Attention Theft

Attention is a limited resource. As such, a person has invested their attention by the time they get to a wiki. For some reason, they previewed available material and decided that it was worth their time to visit the wiki.

Recognizing that the kind of people who are likely to visit a specific wiki are the kinds of people that he would like to have at his own site, the WikiHijacker will work within the wiki to redirect the attention of readers to his own site.

This is a drain on the community. Whereas the reader has potential to stay, pay attention, and contribute content; And whereas it is the intent of the WikiHijacker to redirect the reader's attention away from the wiki (not towards the wiki, or to other pages within the wiki - most often not contributing material a reader would deem worthy of investing more attention); And whereas attention is a limited resource, this action is tantamount to theft.

Discussion

So according to the above, SisterSite links are a form of attention theft ... wait that doesn't sound right. Can you reword it?

Since a site operator chooses to forward readers to a sister site, it is actually better described as a gift to both the sister site operator and the reader.

So the only permissible links to outside wikis are those specifically approved by WardCunningham. I see.

If the community does agree with forwarding readers to a sister site, it is actually better described as a gift to both the sister site operator and the reader.

So any form of controversial or individual advocacy / redirection of attention (which we're all here to do) that isn't approved by the entire community is automatically a form of theft. Individualism is criminal, is it?

What matters isn't community approval, because that does NOT matter. What matters is that when you're redirecting attention, you let the "victim" know exactly what they're in for. What they're in for better be another wiki, and the link you're providing better be clear about its destination. Once you've done that, that's it.

So, only links to other wikis are permissible -- links to any other URI are theft?

In some cases, a reader is interested in some topic that represented by only one brief page at Ward's Wiki, but there is far more information on that topic available online or in a book. If I put a link from where such a reader is likely to end up on Ward's Wiki, pointing toward that other URI or ISBN, I've saved that reader a fruitless search for more information on Ward's wiki on that topic, and I've saved Ward the cost of storage space and bandwidth compared to bulk copying that "foreign" information into Ward's Wiki. I refuse to think of such a "win-win" situation as "theft". -- DavidCary

The point is - There is a big difference between 1) providing information appropriately within context and 2) telling people to ignore the context (and the wiki) and go to another site.