One Wiki Evolution

[This page does not purport to be in OneWikiStyle]

A wonderful challenge. It's easier to want to honor a page labeled OneWikiStyle than to want to honor a more exclusionary label.

I'm trying, I really am. But how to conscientiously elaborate a view that seems so wrong?

It seems that it would be wrong to change the direction of BigDesign by moderating the position it currently takes (i.e. that you can hit the target better by carefully aiming an unguided missile than by making the missle able to see its target and steer towards it). The page takes a position, though IMO an incorrect one. Is it right to redirect it?

It seems that it would be wrong to turn the page into a pastiche of itself by emphasizing the absurdity of the position.

Surely the truth of development, for many if not most projects, is between the Scylla of CowboyCoding and the Charybdis of BigDesign. Without the give and take, the ConstructiveInterference, how will the truth emerge?

I expect it'll emerge by the proper application of the WikiNature. At least I've taken a trowel to BigDesign and tried to keep to the author's OneWikiStyle constraint. I'm afraid I doubt I've done it justice, and the original author will no doubt blow chunks given their UmlCaseVultures predilection. Then again, perhaps they'll develop a way of making their points without pissing on mine. I look forward to learning from their example. --PeterMerel

I was attempting to highlight the limitations of OneWikiStyle. I went to BigDesign and kept the bits I agreed with, refuted the bits I didn't. I concentrated on keeping all the original content intact. I hoped that whoever the original author was would come back and edit the thing in such a way as to refute my points while still keeping the content ... but I doubted that could be done. In fact I think OneWikiStyle, by itself, is misguided, because it inevitably gives rise to the contention we've seen - only one view at a time can survive on any page - rather than discourse and synthesis, which is WhyWikiWorks.

But I've given the matter a little further thought, and so have several others. See ThreadModeCorrected and ThesisAntithesisSynthesis for support mechanisms that may allow OneWikiStyle to work.

I wrote the "pissing on" bit because I was expecting the worst, hoping to be proved wrong and thereby learn something. I think we're in agreement on what actually happened, and I didn't learn anything, so I've tidied away the ThreadMess that was left over afterwards and hope maybe later today I can try applying ThesisAntithesisSynthesis to BigDesign and make sense of it that way.

I think it's better now to do it than to discuss it any more. Wait and see. But I think ettiquette will suffice for now; I have high hopes that the TAS idea will work here. -- PeterMerel

I think technology can help. A system could track who did what and show this information where it seem relevant for DramaticIdentity or ego, or hide it where it wasn't. Version control so people fear their mistakes less (especially to make people freer with deletions). Voting to help manage judgements of value (I prefer OneManOneVote? over StoneSociety, but the idea is similar). And so forth. -- DaveHarris

See also ThreadModeConsideredHarmful. We don't need technology so much as a RolledUpNewspaper to break people out of ThreadMode.

That all gets into the question of who gets to hold the newspaper... As a response to ThreadModeConsideredHarmful, consider that LazyUsersMakeGoodUserInterfaces... --AlistairCockburn

There is precedent for this sort of thing. I read someplace that a group of French mathematicians once went under the name Bourbaki. They were a self-selecting bunch who collaborated and published work under that pseudonym. I wondered a while ago whether Wiki would ever go that way: a huge anonymous compendium of software information. -- MichaelFeathers

Ooh, eee, I hope not. Bourbaki made some pretty cool stuff; ever see their light shows combined with MIDI music? But the apps themselves were a mess. Crash, crash, crash some more, then burst into flame. I'm not trying to be anal. Sometimes things require more cohesion and direction. A TV remote control is not a Class III patient life support device. And I for one would not like to go wading through miles of fluff -- like this post -- just to find a Kernel of Truth. -- MartySchrader