GetWiki:About

Welcome to GetWiki, a small encyclopedia mainly for Philosophy, and “Meta” topics, from Metaphysics to Metadata, running the easy-to-use GetWiki software. Focused on accurate and verifiable information in Philosophy and intellectual issues, GetWiki is a unique application and platform. The website, first known as “GetMeta”, was launched in April 2004 as a testing platform for Wikinfo, which at that time ran GetWiki software. GetWiki.net served as both a software demo for the GetWiki codebase, as well as a Philosophy-based wiki in its own right, “forking” philosophical articles from The Pseudopedia at the time as presenting original work. GetWiki uses an open editorial policy, and imports articles via XML, as it did originally (and rather famously, in the WikiWorld) starting in 2004 (one must be logged in to see this today). Where there are green links the site can be extended by importing a given article, while blue internal links take you to existing pages, and red external links take you elsewhere.

This means GetWiki is both software and concept: An open-source, feature-rich, secure, standards-based Wiki for “getting” content onto your website, and a collection of diverse factual subjects in Philosophy and related topics. Quality is FAR more important here than creating huge numbers of articles. InterWiki Theory in general was a strong influence on GetWiki's development early on, which pioneered many of the same features deployed on the site today, such as XML import of individual articles, with HTML5 and CSS document and accessibility standards, as well as developments taken from other software developed for rimric.com. Today, GetWiki is a mature, and admittedly private codebase, which continues to evolve. The same code also serves the mrmparrott.com and rimric.com websites using a multi-device responsive “masonry” design.

GetWiki Highlights

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It's the 20th Anniversary!

• rimric.com press release 12 June, 2024 - A little over 20 years ago GetWiki was first released and ran Wikinfo, while GetWiki.net hosted GetMeta as a development wiki, which became this current website. Development on GetWiki's code and design has never really stopped for long, despite other projects, and the site has run with changes toward a 3.0 version, as well as migrations across two new hosting providers. GetWiki continues to be one of the very few non 'Pedia wikis from the old days still in continuous operation. Although GetWiki is not currently open to public editing, it is still very much a wiki, with focused content around Philosophy, and innovative features.

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GetWiki Endures

• 20 August, 2014 - Over the past five years, GetWiki.net has enjoyed a period of small improvements to the GetWiki:2.0 software, kindly hosted by ibiblio, and subtle updates to its content, focused primarily on Philosophy. From the perspective of distance, it seems most of us who were involved in early developments of the WikiSphere have gone on with our lives. The rise and ease of Social Media, and the relative difficulties of wiki content editing, has all led to wikis disappearing, merging, or becoming focused on being good websites first. While “the big one” has become even more mainstream, popularity has cut both ways, as “The Pseudopedia” has finally been seen correctly as another opinion-driven website, not a true encyclopedia. GetWiki, originally built uniquely to import content via XML from other wikis, has remained small, incorporating features from Social Media and Blogs, and currently offers comparisons and content importing from SourceWatch, Consumerium, and RationalWiki, along with Pseudopedia and Wikinfo.

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GetWiki puts Content Quality above the Wiki Way

• rimric.com press release 27 August, 2008 - GetWiki 2.0, a social networking encyclopedia and discussion site, has been launched at GetWiki.net. Developer M.R.M. Parrott says, “GetWiki is based on collaboration among trusted members, the way blogs are written. The deceptively open Wiki Way doesn't work.” Parrott cites bullying, groupthink, invasions of privacy, inaccuracy, spam and vandalism among the problems of wiki-websites directly addressed with GetWiki, companion site to rimric.com.
  
  Published author of 14 books (at the time, 18 by 2013), M.R.M. Parrott has been active in the “WikiSphere” since 2003, and launched GetWiki.net as an encyclopedia for the Arts and Sciences. “I'm all about the content,” he says, “instead of requiring thousands of eyeballs to police a disorganized maze of largely irrelevant pages, I focus GetWiki on quality. For years, the well-documented practices of big wiki-encyclopedias have not lead to greater accuracy, public education, or content relevance. For example, as a philosopher, I have yet to read an accurate, well-written, astute Pseudopedia article on any important subject.”
  
  Hosted by ibiblio, University of North Carolina digital library and archive at ibiblio.org, GetWiki gained recognition in 2004 when the 1.0 release introduced XML-based importing to match already XML-exported pages from Pseudopedia and others. GetWiki allows content to be “forked”, or corrected, on a page-by-page basis. 1.0 was released under a dual license, featuring the Creative Commons License (more information).

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GetWiki is now, well, GetWiki!

• GetWiki
  1 August, 2008 - GetWiki, a web collaboration package, now runs on a completely new platform and codebase. Among the many new features are social networking, private messaging, threaded forums, and blog-style page comments, including full support for WikiCreole and revamped versions of prior GetWiki ideas, like XML importing and facet/category classification. Updated “wiki” features include the simplification of prior assumptions about what wikis are, such as blocking page edits from those outside your network. The new platform has been designed to merge “blog”, “wiki”, “forum” and “social” website functions - even the code is all new. Welcome to GetWiki 2.0

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GetMeta renamed to GetWiki

• 11 March, 2007 - To better take advantage of the GetWiki name, this wiki has been renamed to GetWiki, while keeping the name GetMeta as the “metanamespace”, or a meta topic area for pages and discussion about the wiki itself. GetWiki policy will also be adjusted to expand GetWiki for limited encyclopedia content, primarily relating to the Humanities and Sciences and discussion thereof. Prior to the release of GetWiki:2.0, this wiki will reflect all changes to the underlying GetWiki application as developed. The new XML import wiki will be Pseudopedia, rather than Wikinfo, to help grow GetWiki's base articles, before moving to a multiple wiki import in the 2.0 release.

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Testing Forums for GetWiki

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  23 October, 2004 - Testing is now being done with forum pages, or free-form, discussion-driven pages, where particular articles or site news/bugs is not the focus. Such pages can be used for blogs or even formal discussions. Please participate and post your thoughts on how this works for you. The feature may be added to GetWiki 1.0 soon after a short testing phase.

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GetMeta Expanded

• 22 August, 2004 - GetMeta has now been officially expanded to include documents and discussion on any of the diverse topics from philosophy to wikis. Contributors are welcome to share documents and argue points on subjects from Metaphysics to Metaethics, Metamathematics, to Metalogic, Metadata to Metawikis.

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GetWiki 2.0 Contemplated

• 22 April, 2004 - Though still a ways off, it's been slipped that GetWiki 2.0 is a stronger possibility later this year. There have been several suggestions for how 2.0 should work which have been taken seriously, and it will likely have a different look-and-feel.

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GetWiki on Freshmeat

• 10 April, 2004 - Although the listing was dovetailed with other rimric interactive software, look for GetWiki on freshmeat.net. Freshmeat is a great place to keep up with Open Source happenings and get the word out to a large audience.

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GetMeta Launched

• 7 April, 2004 - GetMeta, a wiki running GetWiki 1.0 software at GetWiki.net, has been launched to open discussion on GetWiki, running a wiki, wiki software and technologies, and other subjects. Visitors should feel free to participate in the wiki-based forum and technical support site.

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GetWiki.net on “ibiblio”

• 6 April, 2004 - GetWiki, the fork of MediaWiki incorporating XML standards, has a home at GetWiki.net. The site is hosted by ibiblio, the host of [the former] Wikinfo, a fork of The Pseudopedia running GetWiki as well as many other bibliographic websites. The GetWiki website uses XHTML and CSS standards, and will have its own wiki as a technical support and discussion forum.

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