F1

Formula 1 Wiki

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  • #130544
    SonyJunkie
    Participant

    Hey All,

    I know that Wikipedia is the font of all knowledge and has many, many articles related to F1 but I was wondering if there was any interest in creating a dedicated Formula1 wiki.

    I have found the following F1 related wiki – http://f1.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page – but it seems a bit, how to put this politely, sparse!

    I’ll be honest here, I not good at writing articles, however I do think I’m better at the more geeky stuff, i.e. setting up and maintaining!!

    What do you think?

    #186275
    Girts
    Participant

    I think let’s better help @keithcollantine improve F1 Fanatiki although it’s pretty close to perfection already now :)

    #186276
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I prefer editing Wikipedia. Everyone goes to Wikipedia for information, especially softcore fans. A dedicated wiki would need to have thousands of articles written from plain, whilst Wikipedia already has them. If you want to improve the info on F1, do like I do, edit Wikipedia! That way you can create reliable articles accessible by everyone. Not many people will look for a dedicated-wiki to find information, most will go to Wikipedia, and we can help them find reliable sources of information.

    #186277
    Adam Tate
    Participant

    Although you sometimes run into some crazy stuff, the majority and I mean like 99 percent of the F1 related articles I have read on wikipedia have been spot on.

    It’s also great for looking up stats as they have charts for every season.

    #186278

    I lost patience with Wikipedia years ago. I’ve considered creating something similar within F1 Fanatic before but not found a solution I’m close to happy with yet.

    I’m not sold on the approach. Even on Wikipedia, with loads of users, the F1 articles on there are often poorly written, of massively inconsistent quality, riddled with errors, and showing clear influence from users with very strong agendas.

    #186279
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I completely agree. Wikipedia is great for statistics but that’s about all I can get out of it. The race reviews are poorly written and due to the sites nature doesn’t allow for interesting reads.

    I do enjoy going through old F1 seasons and finding drivers I don’t know much about and following their career through their own driver page. It’s good for that.

    #186280
    Adam Tate
    Participant

    I must clarify, I love the charts and statistics on wikipedia, but I must agree with Keith about the articles. They are often full of errors and bias. In fact I was checking out Massa’s page once when someone had edited it, saying he had died. (unrelated to his accident, it was just a stupid prank, but it was still in very poor taste.)

    However, created something with the scope of wikipedia just on F1 would me a monumental undertaking.

    GrandPrix.com and their GP Encyclopedia and Keith’s driver & team bios are about the closest you can get to an F1 wiki.

    #186281
    dragoll
    Participant

    @Keith_Collantine I’m sure if you launched a wiki within F1Fanatic, you would have heaps of contributors. I would be one as well… I think it is important to provide statistics, but people don’t read wikipedia for just stats, they actually read the stuff on there, whether its right/wrong. Most people don’t care for accuracy anymore, however, if F1fanatic user base got on a wiki, you would get quite a few people posting relatively good articles. Furthermore, you could add in a Approval system where you can delegate editorial roles to multiple people and give them the power to approve/reject submissions.

    #186282
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    @dragoll I’m sure Keith has enough on his cards without a wiki to moderate as well. I’d love a reliable online encyclopedia but the fact we are 62 seasons in makes it a little bit tricky ;)

    #186283
    SonyJunkie
    Participant

    @keithcollantine I take it you have looked at a MediaWiki install?

    @smifaye Yes, moderating a wiki would be a lot of work for Keith, however I’m sure Keith has a fair few members of this site he trusts and could assign them moderator status to help keep things in check!!

    The problem with Wikipedia is that there is no consistent structure to the articles, i.e. one drivers profile will be laid out differently to another, or one race report will again be laid out differently to others. With a dedicated wiki the owner & mods could ensure articles are kept consistent, and with the benefit of allowing many, many people to contribute the information would soon build up.

    #186284
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I think if everyone who complains about the quality of articles on Wikipedia contributed to editing them, we would have excellent articles. An example: I was reading Luca Filippi’s English article and noticed it hadn’t been updated for some weeks. I updated the results and his biography, added the Auto GP section and then I swithced to his Italian article. It was under even worse conditions: it had only a brief summary of his career. I copied the tables from en.wikipedia to it.wikipedia and re-wrote the whole career summary, extending it by more than double. I’m now satisfied by it, I think it gives all the necessary information and is updated to the latest results.
    This has been my greatest work, but I’ve updated many drivers’ and team’s results and season summaries.

    #186285
    Adam Tate
    Participant

    Good job Fixy!!

    And you make an excellent point too!

    Anyone can complain, it actually takes something to act.

    #186286

    @Fixy

    I think if everyone who complains about the quality of articles on Wikipedia contributed to editing them, we would have excellent articles.

    If only that were true. I did so once but when you see your edits replaced by all manner of dreadfully written tosh it gets old very quickly.

    #186287
    dragoll
    Participant

    @smifaye I understand where you are coming from. It is ultimately up to Keith, but my response was geared at a subtle suggestion that I would be interested in assisting with such a venture ;)

    #186288
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Very true @KeithCollantine . I just now read Luca Filippi’s English article and I think someone has modified it (also removing information in some parts). I also decided to modify mainly the English Wikipedia, not the Italian one, because firstly the Italian one has fewer articles, and creating an article is much harder than modifying one, then because the English one is more widely used and has more importance, and thirdly because many articles in Italian are written either in a too simple way, as if they were read by a three-year old, or in a too complex way. I rarely visit the Italian Wiki but always visit the English one, and often I find the latter to be more understandable (despite English not being my mother language), except when there are sectorial terms which I don’t know. What I thought of mostly when I wrote that post was articles such as this, 2002 Spanish Grand Prix, which I searched for to find information on the helmet M. Schumacher used in practice (half his and half his brother’s), and to my astonishment I found out there was no review of the race. More recent races have long descriptions, but despite this being just 9 years ago it hasn’t. Some races have excellent articles, some are awful, and although it is very frustrating when someone deletes your work, it’s also a pleasure (for me, at least) to contribute to Wikipedia, and even if your work is modified it serves as a base for the following edits. My article on Filippi in Italian hasn’t been touched, which shows how few visitors/contributors there are there, but also that my work is quite good. That’s why I mostly edit relatively-unknown subjects’ pages, such as GP3 drivers and teams.
    As an example, after months since the 2011 Masters of Formula 3 race had took place, the Masters of Formula 3 article still listed the 2010 edition as being the last. I updated the table adding the pole man, the podium-finishing driver and who scored the fastest lap. It isn’t much but it helps quite a lot.

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