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Wikicars FAQ: Difference between revisions

Wikicars, a place to share your automotive knowledge
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'''Will Wikicars go international?'''
'''Will Wikicars go international?'''


Wikicars seeks to be the most authoritative automotive site in the world.  Users from outside of the United States are encouraged to start their own country's versions, and Internet Brands can help get them up and running. ''(Reader comment:  It seems that Wikicars is currently organized by language, not country, e.g. "en" for English.  So if Australia, for instance, is to have its own version to reflect the very different set of cars available there then this needs to be reflected in the structure.  But it's not just about country:  the cars sold in Canada are very similar to those sold in the USA, though there are differences.  And then there's French Canada which has the same cars as English Canada but the same language as, for instance, France.  So things are more complex than indicated earlier in this paragraph.  I think Internet Brands is going to have to make some decisions, starting with whether the current "en" site is really supposed to be for the USA only, and make those decisions extremely clear on the site.  Otherwise Wikicars will become a very confused place.)''
Wikicars seeks to be the most authoritative automotive site in the world.  Users from outside of the United States are encouraged to start their own country's versions, and Internet Brands can help get them up and running.

Revision as of 10:27, 3 August 2006

Here are some frequently-asked questions about Wikicars, along with answers. You are welcome to post more questions, although we ask you to do so in the Discussion page first.


Who writes the content on Wikicars?

Car owners and enthusiasts like you create Wikicars content. Car experts in the automotve division of Internet Brands helped launch the project and are ongoing contributors; they drew on their own experience in the automotive industry and as car-owners, as well as publicly available information from Internet Brands' automotive sites, Wikipedia and government sites.


How does Wikicars make money?

Wikicars was initially created as a labor of love by the car-loving employees of Internet Brands' automotive businesses. Although there are no immediate plans, the site is likely to eventually include non-obtrusive, context sensitive ads, similar to Google adsense.


Is Wikicars an encyclopedia or a guide?

Wikicars is both. Wikicars aspires to be the most comprehensive source of fact based information about automobiles -- a Wikipedia of cars. At the same time, Wikicars is a guidebook, offering the consensus opinion of our community about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the automotive world. We believe this consensus opinion is very helpful; opinion and reviews that reflect the collective views of many people are much more likely to be accurate and unbiased. We have attempted to clearly label the opinion parts of the site. Some pages, such as Car Review Pages, are designed to be primarily opinion. Other pages have specifically labeled sections called "criticisms".


How is Wikicars different from Wikipedia?

Wikicars was inspired by Wikipedia and follows many of its policy and style guidelines. But there are differences:

- Wikicars solicits and offers content that is exclusively focused on automotive, including many contributions from Internet Brands content libraries.

- Wikicars encourages users to voice their opinions as added color to vehicle history and fact-sets. (See "Is Wikicars an encyclopedia or a guide? question above.)

- Wikicars is organized to help car-shoppers as much as enthusiasts or historians. For example, information on more recent models is displayed more prominently since most net searchers are interested in more recent years of a given model.


How comprehensive is Wikicars?

Wikicars offers articles on every major make and model sold in the United States, as well as related topics, such as hybrid technology, common vehicle features, automotive financing and car-buying.


How does Wikicars ensure the accuracy of its articles?

The best editors in the world are the millions of car owners, shoppers and enthusiasts who regularly use the internet and sites like Wikicars. Mistakes or inaccuracies occur in any automotive content, but the Wiki collaborative editing process ensures that Wikicars content reflects the finely-honed consensus (or clearly-labeled opinions) of the driving public.


Will Wikicars go international?

Wikicars seeks to be the most authoritative automotive site in the world. Users from outside of the United States are encouraged to start their own country's versions, and Internet Brands can help get them up and running.