Help:Reviews/Centiare, a new kind of wiki

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Centiare, a new kind of wiki

Point-Counter Point

Centiare chooses not to utilize some of the collaboration possibilities: When you have set up a directory page, only you can edit it.

All of the collaboration features are still present -- any group of individuals can team up to create and maintain Directory listings, while enjoying full credit for their authorship and (with Google AdSense and Amazon Associates links) remuneration for their efforts.

Wiki but not a wiki ... by most definitions, this directory part of Centiare is not a wiki.

Centiare, the free directory. Centiare is a directory powered by Mediawiki software. How and why web sites are defined by their choice of software is an interesting question. For those that enjoy the shorthand, okay, Centiare is a wiki. However, we think of it more as a directory that happens to employ some pretty cool (and stable) wiki software.

Ownership

The fact that anyone can write about any company, and not only their own, is bound to cause conflict, even if companies that can prove that they are the “rightful owners” of the company listed, may ask to get editorial control of the relevant article.

This notice is displayed for all new listings:

During this important time of building up our new directory, users are allowed to create Directory Space articles about entities which they do not own or have a legal interest in. Of course, you may not use Centiare to libel others. Also, if and when the rightful owner of an article topic appears, they can and will "claim" the space, which will be transferred immediately by a Centiare sysop.

Instead of being a negative, this provides a great advantage. We have users (typically, experienced Wikipedians) creating content for many different entities each day. At the same time, we process requests for change of control on an almost equal basis. Guess what? The original editor is often retained by the legitimate "owner" for ongoing editing services, especially if the entity doesn't have sufficient experience with the MediaWiki program.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization. We find it very doubtful that Centiare pages should perform any better than other pages per se.

They do because of the resource description framework (RDF) report that's automatically generated at the bottom of each page that uses a semantic attribute and/or relationship. If you click and view the report from this page itself, you might notice that the XML output looks a lot like a sitemap. Also, the URI happens to reference one of the leading W3C semantic web players -- you can draw your own conclusions.

The examples given are for rather narrow search phrases, and do not in any way prove the SEO benefits of the concept.

Try Littleton graphics. The Centiare listing ranks 7th out of 408,000 results -- see the semantic references (attributes) in the result? A generic search using city-service pairings is probably one of the most widely used search methods. Another example might be a scientific inquiry, such as Florida stone crab video. The Centiare listing ranks 3rd out of 284,000 results. Sure, these are somewhat narrow search phrases, but they definitely prove the benefits of creating semantically tagged listings on Centiare.

We don’t to see why these articles should perform any better than the companies’ own web sites, or for that matter why companies should spend time writing articles about themselves on Centiare, when the main generator of traffic will continue to be search engine traffic to their own web sites, and not Centiare.

Try and find Lion Graphics' own web site in the "Littleton graphics" search above. What many SEO pundits fail to address is the fact that many small- and medium-sized business owners don't have the time or skill to be updating and optimizing their web site every day. Plus, they will never build a site with as much inter-linking opportunity as Centiare. In just a few minutes, they can build an enduring SEO-friendly site here, which will be one click away from their own home page. Why would a business NOT want that?

Editorial Review Board

In addition to allowing companies and persons to write articles about themselves, users may also write more traditional encyclopedia entries and topic articles. These are not owned by the author, so anyone can edit them. We fail to see how this system adds value to the one already used by Wikipedia. After all, one of the benefits of writing for the Centiare directory is that no one else can come in and “ruin” your text.

Centiare's Editorial Review Board protects certain Main space articles that meet its criteria and allows the contributing authors to create links back to their Directory listings. This is a tremendous feature for academics and other authors who wish to both protect and promote their intellectual property.

Semantic Tags

Portals are based on the 2002 North America Industry Classification System (NAICS) sectors. This is a complicated six digit structure with 20 primary sectors. So far just a few businesses have tagged their entries with NAICS codes.

Semantic tags improve search engine results. That's all anyone who wishes to promote their goods and/or services wants to know.

How will the combination of business directory and Web 2.0 style community work out? Centaire has none of the glossy web design and smooth interaction that the successful social networking sites have.

Centiare is powered by the same rendering software as Wikipedia, plus a number of custom extensions that improve its functionality. Wikipedia has managed to become one of the most popular sites on the Internet with "none of the glossy web design and smooth interaction that the successful social networking sites have".

Although I get a tingling sensation hearing about semantic tagging, I am not convinced this is a great selling point outside of geek circles, and I doubt that writers will add tags to the extent Centiare hopes for.

Semantic tags improve search engine results. That's all anyone who wishes to promote their goods and/or services wants to know. Why would Amazon be doing the same thing with Amapedia that Centiare is doing? Amazon certainly operates "outside of geek circles".