Can we beat Wolfram?

[BigMoosie]

How much information is stored in the wolfram maths website? It seems like alot to me. But do you reckon that it would be hard to create a system like wikipedia but dedicated to maths? How much effort would be involved, and would anybody here be willing to contribute if I started a website like that?

[matt grime]

There is a wiki for maths, called planetmath I think

[Dave]

It's a lot of effort. I played around with the idea myself, but it's a lot of work. I mean, you have to bear in mind that on top of wikipedia and Wolfram, you have Planetmath as well. All of these sites have significant contributions from a lot of volunteers, a lot of whom are graduate level or more.

 

I've been thinking about making some kind of wiki-type system for vBulletin. I think it would go well with the theme of the site, but I'm not so sure as to how much it would actually get used, and how many people would contribute entries. We'll see, I suppose.

[BigMoosie]

Since these resources are free to the public, would it be legal to spider their sites to give mine a headstart?

[Dave]

I think you can go ahead and download the entire Planetmath database if you so desired. I've always found with these things that it easier to start from the ground up, so to speak.

 

Maybe I'll give the entire vBulletin-wiki thing a go. It might turn out okay, you never know

[matt grime]

Why reinvent the wheel? Just contribute to the currently extant planetmath.

 

In any case, no one person has the knowledge to write one of those sites on their own, even if they had the time.

[ydoaPs]

didn't we start a sfn wiki-esque dealy a while ago?

[blike]

We had an SFN wiki, until it mysteriously killed itself. Nonetheless, projects like that need a large effort to be successful. I would like to create a wiki dedicated to science, but I dont' think we have the resources to successfully get one off the ground. Further, one probably already exists.

[Lyssia]

Together PlanetMath and Wolfram suffice for me Whilst Wolfram seems a little more dandy in the way it's put together, I prefer PM. I'd love to actually take an active role in PM but I never seem to have the time

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Maybe I'll give the entire vBulletin-wiki thing a go. It might turn out okay, you never know

It would be easier if you just made a vBulletin skin for MediaWiki and then integrated the users databases. Much easier and quicker.

 

It would be nice if we could restart the science wiki we had. A very quick Google search shows no very popular ones at the moment, and with our current userbase, I'm sure we could get one. Money and time willing.

[PhDP]

Work with Wikipedia. If many scientists/mathematicians/amateurs were working on it, it could become a very comprehensive scientific encyclopedia, it's free, it's easy to add information and, most important of all, it's using LaTeX !

 

In my opinion, there's too many duplication on internet, websites doing essentially the same thing...

[Severian]

Awww, when you said 'Can we beat Wolfram?' I thought you mean you had him hostage in your cellar and were inviting people round for a go with the baseball bat! I'm disappointed....

[ydoaPs]

who says he doesn't?

[Lyssia]

Work with Wikipedia. If many scientists/mathematicians/amateurs were working on it' date=' it could become a very comprehensive scientific encyclopedia, it's free, it's easy to add information and, most important of all, it's using LaTeX !

 

In my opinion, there's too many duplication on internet, websites doing essentially the same thing...[/quote']

 

Whilst I agree with you that there is a lot of unnecessary repetition on the www, I wouldn't like to see Wikipedia turn into a big scientific/mathematical resource. Many people only use it for the equivalent of "light reading" due to the glaring inaccuracies that are often apparant. I don't think that a knowledge bank of something rigourous like maths would make a good combination with this. Viva PlanetMath!