Definitions have always been a tricky part of this system. The debate hinges on a few key terms (ex. “space weapons”, “outer space”) but the rest are technical terms or program descriptions and acronyms (ex. “geostationary orbit”, or “FALCON”). When entering these definitions, I kept referring to Wikipedia for a baseline definition. However, if Wikipedia suffices as a definition resource for the terms used in this debate, why attempt to compete? If the much greater hivemind of Wikipedia can agree on a definition, that will probably suit the purpouses of this debate as well.

So I’ve upgraded the definition tool to integrate some definitions with wikipedia. For definitions that have been ‘wikified’ the full text of the definition will come from the live wikipedia page’s summary (the first couple of paragraphs for the entry). The ‘Edit’ and ‘History’ tabs for integrated definitions will link to the corresponding pages on Wikipedia but the ‘Discuss’ tab will remain on this site to address any specific issues.

An example of a definition outsourced to Wikipedia

The text for this definition is a mirror of the Wikipedia page for this term. The Edit and History links will take you to the corresponding pages for this term on Wikipedia. [ More on Wikipedia Integration]

I still have some bugs to work out on this — especially parsing and outputting Wikipedia’s syntax correctly — but let me know what you think.