If its open google and all the others will index it .

Not true - robot.txt have no follow, no index in it, and the 'good' search engines will not index it - some might, but that would be all right.

No IPs and info could be illegal?

I highly doubt it is illegal not to keep info

The ISP would have them anyway .

True, but it'd make it harder for them.. + no proof of "This IP did in fact edit that post" AFAIK...


Normal Wikipedia seems to work well with anyone can edit anything... I see no reason why this would not also?
What benefit do you get from making expert groups? I think that would be done sorta' via some sort of moderator.. but catagorizing people into their expertise seems like it complicates the issue and makes it all that more harder to take off..
But it could be good. I'll have to think about it more and listen to what others say - but currently my vote is to have it open to all, and edit-able to all. It might be a bitch to moderate, and so something such as that might have to be implemented...

If anyone could edit it it would be more than a bitch to moderate . There would have to be some editing controls or to much time would be spent checking and repairing things that dickheads and trolls had fucked up .. If it was just grouips posting in their sections it would moderate itself . Thats the system used on sites i`ve looked at like the PHPBB developement site . They do it for good reason and it works .

The expert groups would put the knowledge each member has in a group specific to his knowledge . Again if people without expertise in one theme could edit things it would make it to dificult to control . With the read only thread everyone could see what was going on and also leave their comments in the open talk thread in each section so that the experts there could  sort the wheat from the chaff . Wikipedea works but look at the crap thats in it . Look at the amount of moderators it needs . I think that wikipedia has tens of thousands if not more moderators and they still fuck up often . ( To see that look at the cannabis , marijuana and hash parts ....... OMG ....... urban myths presented as facts by people who think that pucks / sopa bars are good !!! And dickheads telling silly storys about how to make hash and judge quality ......rant rant . )

Robots .txt is only followed by some robots - Loads dont follow it . Therew are hundreds of robots . At least more than 300 around at the moment .I`ve got 254 at least registered on my site  But anyway what would be the point  of no robots ? Robots means more people have acsess at the start . When it gets known word of mouth would advertise it so the public would find it anyway...... or how would anyone find it ? .

Why should it be open to the general public to edit . They have no knowledge . or at least nowhere near as much as the people on this site . Would you want a kindergarten group of dickheads being able to edit things = NO .

That everyone can potentials see the end results is good .

Depends where the server is based as to the laws of that country as to the need of keeping details .

About the public editing bit . Pros and cons . The cons by far outway the pros . Why should they be able to edit it when they have next to nothing to say . If they have they can write it in a thread and the people compileing it can take what they need = MUCH easyer and more reliable .

Haveing a server at home has a load of dissadvantages . Its more expensive and les reliable . Plus when something fucks up theres more likelyhood of looseing things and the server owner has to pay for the repairs . <-------- thats something we dont need to talk about because its been covered enough in the press / net . Home servers have the most cons and hosted ones the most pros .

Sedit the cons are the size . The cons are that straight people wouldnt want to take part in something that had underground / illegal drug synthesis sections . Our sort of chemists wouldnt want to have to sift through loads of what you are talking about . Either its a hive / rjodium thing or its a hive / rhodium / erowid / MDS and and and ........ thats over the top ........ keep it in limits and then add sections if there is a need . Its like setting this web site up . There had to be a choice of how many and what sections . To many sections would have made it to big and each section empty . First walk and then run .

Its like good sex . Keep it clean . Keep it simple and dont try / expect to much at once .

I like brainstorming . Tired going to bed . Have fun . Will read following posts.and spit more fire tommorow ......G`night......  LOL

My rebuttal to making groups vs having it open to the public is this:
 Why does wikipedia work so well?
Why would it not work for us?

The general public won't even see the site, the people who do won't even think to edit it, and if content is wrong - someone is way more apt to jump on it than they are to edit correct information into something that is wrong. Provided we force enough references on the content - it would be hard to get false info on it for very long at all...
If everyone can edit it, everyone can moderate it, add to it, and so fourth.

Bickering/ranting/trolling is just as likely to occur between a small group of well known and "smart" members, if not more - than just anyone... trust me on that.

Robots listen pretty well, esp. search engine robots such as google, yahoo, and all most all others  - I'd love to see a search engine that ignores robot texts - someone please show me one (i've looked, can't find them - wtf?) If it does get indexed by some little not-so-popular search engine that has gone rogue than so be it I suppose...

I've dealt to a small extent with 'secretive' communities and their a huge pain in the ass and often still have the same complaints as before...


It is my guess that it is better to at least try and let everyone edit it and fix the problems that arise from doing so, than to make the assumption that those problems will exist to begin with... you'd potentially lose an immense opportunity of help, sources, etc

Many people may be brilliant but not post on forums; but willing to post on a wiki...

Hosting the site might be a viable option at some point; but I certainly do not think it is ideal... but still an option to consider.

Edit:

I don't think editing by the wrong people would be an issue. You now have the power to edit Wiki yet when was the last time you edited anything there? I never have. Given the nature of such a site its doubtful to attract those who want to spread misinformation.

Exactly -- also why this won't fly to well -- who the hell is going to write the pages for it? lol

A large portion of the site could be made from cloning wiki pages to start with saving tons of time.

In addition to rhodium webpages, and than the awful task of rewriting the hive/vesp/some pages on pnaut and other things...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software

there are plenty of php/mysql wiki software packs that are free out there, pretty fast installation.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Contents

check this out simple, easy, clean.

The images are encoded and stored in the database with the pages, backing it up including the images is so easy.

Don't look at me, im an idiot.

However take it like we do in these forums. How long does someones wrong ideas stay up before someone shoots them down? It seems that people get off on shooting down ideas and thats why I believe it would work.

But for that to work correctly we are back to the issue you brought up of traffic. It will need to be heavily moderated until it had a large enough userbase to moderate itself.

The open nature of a hypothetical public wiki makes it highly unlikely that cutting edge information will make it in there from those who are in the know.

What we want would be a highly detailed repository of well-written, well-indexed information. That is also what the kidiots and television producers are looking for.

If it is as visible or accessible as any other site, then all we can expect from contributors is what is on every other site. Although the days of devastating bans (i.e., sassy) are over for now, certain things do not need public attention.

The mere addition of certain workups might send too much public attention down paths which are currently wide open. Anyone is welcome to take that journey, but we don't need carnival barkers drawing attention to those roads less traveled.

Wikipedia is very well trafficked. They have a ton of editors, bots, and channels dedicated solely towards watching recent edits for vandalism or errors. If an idiot decides to alter the start date for the War of 1812 to the year 1813, no harm done. If an idiot decides to engage in subtle vandalism of a chemical workup, expect somebody to follow it and wind up gassed, hit with shrapnel, or staring down an hot acid volcano. Chemistry doesn't allow much room for error, no matter how good the intentions.

We have the option of cloning Wikipedia's appearance, layout, navigation, and editing interface without having to clone their broad acceptance of edits from the whole world. The MediaWiki technology is great, but Wikipedia's openness will fail at something as authoritative, dangerous, and illegal as clandestine chemistry.

If the crowd isn't right, this could turn into a mere reformatting of what is already public in the Rhodium archives, when in fact the goal should be to dig deep in journals, patent databases, and the Hive, to pull up good information and lay it out in a more integrated and useful manner than the current textfilez collection on the Rhodium mirrors. Organizational software like MediaWiki has made that method of website presentation obsolete and clunky.

The scope and mission statement have to be very focused going in. If it's open to the public, and focuses on drugs in general (a la Erowid), then you'll get a bunch of that drug crowd coming through for the bioactivity side of things, which will lower the SnR on the chemistry side of things. There are already plenty of places to talk about drugs and drug use, so there is no advantage in having yet another, especially if it comes at the expense of cogent chemistry discussion.

Wikis aren't as easily cleaned as forums. In a forum, a pointless post can be deleted, after which it will never bother the forum again. Pointless threads can be locked or shipped off to a trash forum. Repetitive queries can be directed to TFSE then mercilessly mocked. On a wiki, cruft just seems to spread, especially on the talk pages.

Wiki talk pages are terrible when multiple people are trying to have multiple conversations on the same subject, all of which are interconnected, and logically belonging in a linear manner.

I think the goal needs to be the leveraging of the best of both worlds. If the Wiki were a companion to a forum, on which is placed only quality, vetted information, by quality, vetted members, with all the discussion remaining in the threads. The forum model is working fine for what it is supposed to do, and The Vespiary is working fine as far as forums go.

What we're really looking for is a new way to present the reference of first resort, which for now, happens to be Rhodium.

I think a critical point here is that Wikipedia itself would never work on a forum equivalent, or anything close. Wikipedia needed everything Wikified for the collaboration to function. Forums work fine for collaboration in the chemical underground. The big advantage for starting a CC Wiki is in how information is presented and in what format, not the collaboration behind the pages being presented.

With a Wiki you have the ability to lock a page from public editing if moderators feel it is necessary. I think the best thing would be to have a full publicaly available Wiki at launch after we port over the base information such as the Rhodium Archieve. We can then give it a few months and see if its working and if it's attracting the right crowd. Any pages being messed up we can lock

Wikipedia isn't complete, or anything close to it. Many Wikipedia contributors see errors as inevitable and acceptable because, at this point, the project is only half working encyclopedia. The other half is a work in progress.

Wikipedia is a large, collaborative project to amass all human knowledge of encyclopedic relevance. If it were software, we'd call it a pre-alpha.

While Wikipedia can be useful as a starting point for general reference, it certainly isn't of academic quality, nor should anybody expect it to be. Wikipedia is a continual work in progress.

On the other hand, a CC wiki should be authoritative. When something is posted, it needs to be right. For references, that includes screening out the bogus patents and ensuring translations are precise. For experimental data, that includes having a competent editor verify the information.

We would want a CC wiki to be something which can be relied upon. Experimentalism involves making mistakes and learning from them. We shouldn't be shy about making our own mistakes, but many times, it is better to learn from the mistakes of others. If a process is troublesome or touchy, it helps to clearly identify it as such. That information has the real-world relevance we need, whereas published experimental data is often devoid of the pitfalls and trouble it took to get to that final snapshot of what worked.

On Wikipedia, they run bots and IRC channels dedicated solely to prevent edits to certain chemical data, such as a previously verified melting point. They can get away with this, because Wikipedia can't yet be held as authoritative, and there is a lot less to check. On a CC wiki, virtually everything needs to be verified as correct otherwise the rest of the information will do no good when a reaction fails to produce, or fails in a way which produces injury.

I don't want to see it become a how-to cookbook, but on the other hand, problems clearly need to be identified as such, and less-promising methods need to be deprioritized in how the text is presented and marked up. For example, the ubiquitous and useful LAH will be unavailable in most of our labs, so the information presented shouldn't be a giant dump of all the LAH-intensive procedures from the literature. While they might be good chemistry, in the real world, it will be beyond the reach of the readership. Amassing a giant collection of procedures which hardly anyone can run just doesn't seem like the best use of effort, given all of the other things which can be verified and presented instead.

I found this and its something along the lines of what im thinking. These sort of things are all over Wiki yet they don't get in trouble for it or watched by the government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strychnine_total_synthesis

Check out MDMA artical
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA

All the work we would have to do is expand the chemistry portion of these text to suit our desires. If specific pages where spidered and added all that information to the data base it could grow very large very fast.