Shape What You Can Control Discussion

Discussion:

These ideas have a lot in common with ChristopherAlexander's PatternLanguageBook? for building- and community- architecture. Some common themes:

Pay as you go.
Create niches, so that each niche is owned and can be customized by its owner.
Try to make each new feature complement the existing features.
Avoid debt.
Occupants should be owners, so they can customize.

This page is a perfect example of a page made for this wiki, which I discovered to have spelling errors and not quite the structure I wanted to keep. When I tried to edit, the bot maintained by a member of Derby staff in the UK, decided to include it in pages which would allow no correction. Hence I then tried to remove the page, but it was not allowed. This edit too will be reversed, removing my complaint from public view.

Donald, we've talked about this many, many, many times. It's easy for you to never have an edit auto-reverted again, but you refuse to do it. -- DaveVoorhis

I am only using the designed provision WardCunningham provided called a UserName. This should not prevent me from editing a page because of arbitrary third-party bot interventions. Because others violate proper behavior should not require me to abandon proper and useful features designed into this wiki by its founder.

The UserName facility is demonstrably broken, and has been exploited for malicious purpose by GrammarVandal. That's a good reason not to use it. -- DV

Could you not make the argument equally valid for EditPage? Its facility is demonstrably broken, and has been exploited for malicious purpose by GrammarVandal.

A wiki without EditPage is not a wiki. A wiki without UserName is at worst harmless, at best a good idea. -- DV

The question is not about its being, but about its use, being that the feature is being exploited by GrammarVandal and thus being a good reason not to use it. I use both as GoodThings, while contributing new pages and in making changes to existing pages, remaining accountable for them by using my RealName. -- DonaldNoyes

As another party (not Donald or Dave), this is SharkbotEatingTheGnomes?, StupidLittleEdits are warm up exercises in FixingBrokenWindows?. And this conversation can be moved to a page dealing more with SharkBot. Also WardCunningham demonstrably doesn't believe UserName is broken, if the feature was; it would have been fixed in the last 3 years, or the functionality would be removed as "more trouble than it is worth". It appears some simultaneous editing dropped an on topic contribution, I'm re-adding with this edit so that shark doesn't take it away.

You forget that StupidLittleEdits by GrammarVandal were so numerous as to virtually eliminate discourse. It was a case of GrammarVandalEatingEverybody. By the way, Ward hasn't fixed anything in the last three years, so your argument is specious. -- DV

Not true! look at the footer of this page for an example. He points out the change on LikePages.

That was his first appearance of any kind in over a year, it occurred after our discussion above, and it was an insignificantly trivial one which likely involved nothing more than deleting one line of code. Removing UserNames would no doubt require significantly more effort. There have been no significant changes to the code base in over five years. -- DV

I am editing as Dave suggested for today and tomorrow. We'll see if this makes any difference. I continue to be one wikizen who has not abandoned contribution due to annoyances of many types since 2006. I'll PressOn and remain while the site continues to exist, because I see it as one of the few sites with an ongoing history reaching back in computing history to 1996. Quite an accomplishment Ward, congratulations to you. ThankYou. -- DonaldNoyes.20110702.0002

Note: I am continuing the experiment in editing for a week or so, to add to my findings of some interesting things about the short and long time behavior of SharkBot and Dave. -- DonaldNoyes.20110703

---Conclusion: Eliminate contact with unhelpful, uncooperative, and damaging elements whether animal, vegetable or robotic.

This I am doing by using of my PressOn InformationAndKnowledge system. With this system I will accumulate useful information with the interactive use of any device or process I can acquire, utilize, or develop. -- DonaldNoyes 20110810 20140603

Excellent! That sounds like a laudably positive direction. -- DV

It is amazing what transpires if that focus is maintained and continues to be supported by decisive actions. -- DonaldNoyes.20110912 20140603

I no longer utilize the UserNameCookie?. This is a reversal of my long standing tradition. (20111020) So comments made above are dated, and many no longer represent my present view. The UserName had been repurposed and subverted. What Purpose? - To impersonate and disquise.

In the past, edits I made at one time, get reformatted and reintroduced supposedly by me, anywhere from days to weeks and months after the intended edit. In the interim bots and individuals continue to impersonate. In spite of this, I continue to contribute and enjoy the task of integrating the wealth of information I find here. The hassle has been eliminated. I won't be involved in edit wars. Mechanisms and procedures now exist allowing me to preserve pages in any format I wish, within spaces I control.

You might want to use as I have started to do, the new EddiesWikiTwoOhOneFour as a PersonalWiki.

-- DonaldNoyes.20141029

CategoryWikiMaintenance