Wikispooks:Wikipedia+
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This page - and the Wikipedia+ initiative itself - is a work-in-progress and testing is invited. The latest alpha version of the extension can be downloaded here (Firefox only for now). To discuss/provide feedback, use this Email form or the above discussion tab. |
Wikipedia+ is an open source tool for Wikipedia users. It is a browser extension which augments some Wikipedia pages by suggesting alternative sites perspectives unavailable on Wikipedia itself. Wikispooks is a Wikipedia+ - enabled site. When you browse to Wikipedia, Wikipedia+ notices the name and language of the page. It silently checks with the alternative sites you have chosen whether any matching pages are available. If so, it displays a notification containing links to the matching pages on the other sites that you might wish to visit.
N.B. The Wikipedia+ initiative has no affiliation whatever with the Wikipedia Foundation.
Contents
Rationale
Wikipedia is a vastly popular on-line encyclopaedia. In common with all mainstream media sources, there is a well-established problem with Wikipedia:
To the extent that a subject is judged threatening to established power and the widespread acceptance of 'official narratives' of events, the reliability and ultimate accuracy of Wikipedia articles touching on it is likely to be compromised. At the extremes of power and perceived threat, Wikipedia's 'Neutral-Point-of-View' [1] principle pretty much guarantees that the compromise will be fundamental. (See The Problem with Wikipedia for a fuller discussion)
Wikipedia+ alleviates this difficulty by allowing users to choose for themselves which sources of information they deem as reliable.
Users
Users may value the alternative perspectives they receive from Wikipedia+. It searches in the background, and only makes suggestions when it has found a result of potential interest.
Requirements
Wikipedia Plus currently requires Mozilla Firefox, versions 3 to 5 inclusive.
- Download the latest alpha version here.
Installation
- Firefox versions 4 & 5: Select Tools/add-ons on the browser menu. From the drop-down box next to the search box at the top of the page, select "Install add-on from File....". Browse to the downloaded .XPI file and select it. You will be presented with a window warning you to "Install add-ons only from author whom you trust" and detailing the extension name and file selected. Click the "Install Now" button. The extension should install and you will be prompted to restart your browser.
- Firefox version 3: Select Tools/add-ons on the browser menu. A dialogue window will appear. Drag and drop the .XPI file to the window. You will be prompted to proceed/cancel the installation. Following installation a browser restart is required to use the extension.
Setup
After successful installation the extension icon and status will be present on the browser status bar (bottom-right).
- Click the text to enable/disable Wikipedia+
- Click the icon will pop-up the Wikipedia+ Preferences dialogue window. The window comprises 5 tabs plus OK/Cancel buttons.
The Appearance, Behaviour, and About tabs are pretty self explanatory.
Configuring Websites
Wikipedia+ comes preloaded with some alternative sites which you may wish to use to supplement your Wikipedia experience, but the choice of sites is yours. The Sites tab is for configuring which sites Wikipedia+ checks. This tab shows a list of the sites, with the highest priority sites (checked first, appears on the left) at the top.
- There is a set of reasonably intuitive navigation, information and editing buttons to the right.
- Select a site and click on the pencil icon to the right (or just doubleclick the site) to bring up a dialog to edit it.
- Select a site and click the up/down arrows to change site priority.
- Click the plus icon to add a new site. A dialog will apear for you to input a name, a URL, and which language(s) it uses.
Use
When browsing Wikipedia, if you the extension detects pages on other sites that may correspond to the page you are at, a notification bar will appear as shown above. To go to the sites it suggests, click the corresponding button. By default, these will appear in a new tab, though this can be changed from the options dialog.
Webmasters
The tool suits any websites whose material complements the content on Wikipedia, whether because it directly contradicts it, or simply because it contains more detail than is contained on Wikipedia.
Requirements
Making a site ready for Wikipedia+ is a pretty straightforward task, and doesn't require changing any existing pages. The main task is deciding which wikipedia pages you wish to associate with which of your sites pages.
Choosing an access URL
The first step is to choose a URL pattern by which Wikipedia+ can query the site, e.g. for this site, it is http://www.wikispooks.com/wiki/{PageName} This is requested by the browser add-in, with {PageName} replaced by the name of a Wikipedia page. It must return a 404 (Page Not Found) code unless a page is matching available.
Implementing the access URL
All the access URL has to need is to translate a request for a particular wikipedia PageName either into a locally available page, or give a 404 code if no such page is available. Your means of implementing this will depend on the technology which your site already uses.
General Method
One simple method is to have an access URL of the form http://www.example.com/WP.php?page={PageName}, so that all incoming requests are served by a single script. This could read from a database of local page URL to match with wikipedia PageNames. You may wish to use the simple script written for this purpose by Robin Upton, which is available here.
Wikis only Method
If your site is a wiki, you could use dedicated namespace (this site uses Wikipedia:) to maintain an easy correspondence between your site's pages and Wikipedia's pages. If you already have content, the fastest way to make your site Wikipedia+ ready is to just add a redirect, so that /wiki/Wikipedia:Some_Wikipedia_URL contains #REDIRECT[[Your_Local_URL]].
Contacts
References
