[Campaigns-l] Short sweet critique

[Becky Blackham]

Steven, I appreciate this response because I am none to clear about the 
meaning of the term "wiki," and the programming, or types of 
programming, that enable the sites named with some variant of "wiki." 
Wikipedia is the ubiquitous example, yet there seem to be new "wikis" 
appearing on the web at an exponential rate. Your discussion has 
clarified much, yet like any good explanation, leads to more questions. 
:-) I will do some reading on CMS and get more background for this project.

I see so many different functions being discussed, and a good start on 
weeding out those which are duplicative.  I started out entranced with 
the ideas presented in J. Wales' letter. Obviously I think his is a good 
front runner for what to be developed further. It remains to be seen if 
that vision of a net driven, new participatory politic will be adopted 
by those wishing to work on CampaignWikia. If so, the tools actually 
required to enable his function, as I understand it, are still 
uncertain. A platform for organizing text and other information seems 
like it would be a solid tool.

Would you explain what you mean by "trust metric," below?

Becky

stevertigo wrote:
> --- Becky Blackham <bblackham at san.rr.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> About structuring this wiki? Form follows function. This is what many of 
>> you are saying with many specific examples, with many ideas of what 
>> functions CampaignWikia should have.
>>     
>
> Before things get too far along, we should start with a critique of Jimbo's initial
> premise.
> Overuse of the term "wiki" has made the term a misnomer in its own right, and as such
> seems to need clarifying and maybe redefining.  
>
> "Wiki" is just one flavor of CMS, which itself is simply a platform for organizing text
> and other information. The term "wiki" itself  carries an implicit connotation or else
> has some dogmatic association with a particular notion of openness,such that, at
> superficial glance, a "wiki" would appear to suited for almost anything. 
> Nothing could be further from the truth, and even in the context of Wikipedia, the
> software has had to undergo some serious upgrades and adaptations to suit the
> particular needs of an encyclopedia. It needs more, and there are slightly more ideas
> than pro bono programmers to program them.  If trust metrics are added, some purists
> might even disagree with the notion that Wikipedia was any longer a "wiki" in the
> original sense of the word.
>
> It would of course be ironic if the software used to power Wikipedia needed to go in a
> direction not typically associated with the term "wiki," such that the name "Wikipedia"
> itself had become a misnomer. I never liked the term or the name anyway, and anyway the
> point of an encyclopedia isnt the tool it runs on, but rather  1)  the fact that its an
> encyclopedia, and has some standards for objectivity, factualness, completenss, and
> exposition and 2) its based on openness, freedom, collaboration, collective expression,
> and community. 
>
> None of that is in fact implied within the term "wiki", and therefore our common usage
> of it has entered the realm of a dogma, rather than a definition. Simply using CMS
> would suffice, and most CMS's these days have included wiki-like features anyway. Becky
> is right -form follows function, not the other way around.
>
> Steven
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
> http://mail.yahoo.com 
> _______________________________________________
> Campaigns-l mailing list
> Campaigns-l at wikia.com
> http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/campaigns-l
>
>
>