On Mon, 12 May 2003, Peter P. Jones wrote: (01)
> > WikiWords encourage emergent behavior. People who are habitual Wiki
> > users often find that they use WikiWords for important concepts while
> > authoring, even if they have no plans on filling out those words. That
> > encourages other people to make contributions. This phenomenon is
> > described in The Wiki Way.
>
> I heartily disagree :)
> Wiki words are bowing and scraping to the inadequacies of the tools.
> Secondly, mashing concepts together in unwarranted neologisms
> actually encourages conceptual elision, increases misunderstandings
> between disparate cliques, and reduces the chances of finding
> important 'missing nothings'...imho. (02)
Wow, I heartily disagree with your disagreement! (03)
Actually, I suspect there are some scale issues here (as you
suggest with "disparate cliques". I've had some _extremely_
positive experiences with WikiWords in groups of less than 10
where the WikiWords become part of the lexicon and are extremely
helpful in illuminating the missing nothings. (04)
One of those experiences was the Helium project[1] I've mentioned
other times and the another is Blue Oxen internal wiki stuff. (05)
There's a question of goals too. If what you are after is perfect
understanding and conceptual integrity WikiWords may present some
problems. However, I'd argue, strenuously, that the world doesn't
get better from perfect understandings and conceptual integrity.
I think the world gets better through conceptual bleed. (06)
[1] We used wikiwords for shorthand for enormous concepts. Even
when we didn't know the concept we knew one was present when
someone used a wikiword and further inquiry was encouraged. (07)
--
Chris Dent
cdent@blueoxen.org (08)
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http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=Pine.LNX.4.44.0305121318420.18753-100000@cream.burningchrome.com (010)
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