(copy of post to the electionscience list.)
I'd like to invite any interested in developing educational resources
on election science to register on Wikiversity and participate in the
School of Election Science. (Wikipedia accounts should work there if
they've been linked as a Single Unified Login (SUL) account, but some
people do register real name accounts on Wikiversity, it's far more
like academia than Wikipedia.)
Wikiversity isn't like Wikipedia, the comparison would be between a
university and an encyclopedia. On Wikipedia, there is a constant
struggle for space in a page on a topic, there can be only one page,
and Wikipedia mainspace does not allow subpages.
Wikiversity handles conflict, where users cannot agree, by forking.
It is required that content be, overall, neutral, but individual
pages can express opinions, and can be placed in a hierarchy for
overall neutrality. Subpages may be used. Original research is
allowed, even encouraged.
As matters stand, Wikiversity is very small compared to Wikipedia;
however, I (and some others) predict that Wikiversity could
ultimately be much larger. Compare a university library with an encyclopedia!
It has been very difficult to make Wikipedia articles reflect what is
well-known in the field of election science, because often what is
well-known isn't found in sources that Wikipedia considers standard
reliable source. A great deal of the development of election science
took place on mailing lists, over the last twenty years.
Many new users on Wikipedia run into trouble because they want to
discuss the topic. That's strongly discouraged on Wikipedia. It's
part of the process on Wikiversity, just as students in seminars in a
university are encouraged to discuss the subject.
Further, it is, in theory, a standard practice, where Wikiversity has
resources on a topic, to place an interwiki link to the Wikiversity
resource in a corresponding Wikipedia article. This can provide a
method for Wikipedia readers to find deeper material, including
interactive learning, than is possible on Wikipedia.
Wikiversity could also serve, and has served sometimes, as an
incubator for better Wikipedia articles, because scholars on
Wikiversity may freely cooperate on better-written articles, multiple
versions if they can't agree, which can then be proposed as
replacements on Wikipedia, thus bypassing the excruciating one edit
at a time process that can make it very frustrating to edit
Wikipedia. (If you make major changes to a standing Wikipedia
article, be prepared to see them all reverted, quickly. But an RfC on
Wikipedia could decide to choose an alternate version, and the
decision, showing consensus, would stick.)
Take a look at
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/School:Election_Science, I just
started that resource.
Drop on by http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Abd, my Talk page.
And, while you are at it, take a look at
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Delegable_proxy
Hopefully, this will be the first substantial application of
Delegable Proxy beyond Demoex and Voterola. It was proposed as an
experiment for Wikipedia about three years ago, and was, essentially,
crushed. But Wikiversity is very, very different. I'm currently an
administrator on Wikiversity, just to give you an idea. I can't use
that to favor any position, but I've been working for well over a
year to insure that Wikiversity stays open and free as a cooperative community.
(Wikiversity is often slow to respond, don't jump to conclusions from
absence of immediate activity.)
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