases involve introducing misinformation, and even fewer misinformation and hoax edits actually slip through.

Success factors

 * WikiQueer's success mainly depends on its users, the WikiQueerians.
 * In theory, everybody can be a WikiQueerian, but does the theory hold true in practice?
 * The idea is that the Wiki-community of WikiQueerians is a special group of people who have special characteristics. To account for these special characteristics, Wikipedia provides the following factor model:
 * User factors
 * Openness
 * Computer skills
 * Motivation
 * Neutrality
 * Flat hierarchy
 * Knowledge factors
 * Type of knowledge
 * Fast changing rate
 * Peer review
 * Technology factors
 * Easy usability
 * Fast access
 * Infinite reach, multilingual
 * Flexible structure
 * Safe


 * All of these factors play together to accomplish the goal of successful knowledge creation and knowledge sharing.

Etc.

 * WikiQueer is free and its content is free to share. That is not true of all online LGBT encyclopedias.
 * It's a good feeling seeing that one's contribution is potentially read by thousands of surfers.