Email Binders

The EmailBinders topic struck me as I got going on the ThreeRingBinders metaphor. I would like to put down my thoughts on WikiWiki <-> Email and Email List integration. This is something that Ward has put into play at:

http://c2.com/w2/wiki/RecentMessages

and see foot of

http://c2.com/w2/wiki/YouHaveBeenAddedToWikiForumOnelistCom

I visited with WardCunningham almost two years ago. Ward was kind enough to give me the tour of his office and walk the less than a block up the hill to the village for a cup of coffee. What I noticed was that Ward using a Wiki on his notebook machine as, guess what :), a notebook for the storage of thoughts wiki pages and enteries on other wiki pages (esentially emails to himself) and of course emails from others.

Since I don't have a Wiki on my notebook, I started sending myself emails and filing them a way in the folders that my email machine accommodates. I cannot edit email that is in a folder but I can copy it into a new message and edit it and then send it to myself. I find this a very useful idea system. I am looking forward to the day that I can integrate my personal email to self and others with a Wiki editing and filing system. JohnDeBruyn (January 17, 2000).

This segement, the stuff that comes next, was repeated at the foot of ThreeRingBinders and the foot of the WhyDontOthersGetWiki. So if you have been there and read that skip over the this segment

May be ThreeRingBinders could be a useful metaphor. Seems that it was the hard copy version of an intranet for the enterprise, agency or institution that it served. Good ThreeRingBinders permited forward evolution more so than the typical intranet does today. That is ThreeRingBinders had certain Wiki like qualities.

However, in lieu of page linking, the binder permited easy addition of pages to the appropriate section and in the appropriate place within the section. What Wiki does is replace the sectional organization and the page sequence with an open, three dimensional hyperlinking page scheme.

One could ink or pencil in comments and cross references and, more recently append, sticky notes to the pages in the binder. Unlike the binder that may have been assigned to an individual or a work group, Wiki permits these comments to be shared with all.

What made the binders special, beyond writing on a page, was that whole pages could be added. Even better, the binders permited a bit of the Wiki anachry in that user could add their own pages (memos from above, below and contempoaries as well as ones self within the organization). Perhaps that is the core of some of the resistence to Wiki that is described on WhyDontOthersGetWiki JohnDeBruyn (January 17, 2000)