ScalingMeatball/Talk

FridemarPache -- Sat Sep 26 12:49:27 2009

Please consider the idea of a [Meta System Transition], taking the S1,..,Sn as Sunir's wiki clones or more general as Wikis or even the platforms of CommunitiesThatScale. The "controling" System could be a system, that uses the APIs of GoogleSideWiki or other platforms to generate automatic (bidirectional) trails in form of ConceptMaps. Usemod's TeaTime everywhere could be such a scaling wiki. However, instead of a fork, it could deliver the technology extension in combination with the rich LinkLanguage of Meatball. The same holds for all wikis, adjacent to Meatball.

NathanielThurston -- Sat Sep 26 13:03:56 2009

Fridemar, I think this needs a clearer explanation for the non-mathematician. The biggest obstacle I see to using the technique I think you're proposing is MeatballWikiCopyright, which demands that any "clone" be part of Meatball. Also, I think you're not addressing the bigger issue - there does not seem to be much demand for meatball at present. However, I may well not understand what you're proposing; in which case please correct my misunderstanding.

A possibly-related idea: use the LinkLanguage implied by Meatball's page structure in non-meatball contexts, with enough contextualization of the LinkWord? to make the argument stand on its own and interest the reader in following the LinkWord? back to its home on Meatball.

If we do this, however, I would avoid making a robotic practice of making bilinks. Google search yields the complete list easily, and it would be more useful to the reader of Meatball's pages to choose only the most salient examples (positive and cautionary) of the context in which a particular LinkWord? was used.

FridemarPache -- Sat Sep 26 13:17:08 2009

Nathaniel, [Fridemar's Original Idea applied to Wikis in Principia Cybernetica's Meta System Transition as comment in the year 2000] is perhaps easier to understand for non-mathematicians.

This link doesn't work for me. It provides a bio of Valentin Turchin, but no information about your idea.

You might have a look in the Discussion section there, where I initiated the idea. By revisiting the links, I even found links to MetaSystemTransition, Wiki:MetaSystemTransition.

: I found the discussion, and also read these pages. I still don't understand what you mean; perhaps it would be useful for you to summarize MetaSystemTransition for those who haven't taken the time to read the original. In particular: what does this mean in the context of a wiki?

NathanielThurston -- Sat Sep 26 15:39:00 2009

In response to the question, "who is the audience", my answer would be "those with whom we wish to collaborate". I think we should address this question first, as the other question, "how do we determine what the audience demands" should be easier once the first has been answered.

In this context, we are an important part of the audience. TeaTime is an attempt to answer the first complaint about scaling that I would raise, that "it isn't possible to scale without destroying the character of the community we have already established". I've convinced myself that this complaint is without merit, but others may be more skeptical.

NathanielThurston -- Sat Sep 26 19:44:18 2009

Helmut, I disagree with your conclusion in CommunitiesThatScale/Talk that only 50K people worldwide have a need for Meatball's product. Meatball was originally about online community, but it's far from clear to me that this the only realm in which our findings about community are applicable. In particular, it seems possible that Meatball's findings about community are also applicable to traditional brick-and-mortar communities, and possibly also to for-profit communities (i.e., corporations)

For example, I've read that America's mega-churches thrive by providing the much-needed UniversalProduct of community to their church-goers.

SunirShah -- Sat Sep 26 19:48:10 2009

Destroy is a poorly used word. Necessarily if a community grows from 10 people to 100000 it will be different possibly radically so. That requires destruction but only in order to create something else. All creation requires destruction.

NathanielThurston -- Tue Oct 6 10:11:33 2009

Sunir, what I meant about "destroying character" is that it's possible to avoid the growth issues present in all of the ScaledCommunities? I know about. The patterns I would hope to avoid:

Reliance on a flawed TrustMetric (KuroShin, SlashDot, StackOverflow?)
Bureaucratic stasis (WikiPedia)
Degeneration into least-common-denominator behaviour (YouTube)
Control by a closed-membership GodKing organisation (FriendFeed?, FaceBook)

In summary, my conclusion was that SoftSecurity can scale effectively.