RecentChangesTrail

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This is just another initiative to better connect different wikis via their most sensitive page, the RecentChanges page. Instead of editing this critical page by users, we started a less invasive approach:

We created a WikiTrail with the social annotation software of TrailFire. As it is a WikiTrail (a Wiki:WikilikeThing), each wikizen, who is at the same time a member of the FireTrail Community can leave their public, private or even Wikiannotation, without disturbing other peers.

Discussion: Hans, can you test it please, if you still use this software. Actually it is your idea to leave annotations on RecentChanges. You did it with DiiGo and discovered that Diigo is meanwhile degraded from its originary rich text format. Fortunately Trailfire cultivates still this superior format; one can embed even fullfledged videos. -- FridemarPache

Fridemar..

I continue to use both DiiGo and TrailFire and have previously added an instance of both to RecentChanges. Both are still visible to me (and I use them quite a bit).

Is there something specific that you would like me to test?

-- HansWobbe

Good to know, that at least your annotations are visible to you. Meanwhile some accident must have occurred to DiiGo. I guess, that some annotations, originally made "public" were possibly be turned into "private" ones. Please check, if your annotations are still public, because I can't see them any more. For testing I ask you, to add some comment or better an additional TrailMark to the RecentChanges trail. Of course, any wikizen with their favored RecentChanges can add an additional TrailMark, which is automatically linked into this "virtual webring on a fly". Actually this is much more as a WebRing, because the TrailFire system, incorporates automatic tagging and generates a table of similar pages. Besides that, these Trails and Marks are detected by Google. Highly recommended. -- FridemarPache

PS.: I just noticed that you are experimenting with a TrailFire trail, named "Meatball:RecentChanges". The test on wikiness, I suggest, is to add an additional TrailMark to the trail, named "RecentChanges", that extends the "ring" of connected RecentChanges of different wikis, thus creating a lightweight TourBus structure. An other view is to see it as a mechanism to make different Recent Changes WikiNodes. -- Fridemar

I believe that there was a significant change made when they implemented Version 3.

Certainly the defaults for annotations are now quite different.
Their Tagging capabilities remain very much of interest to me. Given the extensive use I make of DiiGo, a am becoming increasingly concerned about emerging "dependencies".
- The "community" aspects do not seem to have gained traction and Maggie suggested that this was an important part of their business model.
- Google ads are now quite prominent (although I seldom see them the use I make of this software).
- Their development efforts seem to have stopped. This could be simply because Maggie and Wen went traveling in China, or that they needed a break after struggling with V3.
  - Their travel schedule and mine kept us from meeting last winter and this fall when I was in their area, so I'm undoubtedly not "up to date".
- Annotation seems to be appealing but is somewhat limited since it certainly doesn't scale well.
- They have attracted a significant number of Teachers and Librarians, the later of which are particularly interested in Tagging uses. (DeweyDecimal? Classification works quite well with this environment and their tagging capabilities make it possible to create almost a database effect that so far (at about 1500 bookmarks) seems quite beneficial and relatively simple to manage.
  - I do find myself starting to build an External search engine to access the DiiGo bookmarks, using TiddlyWiki for this as part of our Client-Side collaborative Expert Systems development research. This offers a lot more flexibility since TW has much richer Character and Tag support,especially when combined with the TiddlyTools? plugins for generating tagGrids and sliceGrids.

(But I've digressed (again!)... I'll try to remove some of this content to the DiiGo page later this week.) -- HansWobbe