Wikipedia vs. Lawi

Wikipedia vs. Lawi

Wikipedia is far from perfect, but it is one of the most successful volunteer-driven projects on the World Wide Web, and that makes it hard to compete with. Any other wiki needs something that differentiates them from Wikipedia in order to lure people to them rather than Wikipedia. The successful ones, such as Conservapedia, RationalWiki, and all the various wikis devoted to analyzing video games, television shows, and so on, have a particular focus that does not overlap with Wikipedia’s

Wikipedia and Lawi are similar in:

• Both are wikis. Both use wiki methods of collaboration. But differ substantially.
• Both aim to create a free and open encyclopedia (although the Wiki Encyclopedia formally looks less “open”).
• Both work on the basis of trust to authors (or editors, in the case of Wikipedia)
• We are committed to a neutral, unbiased presentation of information. In the case of Lawi, it gives less importance to the “neutral” attribute.
• In some cases, both have similar naming conventions (but sometimes are different), and some other style guidelines in common.

Apparent and not apparent differences with Wikipedia

We have a high respect for the Wikipedia project. But we think there are alternatives paths.

In the Wiki Encyclopedia of Law, all entries have been (comissioned or not) written and fact-checked by professionals: therefore,  the site will never be vandalized.

Readers at Lawi can be sure that all the information is, to a highly degree, accurate and incapable of being influenced by outside users. Also, Lawi has many multimedia features that assist researchers, particularly students who are attending distance education courses.

We hope that universities will accept the site as a reliable source when citing information in a research paper.

We created this Encyclopedia in the hopes of improving on Wikipedia’s model. With a “light” review or oversight, all entries are subject to approval by the Encyclopedia’s editorial team. Entries that haven’t been approved will have an accompanying disclaimer, which helps to prevent people from taking potentially false information to heart.

Lawi is, in essence, a compromise between the free-for-all that is Wikipedia and the strict supervision that accompanies Scholarpedia.

Because of this, experts are invited or elected before they are assigned certain topics and, although the site is still editable (to some degree) by anyone like a wiki, updates must first be approved before they are made final. This not only ensures that all information added to the site is accurate and attributed to an author, vandalism never becomes an issue.

All of this was planned to try to avoid the problems with Wikipedia’s almost unguided editing that causes, sometimes, articles to degrade.

Wikipedia and Lawi differ in:

• Wikipedia aims to create a  general encyclopedia; Lowi only focuses in law and legal practice, in a broad sense.
• In Wikipedia, no credentials are needed to participate. In Lawi, often this is no the case.
• Wikipedia uses MediaWiki software and Lawi uses WordPress.
• In Lawi, the system employed do not permit vandalism.
• In Wikipedia, no one sign articles; it doesn´t have lead authors.
• Lawi uses a method for approving articles that depends on the judgment of experts.
• Lawi aim, as other encyclopedias, is to craft compelling introductory narratives, not mere collections of data.
• The Wiki Encyclopedia of Law attach a set of “subentries” of supplementary information to major entries. These include table of contents, indexes, definitions, lists of related articles and other accompanying entries.
• Lawi prefers to use, as a condition for publishing, the concept of maintainability (or feasibility) than notability. We have a Maintainability policy.
• Identified Contributors vs Anonymous
• Only Logged-On expert users can edit vs anyone
• Contributions vs Consensus
• Truth vs Verifiability (sometimes, with no attempt to correct the errors when the verified text is wrong)
• Academic respect vs anti-elitist clique
• Understandable and Organised vs Poorly written and badly organised
• Technical subjects vs. Biased to popular culture
• Single subject matter experts vs collective knowledge of many (different paradigm)
• No deletionists
• No Monoculture of opinión (neutral).

Lawi efforts

The Encyclopedia of Law try to make sure that the articles are well-written and unified, following a coherent, well-organized narrative, not grab-bags of unintegrated facts. The readers will decide if we achieved such goal.

Other Lawi efforts are:

• The use of engaging language, which we think is also required in encyclopedia entries. This includes avoiding stilted or hackneyed expressions.
• We should remember our audience; our goal is to express, not merely impress.
• Wikipedia uses, in its templates, many messages that are for contributors and are self-referential. This includes timing-related messages, expansion requests, and all Wikimedia sister projects. Other templates messages Wikipedia uses are: requesting sources, deletion, disputes and warnings, maintenance, cleanup, and lists. Lawi uses, in general, different messages, and often do not use messages in its templates.
• Some Wikipedia´s articles are written in dense prose that shows off erudition more than really introducing a topic. Lawi prefers, in general, entries to be highly readable introductions written in compelling, narrative prose. This doesn’t mean Lawi´s enntries will have less information.