I have a vague idea to create a wiki for politics-related data. Basically, I’m annoyed with how low-effort, entirely un-researched content dominates modern politics. I think a big part of the problem is that modern political figures use social media platforms that are hostile to context and citing sources.
So my idea for a solution is to create a wiki where original research is not just allowed but encouraged. For example, you could have an article that’s a breakdown of the relative costs to society of private vs public transportation, with calculations and sources and tables and whatnot. It wouldn’t exactly be an argument, but all the data you’d need to make one. And like wikipedia, anyone can edit it, allowing otherwise massive research tasks to be broken up.
The problem is - who creates a wiki nowadays? It feels like getting such a site and community up and running would be hopeless in a landscape dominated by social media. Will this be a pointless waste of time? Is there a more modern way to do this? All thoughts welcome.
The problem isn’t creating the wiki itself but how you’re going to manage a sensitive topic like politics. You’re frustrated with all the low quality political content but if your wiki is community driven, what’s the guarantee that it stays high quality and doesn’t devolve into a flamewar full of misinformation and dubious sources like everything else? It’s hard to imagine people will contribute to something like this without an agenda, so unless you’re prepared to face that storm I’d vote to not do it.