Separate Threads From Content

There has been grief and lamentation over the recent dive in signal on wiki. Some fear the imminent EndOfWiki. Some blame certain others for futzing it all up. Some believe this is one of the necessary reverberations of WikiMindWipe. Some fear Ward will wade in and pull the plug. Many of the comments on most of the pages are flip throw-aways - natural conversations, but drivel to the reader looking for rational discussion.

Therefore,

Another way is to split each page into thesis and threads. This way no one needs to get worried about deleting other's snappy comebacks, and in fact large sections of text can be moved into the slushpile without tears. Yes, it still requires refactoring, but not a lot. This page demonstrates the form.

The point is that no one seeking signal needs to read below the DoubleLines.



Threads:

If you want to argue ThreadModeConsideredHarmful, then do so. A ThreadsConsideredDrivel (q.v) page may be a good idea. The original "drivel" labels were an abuse of refactoring - the label expresses the ThreadsConsideredDrivel idea everywhere it is used. The dislike of threads is far from universal, and while Ward may disparage threads, he has not forbidden them.

Sometimes the page doesn't achieve synthesis. Then you've got to be objective and fairly present both sides of the argument. This is rarely possible if you tend to write page long essays about how you should write page long essays about the topic at hand. The various pontificators on the topic are rarely the best to present the opposing viewpoint. Instead, just clean up your own words.

Whatever you do, though, don't flood RecentChanges with dozens of quick edits so that no one has the patience to correct all your "refactoring." This is an bad thing [because...]

Sometimes it is necessary to flood RecentChanges e.g. when fixing backlinks in a lot of pages or merging two categories. -- JohnFletcher


Solution Pattern:

Separate discourse from dissertation. But how far should they be separated ?

For instance, a page like FooSolutionPattern needs to have its DocumentMode content spelled out as bullet points, both advantages and disadvantages.

Please don't interject comments in the middle of the DocumentMode text. If the text is wrong, fix it. Otherwise put your comments with the rest of the comments (on the FooSolutionPatternDiscussion page, if it exists, otherwise below the DoubleLines), perhaps quoting a line from the DocumentMode text.


See: TentativeSummary, SummariesOnTopDiscussionBelow, ThreadsConsideredDrivel, DiscussionVsConsensus


CategoryWiki


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