My Signal Is Your Noise

One of the great things about this Wiki is the way it mimics the human mind. Wikizens can draw inference and corollary among seemingly unrelated topics. Take a look at the CategoryCategory page to get an idea of just how broad a subject range is discussed and expounded upon in this Wiki. Just as the United States of America claims its cultural and ethnic diversity as its main strength we see the primary strength of this Wiki being the diversity of its contributors.

And thus it will ever be, amen. [monks chanting in background]

While diversity of opinion is valuable, it should be remembered that this Wiki has a purpose of sorts, and most OffTopic pages are indeed noise, not signal. When the guy in the next cubicle has his stereo cranked up or is enjoying some fragrant food, he may consider it to be signal, but it is noise to me and it is inconsiderate of him to impose it in our shared environment.

If your signal is my noise, the considerate thing to do is to find a way to "narrowcast" it so that it does not interfere with the signal I want to receive. You can use headphones, you can eat your food somewhere other than in our workspace, and you can find another forum where others share your idea of what is signal.

In other words, the best way to ensure clean signal is to transmit it only on those channels where it is accepted as signal. Without such consideration, the likely result is that I will have to boost the level of my signal to drown out your noise, at which point you will boost your signal to drown out my noise, and so on, until the channel is saturated and useless. The Wiki is already nearing or past that saturation point, and those who create and contribute to OffTopic pages are the ones most responsible for that situation.

How does the content of one wiki page drown out the content of any other page? Each wiki page is narrowcast to the people who tune in to it. There is no cross contamination between pages. There is, however, a cross-pollination of ideas and understanding that results from Wikizens exploring still-blue links. This is the same force that drives the creation of RandomPages and other exploratory mechanisms like that.

As far as narrowcasting ideas, even the technical categories on this Wiki are hard to pin down. We often get involved in discussions about how this Wiki is supposed to be strictly about software development. Okay, then, how do you explain the popularity of pages that discuss the business side of software development? For that matter, should we be discussing these issues here at all? XP says that the business solution must be a part of the development consideration for the resulting software product to meet the customers' needs. Where do we draw the line? Is the discussion of software development management okay, but discussion on marketing management be verboten? What do you do about the overlap?

Many times we have seen Wikizens mention that fluff and drivel will be purged from this Wiki over time. This occurs almost organically as WikiGnomes clean the place up, removing out of date and inaccurate material. WikiMasters will likewise be editing and tightening up content on useful and informative pages. What we don't need is people deciding for themselves that this page or that page is kaka and needs the axe while its discussion is still active. A little bit of patience can smooth a lot of ruffled feathers, can it not? Let's all try to recognize the signal in each other's noise.

All software development and no play does make Wiki a dull place! Even workplaces now regularly feature places to take a break, and seek meaningless diversions. Why not this Wiki? As long as my frisbie doesn't end up in your cup of soup, who cares? The beautiful thing about a Wiki is that you can tune into and out of the things that interest you, just like when you go to a carnival. If you don't like rollercoasters, go ride on the bumper cars; nobody would suggest that you get rid of one or the other. I am sure we are all InSearchOfTheHappyWiki, but judge not lest you be judged, when it comes to what's worthy to be here.

CategoryWiki