Psychology Wiki FAQ

Question: Could the site be better served by being hosted by one of the national psychology societies?

Answer: I think there is quite a discussion to be had on this question and there are a number of pros and cons that I have got to    *That not being tied to a particular nations society protects the integrity of the internationalist part of the agenda for the site. *The advertising system for the site does allow the National societies to target their advertising to the psychology community. It may be possible to protect the scientific integrity of the site by securing advertising revenue from the societies collectively in the future. This might be halfway house model. * There is a problem gaining permission for the copyright to articles, given that they are to be used on a profit making site. * There is a hurdle to be overcome in peoples perception of the site and their believe that we as contributors are making money from it - which is not the case. * Its not clear to me but it may be that the national socities might feel that they couldn't recommend the site, support its growth etc, because it is a money making venture.
 * 1) As it stands the site can be transferred over to another host if this is what we decide. It is fully backupable (if there is such a word) and the software to run it is free
 * 2) The first problem to any move is capacity and cost. Wikipedia currently has 1m pages and 300,000 hits a day. Supposing we were able to document every reference as envisaged it is likely that we will approach this size say in 10 years time. With the number of academic and practioner psychologists by then, I think it is reasonable to think that level of activity could be reached also, if people are accessing it 2 or 3 times a day. Wikepedia currently runs on 56 computers linked together. So as you can see there would be a large management issue with implications  for upgrading internet connections etc. You would need to employ a team of people to run the system. This I estimate at current prices would cost about £250,000 to set up, depending on accomodationa availability, with a budget of £100,000pa to run it.  On this sort of analysis the wikicities deal looks by far the best option, assuming their advertising funded model is sustainable. They will be spreading these costs over a large number of projects so I feel it is viable in the longterm. For example it is crystal clear to me that all academic disciplines will need to go down this sort of route, because they all have the same knowledge management problems.
 * 3) The pros I have identified with the current arrangements are:
 * 1) The cons I have identified are:

The character and reliability of Mr Wales

Advertising and the profit motive for Wikicities

Separate management/siting of the project