Re: [MLUG] Re: Wikipedia on /.

["Christian M. Cepel" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Visited the links you posted and understand more... not the bits I've 
agonized over in my previous post, but more, never the less.

One topic I didn't see covered is link obsolescence.  Yes I realize that 
there are a community of folks out there of very great size who, when 
finding a broken link, will fix it....  but what about links that link 
out to very useful information rather than reproducing the content 
within the wiki....links to pages that are unique, or exclusively the 
source of some information, that eventually evolve or disappear entirely 
with the content not readily to hand if someone then wanted to 
reestablish the existence of such information in the form of a new wiki 
entry, or another page to be linked out to in place of the now defunct 
location.

What also worries me is the probability of paradigm shift.

Lets say a wiki deals with something religious in nature... lets say you 
write one based on a certain view you hold on a subject and so you link 
to a  page on say... the bostonian church movement (aka the discipleship 
movement, aka international church of christ), or a page on the mormon 
doctrines and covenants and such that prevent non-whites from being 
fully functional members of the church and not able to hold positions of 
responsibility, or say the catholic beliefs (I can't name them ) that 
were pre vatican 2... 

I'm playing a little game here anachronistically.

So... you're writing a wiki that explains one of these things in a 
positive light, because it is a belief you share (wiki's are not just 
fact.... they cannot be)...  So you want to provide links for more 
information, or reasoning behind a belief, or something, and you link it 
to a wiki describing ICC (back during the now defunct bostonian 
movement), or the mormon church (before 1970s doctrinal changes), or 
catholic beliefs (before vatican 2)              (realizing that these 
all precede wiki, and in some cases, the internet).

Then there are paradigm shifts, which cause revisions, or redaction, 
etc, such as the fact that the Boston church from which the bostonian 
movement started has since repented and are now seeking to quash the 
monster that is now vastly beyond their influence, or the more recent 
changes in the mormon church when they gave themselves a PR facelift on 
issues of 'following christ', 'being "christians"', and "what to do with 
all the brown and black and yellow and purple, etc skinned people whom 
they've converted to their religion and who of course want to be fully 
functioning members of the church", or all the changes that were wrought 
with Vatican2 that completely redefined (some would say) the catholic 
church to be in some respects a completely different entity....

More simply put, I've written a wiki on my philosophy why black is the 
best way of things, and link out to something to support my arguments 
and conclusions and to provide additional information (which is one of 
the things that strikes me as being one of the neatest benefits of 
wiki), and visitors visit that link only to find arguments that black is 
now white, and white is best, and those who favor black are without merit.

I guess the concept of 'depending' on something else to explain just 
what my understanding of something is, is just foreign to me.  I have 
difficulties delegating things, and in putting trust in things.

Additionally, I worry about chronology and such.... in everyone's first 
DBM class, the obvious concept that  nobody's age should ever be queried 
and stored, but instead their date of birth from which age may be 
calculated should be queried instead.  All sorts of little shifts in 
thinking that prevent information from going stale, and that can prevent 
even more massive things like y2k...

I saw an example when I followed the link below on WhyWikiWorks, and 
from an interesting link in there followed for an explanation of the 
phenomenon of VideoAddicts that's been seen recently, and from there to 
a link on people who have voluntarily given up television all together.  
One of the posts in there mentioned that one of the benefits the poster 
experienced after TV was removed from the house was that

    * My daughter started reading more, improving her speed and
      comprehension. (Read the recent HarryPotter
      <http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?HarryPotter> in 3 days)

Now... that link explores different issues on Harry Potter and the 
resulting phenomenon and impact it's made, but _DOES NOT_ provide 
chronological evidence as to WHICH "recent HarryPotter" his daughter 
made it through.  Was the most recent one when he wrote the post the 
first, second, third, whatever book...  His post (or this point of it) 
has lost some significant because we don't know if he's referring to one 
of the early books which comprise 7 or 8 cds when read by the masterful 
Jim Dale (my preferred intake of Harry Potter), or one of the later ones 
that comprise 20 cds.  His daughter may have read "See dick run" book, 
or the "war and peace" book.  One is much more significant than the other.

That piece of critical information (well, ok, it's not critical), but 
conceptually critical information is forever lost unless the most 
unlikely occur and the original author, or one he shared the knowledge 
with comes back to reinsert that information.

Anyways... just some thoughts.

It's not like linking to published books with publishing 
dates/versioning in the bibliography of a work...  yes, the benefits are 
that incorrect or un updated information is made current, but one looses 
the ability to look back on the whole thing and watch the line of 
reasoning develop.  Sometimes dependencies exist, like linking a library 
into a piece of code w/o being informed that the library has since been 
completely reworked and your API usage deprecated...

Lets say that wikis were started on any number of subjects, such as the 
belief that the world was flat to theories on gravity and on relativity, 
or genetics, or cellular theory...

If a wiki were constantly (and consistently) updated to only included 
factual evidence than  nobody would know that humans once believed the 
world to be flat, or there was no smaller unit in the universe than the 
atom, or that people once believed that there were only the four 
elements of air water earth and fire, etc.  They would only see the 
'current state' and not the journey.

I know wiki won't be the repository for history, but it's still an 
interesting thing to consider in my humble opinion.

EMAIL:PROTECTED wrote:

>>I must say that I've never understood the concept of Wiki, even after 
>>installing and playing with TikiWiki.  It's too abstract and 
>>intellectual a concept for my small brain.
>>    
>>
>
>It's editable web content. Anyone can press the "Edit" button and type what they will. Think of it as a public whiteboard. It's about taking anyone who can type and giving them the ability to create content on the web. It's about lowering the barrier to creating "web pages". No fancy HTML to learn, no figuring out what the heck "FTP" is or where to get one. Just press "Edit" and type. It really is that simple.
>
>That said, /running/ a wiki is a bit different than /using/ a wiki. If you're just starting out, try KwikiKwiki instead. It's much simpler to get up and going. http://www.kwiki.org/.
>
>  
>
>>What is to prevent some malicious script kiddie on a mindless joyride 
>>[...] to mess with their content and links?
>>    
>>
>
>Three letters. CVS. Most wikis have some sort of version control implemented.
>That means that either anyone can "undo" someone else's grafitti, or an admin can if it is a restricted action for the wiki. On a mass scale, it's called a WikiWipeout.
>
>See http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyWikiWorks
>
>And in particular, see http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiWipeout
>
>Also http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyNobodyDeletesWiki
>and http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyTryToDeleteWiki
>
>That site is Ward Cunningham's WikiWiki site, the original, so I'd say it's pretty authoritative on the subject of wikis.
>  
>
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-- 
||

Christian Marcus Cepel           | And the wrens have returned &
EMAIL:PROTECTED icq:12384980 | are nesting; In the hollow of
371 Crown Point, Columbia, MO    | that oak where his heart once
65203-2202 573.999.2370          | had been; And he lifts up his
Computer Support Specialist, Sr. | arms in a blessing; For being
University of Missouri-Columbia  | born again. --Rich Mullins

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