[Search-l] Defining this community (was Re: IRC Meetup for Technical Discussions)

[Fred Bauder]

-----Original Message-----
From: Grahame Gould [mailto:ic at thelastfrontier.com.au]
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2007 05:50 PM
To: search-l at wikia.com
Subject: Re: [Search-l] Defining this community (was Re: IRC	Meetup	for	Technical Discussions)

>
>> "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy." - Field 
>> Marshall
>> Helmut Carl Bernard von Moltke
>
>Who's the enemy?
>
>Jer


>I think this might be rephrased thusly:

>No scheme for user participation survives contact with users.

>Fred

So wiki can't work? Or are you overstating the case? Surely Wiki projects are all about contact with users, and Wikipedia has survived and is even going strong. (Although Sheldon(.com) disagrees)

Perhaps what you mean is that unregulated contact with users is deadly for any plan (unless you intend to have anarchy).

Grahame Gould
Information Coordinator
Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley
Kununurra, WA, Australia
(08) 9168 4100 Phone
(08) 9168 1798 Fax
www.thelastfrontier.com.au

Response:

As I rephrased this aphorism, "No scheme for user participation survives participation by users."

That does not mean, nor did von Moltke mean, that the battle was lost, just that detailed advanced planning has to be modified as contingencies arise. One of the greatest unknowns here is how users will react, how enthusiastically they will participate, and what their input into policy will be and how it will be expressed.

Wikipedia has worked that way, broad outlines from on-high, some of which originated from Larry Sanger, some from Jimbo and others. Then there is both the practice and the policy input from users, some more influential than others. To a great extent decisions are reached by consensus of users, both in their practice and deliberations. Occasionally a deus ex machina mechanism operates when there is a systemic crisis.

Perhaps the saying should be: "No detailed scheme for user participation survives participation by users."

Now, it turns out that Larry Sanger is dissatisfied with the outcome and is now generalling a new assault on compiling knowledge which applies stricter control over input by users. So there is an experiment in progress.

Here's a question? What are the founding principles that are not open to modification by user practice and policy input? The parts of the scheme that must survive?

Fred