Ask HN: Models for Collaborative Websites?

3 pointstduberne7y ago3 comments

I am playing with the idea of creating a niche information website, where I want users to be able to contribute and improve the content.

I am looking at the Wikipedia and StackOverflow models to get inspiration on how to foster quality contributions. Is there any other good example of a website where good quality content emerges from user contributions?

Using a pure Wiki or Stack-exchange model is not an option, because:

- I want to be able to impose a schema for the different items that can be documented, to improve searchability, so a wiki is a bit too unstructured, but

- the general structure should be closer to an encyclopedia than a Q&A

The aim is to provide a collection of quality information, which is missing in that niche, not to make money, in case that matters.

3 comments

3 comments · 2 top-level

amsha7y ago· 1 in thread

The structure of your website's data is less important than its moderation process. High quality online communities tend to have strong, well-defined moderation policies – Wikipedia and Stack Overflow are good examples, as are HN and certain subreddits (eg AskHistorians).

Regardless of the technology behind a website, online communities without strong moderation tend to die over time as low quality content crowds out everything else.

tduberneOP6y ago

Thank you for the remark. That is indeed also what I am looking at, or more precisely the interaction between structure and moderation policy. Stackoverflow is a very good example of how they interact. At such an early stage, I am mostly trying to identify structures on which policies can be built, as policies are much easier to change.

brudgers7y ago

I want to be able to impose a schema

The alternative is document search. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_retrieval It's how Wikipedia, StackOverflow (and Google) provide reasonable search capabilities. Requiring normalized data is likely to reduce user participation. Good luck.