WikiStandards

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At WikiSym there was agreement that

standards only make sense if there is a real need for them
if there are people in need for a standard, they shall take the lead
a standard will only be followed if it is of high quality
it is no problem to have competing standards

In essence, this is the philosophy of WikiOhana.

Completed

ModWiki. A RichSiteSummary extension module for wikis.

XmlRpcToWiki. XML-RPC MachineInterface to wikis. There are others, see http://www.wikisym.org/wiki/index.php/WSR_2

In progress

WikiMarkupStandard. Standardizing the WikiSyntax to make it easier for users to transition from one wiki to another.

WikiParserModel. A standard description of a parser model.

WikiInterchangeFormat. Standardizing the interface to the PageDatabase to make it easier to exchange text from pages or operate on the wiki via a MachineInterface.

SharedAntiSpam. A standardized PeerToPeerBanList for LinkSpam.

AllPagesStandard A standard way for wikis to publish their page names (e.g. for SisterSites)

At the far horizon

WikiQualityStandard -- defining a reasonable minimum features set of a wiki engine

Discussion

For the record, not enough people participated in the discussion at WikiSym 2005 to decisions made there conclusive. In particular, there were few wiki developers there, least of all the most active ones that live Europe. That doesn't mean it wasn't valuable, or that the conclusions there weren't important. What it does mean is the exercise now is to grow the initiative outwards to the rest of the wiki community. Conversely, those participants at the WikiSym standards discussion who aren't part of the Greater Wiki Community also need to build bridges and relationships to others in the space. -- SunirShah

At WikiMania? and WikiSym 2005, there were also debates about whether to use MeatballWiki or not to organize standardization efforts. I was not present during either discussion, so as to let others decide what they wanted to do. As many would guess, I would not be very happy if people were forced to use Meatball for discussions. I'd rather people chose a location they felt would be most productive for them. The last thing I want is for people to be here if they didn't want to be here. That would violate our principle of Boredom. That being said, I think we should still strive to be as attractive, friendly, welcoming, useful, and fun for wiki developers.

I admit I was offended when people implied Meatball (or I) was being territorial, but I suppose those people were projecting their own fears or perhaps ambitions. Life is too short to care. Those who know Meatball know what it is and what I'm like. -- SunirShah

Many people see 'standardization' as requiring a heavy standards process, like the IETF or IEEE might use. I think that's overkill. Wikis don't need to standardize many things. I think the best strategy is to build small prototypes amongst interested developers, then work to gain acceptance by other wiki developers, and constantly feed back improvements until the solution is stable and correct. Then evangelize and market until it de facto standardizes. There really is no other way, as there is nothing that forces wiki developers to agree unlike, for instance, the Web where browser developers must agree on some subset of HTML in order to sustain a market that funds their activities or the Internet that requires everyone to agree on the InternetProtocol in order to interoperate. -- SunirShah

CategoryWikiTechnology