And so it happened that I've finished another wiki project. It started out with a focus on voluntary cooperation in general, but it soon turned into a more specific topic: Public goods and their private alternatives (links to an overview page).
What is becoming more and more frustrating is the level of participation in these wiki projects - or rather the lack of it. I start these projects with an open invitation for anyone to join and choose how much they want to participate. I get limited feedback on the project itself, and then... nothing (or a few edits or link recommendations if I'm lucky). When I finally complete it, I advertise it around, get a few accolades, some backlinks, and... that's it.
When I started the Austrian Economics Wiki, which turned later on into the Mises Wiki, I really hoped to create an actual community that would continue creating resources of this kind. Not just randomly blogging about topics that happen to attract interest at the moment, but creating a database of links and arguments about any given topic one might be interested in. And it's getting there, even if very slowly.
But, I wonder, where are all the brave people calling for "a resource like Wikipedia", so eager at the start, but contributing so little? There is some demand for the wiki pages and the occasional editing by other users, but for the most part, nothing much happens. Is there enough demand to keep it alive (with more than one regular contributor)? I'm starting to wonder.
Anyway, go and check out the page on private alternatives to public goods... there is a lot of material to feed arguments with.
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