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WIKI_CENTRAL
January 30, 2011
I just listened to Jason Scott's talk
from December 2006: "Mythapedia":
http://www.archive.org/details/20061202-jscott-mythapedia
Not a great talk: He rambles, and doesn't
make points as fast as he could, but
it's got a few good lines (from memory):
"Wikipedia is powered by children."
"Wiki means speed, sometimes
it's speed *run, run*, sometimes So then, the right approach
it's speed *shoot, shoot*." might be to try to slow
it without stopping it...
He makes fun of the recursive
nature of wikipedia, where DRAG
even the rules for editing can
be edited:
"it's a sausage factory
made out of sausage".
Essentially Jason Scott argues
for the need for a centralized
authority (i.e. management) to
resolve disputes, decide on
general direction, etc.
This is an understandable reaction,
but arguably wrong-headed.
Wikipedia clearly has had *some*
success, and much of it involved The real question would be
dodging the bottle-neck of how to find ways to fix
centralization, avoiding a single the wikipedia process
point of failure. without abandoning
what's good about it.
Actually, he says that this
layer of authority is slowly There have been
being added, they just don't attempts at doing
want to admit it. things like wikipedia
with tighter central
Outside of the deceptiveness, control-- none have as
that *might* be good news of yet been anywhere
(presuming they don't over do near as successful.
it)... but I don't see much sign
of that myself (or haven't, yet),
and it's 5 years later now.
Jason Scott makes the point that experts
like to *finish* things, and with wikipedia
you're stuck defending them in perpetuity.
But it is not only "experts" who feel
that way, but anyone who's taken the
trouble to write something, and get On the other hand, I've had
it into good shape. Many former the experience of completely
wikipedians like to tell the story of giving up on a fight and
walking away from an article they've walking away, and coming back
written, and checking back in every a few years later to find
few years to watch it deteriorate that someone else has taken
further. up the cause and won, or at
least succeeded in improving
things (because no one ever
really "wins" at wikipedia).
Jason Scott discusses an anecdote I hadn't
heard before, about the inventor of the
Eiffel language getting involved with trying
to add code examples, and getting into a silly
fight about the formatting of the examples
He ran into the three revert rule and
got locked-out, then walked off in a
huff, swearing off wikipedia forever.
What I like about that anecdote: the Right
Reason (by wikipedia standards) to boot the Another thing I like
guy apparently didn't come up (editing pages about it: a computer
about your *own stuff*!). language designer
getting anal retentive
Instead it was a stupid fight about about stupid details
formatting, and the way he reacted that don't really
to the three-revert rule ban isn't matter. How *strange*.
really the way the wiki-people hope Who has ever heard of
you'll react: it's supposed to be a such a thing?
cooling off period, not a pissed-off
forever sentence.
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