WikiLog

This is my log of stuff that's related to this community for the most part, but occasionally maybe not.

2007/04/25 - 12:30 UTC

: Well hello again. As you can see I've been away for quite some time. This is a quick note to say that I'll be attending RoCoCoCamp? in Montreal next month, so it would be great to meet any other Meatballers there.
: On a different topic, I've been trying and failing to track down a wiki I knew a couple of years back. It was running UseModWiki, and being used by the students of a college writing class to not only submit their work but interactively hyperlink and comment on other students' work. Does this ring a bell with anyone?

2005/08/26 - 20:53 UTC

: TheAdjunct just made it into WikiWiki's SisterSites. Come one, come all.

2005/07/06 - 06:47 UTC

: Just got back yesterday from two weeks' vacation in Toronto, where I had a warm welcome.

2005/01/14 - 02:41 UTC

: On Wiki:CrazyThingsThatMightSaveWiki, I wrote an idea I had for saving Wiki by mutating it into three deeply Wiki:InterTwingled SisterSites. Given the current situation there, though, I'm starting to think that the only solution is a totally unauthorised CommunityFork to somewhere with rigidly enforced policy (hey Mommy, look at the funny CryptoNaut). I'm fairly sure that this would piss off a lot of people, though. RightToFork, on WardsWiki? I doubt it. But isn't the Wiki:HeatDeathOfWiki a MitigatingFactor?? EmbraceTheCycle.

: One of the reasons I like NearLinks. -- AlexSchroeder

: Sorry, I don't understand. What does that have to do with doing a wholesale duplication of the valuable parts of WardsWiki? -- EM

: You can write new pages on the new wiki, and link to pages as you did before. If the page exists on the new wiki, the link works as expected. As long as the page exists only on the old wiki, the link will point to the old wiki. This allows you to write new content elsewhere without loosing your power of expression ("link language") -- the old pages are as available as the new pages, eventhough not local. -- as

: I wonder whether MathWorld would have been as successful or reliable if it had been a wiki; MathWorld welcomes contributions, but not in the same way a wiki does. And I wonder how WikiWiki would look today if the PPR had been more like MathWorld. Of course, it is still possible for a few dedicated folks to create something similar to MathWorld for the patterns community (or inversely, create a wiki for the math community, though no doubt WikiPedia is trying to fill some of that space). -- ScottMoonen

: The idea of building a new pattern repository from the ground up is a daunting one, but also something that hovers in the back of my mind a lot. -- EM

: Neither your suggestion nor Alex's gets at the heart of the matter. You are both only focusing on superficial concerns. The content and the ability to link are only valuable once situated in the full context of the people using, creating, building, and discussing that content. NearLinks (or TwinPages) do not work just by themselves. Your comment about it being a CryptoNaut is not something to laugh at. Why is it a cryptonautic response? Because it ignores the social dimension. You need to bring people along with you in order to work. And most critically, you need to bring only the right people along with you. That is, the people who contribute most to the wiki that you enjoy interacting with. And you have to offer them something that is much better than what the are getting from c2 in order to overcome the SwitchingCosts. You cannot build something with a negative focus either: we are not them. You need to do something new and valuable unto itself. -- SunirShah

: Yes, absolutely. I was reading [LambdaMOO Takes A New Direction] yesterday, and I was struck by its similarity to the politics of WardsWiki. Ward made that same decision long ago, to let the community be SelfPolicing, but time has shown that the community's standards, without any help from an administrative PoliceForce, have had the same effect as widespread use of antibiotics: whilst successful most of the time, a tougher, more resistant strain of vandal has now evolved. Technical solutions are necessary. I believe that IfYouBuildItTheyWillCome, because it - providing you've put enough thought into it - will be worth it. Yes, there's a SwitchingCost - but is in contrast to the prospect of a descent into chaos. The thrust would not be that "this is not the other place"; it would be more like "this is just like the other place". The added value would come from being able to do exactly the same thing you were doing before and being able to be confident that nobody can repeatedly drive a tank over the barn you spent a long time raising without anyone doing anything about it. I believe that the reason Wiki is in decay is that those people would otherwise have been contributing the most, that you and I enjoy interacting with, are making a vote of no confidence with their feet. My biggest fear is that those who left have ended up with a permanent sour taste in their mouth because of whatever drove them to leave. Anyway, this is all moot, because I know I won't be doing a Wiki fork. It would be sad if Ward allows it to slide, but it is WardsWiki after all. -- EarleMartin

2005/01/12 - 13:11 UTC

: Currently enjoying reading through a wiki called [Analog and Digital Rhetorics], which seems, interestingly, to be the core of a college course based around using wikis. They're currently having a bit of a WikiSpam problem - anyone care to help me help them tidy up?
: Despite the impression the below entry might give, I actually undeleted myself a couple of days later, after sleeping on it and thinking a lot. Wiki has been down the last couple of days, and I wonder if that's because Ward is working on a technical fix for the problem of WikiWiki edit wars.

2004/10/05 - 19:32 UTC

: I've finally been driven to delete myself from WardsWiki. Insularity ahoy. I haven't been paying much attention to MeatBall recently; how are you all? What's up?

: I'm sorry to hear that, but it's understandable. Meatball is kind of slumbering along, looking for meaning. With wiki culture dead or dying, and the web dead since HTML4, it's hard to know what to do next, but I think the next important net.thing is political. Not necessarily in the sense of elections, but in helping society figure out how to realign and restructure itself in a constructive way rather than a destructive way. -- SunirShah

2004/05/26 - 09:46 UTC

: All roads lead to Meatball. On CryptoNaut, Sunir mentions a [Skinner box]. I did some searching around to find out what that was, and read some things about the man. Then just now, whilst having an xwrits-mandated break from typing I was reading a 27-year-old back issue of [Foundation] that I bought the other day from a second-hand bookstore, and it mentioned a book called "Walden Two", by one B.F. Skinner. I'd never heard of him before now. Reading a [review] of the book, I see a mention of Plato's philosopher-kings. The second Google hit for philosopher-kings is PhilosopherKing. Sunir, I think you're developing some kind of spatio-temporal tractor beam here.

: Skinner practically single-handedly destroyed 20th century psychology by sending it into the dead-end of behavioralism; it didn't really begin to recover until cognitive science developed. The late 19th century psychologist William James is a surprisingly modern read in many ways, but he was practically forgotten for many decades.
: I read Walden Two as a freshman in high school and got all gung ho about its utopian vision, which severely disturbed the teacher, who intended it as an obvious example of a dystopia. :-) -- DougMerritt

2004/03/28 - 15:37 UTC

I just discovered [Recyclopedia], which seemed interesting. But then I took a look at its RecentChanges, and found a lot of things like "sysop vandalism" from 142.* IP addresses. Sigh. I'm not sure whether he latched onto Recyclopedia and started colonising it in the usual way or if the entire thing's another project of his alongside consumerium.org (or was that the same thing happening?). Either way, it's dispiriting. I also took a look at WardsWiki for the first time in a few weeks and was just in time to witness our CommunityOutcast deleting FrancisHwang's home page. Sigh (again).

: Consumerium is a project by WikiPedia:User:Juxho, actually. It's another case of colonization, although Juxho seems somewhat comfortable with it. I suspect it's the same for Recyclopedia. -- StephenGilbert

: Recyclopedia seems to have even its front page password protected now, presumably due to 142.* -- but that's a dumb thing to do. So, what is/was recyclopedia before they lowered the iron curtain?
: It was a green encyclopedia with an anarchist bent, recycling, sustainable communities, community organization, action planning, that kind of thing (see http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/wiki.pl?Recyclopedia). Shame; I liked it a lot.

Meatball Mail

Hi Earle, Just curious if I stepped on your toes by changing Eclectic Tour to not include Geek Wiki (because it was on your tourism tour) - Let me know, I think I am experiencing the tension between just wiki-ing and trying to work with others on this project. (Helmut is nice because he gives timelines for doing things, I just won't remember so I WikiNow.) :-) Best, MarkDilley

Hi Mark - no, that's not a problem. What I like about the TourBus system is that it's user-mutable (unlike real bus routes), so feel free to "interfere" with my section of it. The system should adapt to demand (or, perhaps, aesthetics?). I know what you mean about timelines; in addition, I find them hard to deal with in this context, because there's no guarantee of when the next time is that someone you're collaborating with will look at the wiki (there are no WikiWorkSchedule?s, as far as I know... yet). Cheers, Earle.

Great Earle! I do like your changes too! :-) - I would like for us to think about adding Meatball as a stop, somehow if only to give the Tourism Travel tour more exposure. Best, MarkDilley

I chanced upon your "tour bus map" but it did not work :(

Yeah, I broke it. Sorry! I hope I can find the time soon to work on fixing it.

Hi Earle, sorry that I couldn't send my response to your last feedback earlier. The usemod script timed out everytime, when I tried to save. So I saved my response, (I had already written semi-offline) to you by blog only. As you didn't respond to our last Wiki mail conversation (some days ago), I didn't respond in this case too. But I feel anyhow, your dangling questions need an answer. I hope we can overcome this hiatus. :-) -- fridemar.

Hi again - I know, I never got back to you :) I keep thinking that I need to do so and help us all work towards a shared agreement of some kind. I promise I'll try and get it done this week. :) Best, -- Earle

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