MakeItYourOwn

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The difficulty with the assertion above is that the founder of the wiki, presumably the person most interested in setting the direction of the project, cannot make it her own by setting a style.

: Sunir, that isn't exactly what I meant to discuss on this page. It wasn't so much about setting tone or style -- I wanted to capture the idea that wikis are shared space, that anyone can move in and treat it like their own notepad.

: I've a strange feeling about this page name. Being not a native English speaker, it sounds like a suggestion for a wiki take over. Perhaps the idea is AdvanceToCoOwner?? -- HelmutLeitner

It sounds the same to me. While a wiki could be a Wiki:CollectiveNotepad, a la WikiWiki, that is almost like Geocities. It seems to me rather destructive to have people set up camp, create WalledGardens, etc. This is why we have CommunityExpectations and we EnforceResponsibility. This smells very badly of an AntiPattern. I'd rather see people GetInvolved? than make it their own. -- SunirShah

: In that case I'm still not properly explaining what I mean. It's a positive thing. Small wikis like CssDiscussWiki and DiveIntoOsx gave me the idea. They're very low-traffic places. There is very little interaction. CssDiscussWiki is meant to be a repository of knowledge and ideas about css, and since finding it I've been treating it like a notepad for good links, concepts I learn, or things I want to remember. Of course, I put all that in the style of what is already there, and I'm not making walled gardens. And it's done in the knowledge that what I jot down may be helping other people -- which is what makes it so much better than just a personal notepad. I'm gradually making that wiki into the sort of css reference work I would like to have to hand -- hopefully that is the same as what other people will find useful. Is that any clearer? -- TarQuin

: The way I understand this is by making it your own you are involved. That is one of the reasons I wanted to pull together the OneBigWiki idea. To help others find a space in wiki that is more for them. There is so much space out there. -- MarkDilley

Sure, but it's not that new users are moving the project in a direction of their own, of their own volition, of their own accountability. They are simply getting involved in a situation that you, as the site founder, created. The site remains yours in the sense that you still set the direction, not matter how focused or unfocused that may be. Contrast Meatball, which has a nebulous sense of direction setting, where I set it originally, but now there are a community of stakeholders. Each of the stakeholders can move the direction here, but none would get very far unless the CommunityDoesNotAgree. Even MetaBaby had social rules. EnlargeSpace does not alleviate the fact that the space is a commons. Only when the spaces are private and separate does that work, like Geocities. -- SunirShah

: obviously, if I started writing about my collection of rice krispies on Css-discuss, that wouldn't be right. You can MakeItYourOwn within reason, obviously. You can treat the commons as your back garden, but you can't suddenly decide to concrete it over. -- TarQuin

: another example of this is BookShelved, where participants keep personal booklists. We're doing what we could do as a text file on our hard drives, but the wiki enables interaction.

True, but that's part of BookShelved's mission. I understand what you're getting at, I just cavil at the wording. Perhaps we could find something from the CollectiveIntelligence cluster of pages, because I think what you're saying is that we want all members of TheCollective to be fully themselves whilst BarnRaising, and TheCollective ought to encourage and support people in finding and being (actualizing) themselves as well. We want people to invest themselves, and we want to invest in people. Is that right? -- SunirShah

: Yes, it sounds like a disagreement on wording, not the concept itself. However, I don't much care for GetInvolved?, either. to me, it has overtones of volunteering with a non-profit organization: a good thing, but not what TarQuin is aiming at. Wikis are much less rigid than traditional organizations; although the most successful wikis have clear goals they move toward, there is great flexibily in how each member of the community participate. InvestYourself?, perhaps?

It's a sense of ownership that at the same time does not preclude others making the same claim. I wonder if this idea is so obvious to north americans that you're not seeing it as something to be described (this land is your land, this land is my land etc) -- or if it's too much of a communist-ish principle for you to see it! ;) -- tarquin

How about EmbraceThisWiki?? -- ChrisPurcell

Perhaps TakeResponsibility??

Or SelfInvestment? (or somesuch).

Here's another example. I've just seen on someone's user page on WikiPedia: "It is a crushing blow to my ego that I can't claim credit on articles here..." Of course, it's tongue in cheek. But my reaction to the comment is: no, you can't claim credit of articles. But you can say "I am a small part of what made this whole site" -- instead of owning outright a small piece, you have a sort of "fuzzy ownership" of the whole. hmmm. maybe we should call this FuzzyOwnership?? (Or even WarmAndFuzzyOwnership?? ;) -- TarQuin

I like "fuzzy ownership". The word "fuzzy" was a fad back when lots of people talked about "fuzzy logic", but these days "fuzzy" goes along with "furry" and lots of other cute associations. -- AlexSchroeder

We've moved from an imperative ("Make it your own") to a concept (Fuzzy ownership) which represents more the personal feeling after of having followed the imperative. The more societal perspective is best contained on the page TheCollective, for if you join the project and InvestYourself? (a better name for the imperative), you are part of TheCollective contributing towards the CollectiveIntelligence. Somehow I believe the whole process is described by the metaphor of BarnRaising. Now all someone has to do is put this together. -- SunirShah

MakeItYourOwn

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