Sociology Wiki
Sociology WikiThe SociologyWiki shares these values with the original wiki from which it was spawned ...
The first attempt to implement the SociologyWiki idea lasted a month before it failed. See http://grault.net/sociology/.
Once upon a time SociologyWiki didn't exist and it appeared likely it never would. It's supposed charter was to be "to discuss and explore political, economic, psychological and philosophical issues."
The trouble with this is that "discussing and exploring" mainly means flaming and poo-pooing. In other words, noise. No one was willing to waste bandwidth hosting such a thing, and most WikiZens looked on the prospect with trepidation and loathing.
So all the SociologyWikiSeedList pages languished, unwanted and unloved, for months and years.
But then some bright lads and ladies created a new and different way to salvage the signal in these pages. While TheReformSociety does not welcome these pages as is, it wants the meat of them refactored into its rather spiffy PatternForm (http://refsoc.greencheese.us/PatternForm).
So if you have a fondness for debate on these topics, or if you just hope that something, anything, can be done about the sorry state of the world in general and C2 in particular at the moment, come help us do this work! -- PeterMerel
Unfortunately, Pete has let things slide just a bit while he sorts out the logistics of serving tea in the Oz jungle. But you can still edit if you're very keen. Or ...
The third try at providing a forum for OffTopic material is at TheAdjunct, again, kindly provided by EarleMartin. SociologyWiki type pages may be moved there until a more focused SociologyWiki is created. Of course you can still refactor material to TheReformSociety too if you like.
Of course those of us with cynical temperaments pointed out that setting up a wiki designed expressly to attract the most vitriolic and immature denizens of C2 was perhaps unwise. It's likely that any future attempts to set up a sociology wiki are similarly doomed because they're doing the equivalent of trying to have a serious intellectual discussion on alt.flame. Hopefully the demise of Earle's wiki will serve as a lesson to others. Sometimes just because something is possible doesn't mean it must happen. Sadly I doubt if anything will be learned. This message will be deleted by those who would most benefit from it's advice and they'll keep trundling along their malicious path.
It's the opinion of all those who advocated SearchForTruth (all two of them) that Earle was solely at fault for the fiasco that became Earle's wiki. As should be obvious even to idiots, a SearchForTruth wiki can't function as it's supposed to if its host and moderator doesn't believe in the process and tries to sabotage it in order to implement some deranged ShoppingForTruth? instead. As a result, the failure of Earle's wiki says absolutely nothing about the likelihood of success of a SearchForTruth wiki. Of course, that won't stop enemies of such a wiki from proclaiming its demise before it's even tried.
The reason people are proclaiming its demise is because those who are most vocal in their support for it are talkers rather than doers. No matter what you think of Earle you have to respect the fact that he took action.
No you don't. Who do you respect more, NoamChomsky or GeorgeBush? GeorgeBush. I'm pretty sure Earle wouldn't consider it complimentary to be compared with that mass murderer.
Earle "took action" because he was too stupid to know what he was getting in for. The "talkers" are the ones who understand what a consuming job it is to be a good host for a wiki. Do you really respect stupidity?
Earle "took action" but he didn't follow through on it, staying uninvolved and as far back from the wiki he'd initiated as possible. The "talkers" are not so hypocritical, they'll either be involved wholesale or not at all. Do you really respect waffling, half-heartedness and hypocrisy?
Or do you mean "respect the fact that he took action" in the sense that his taking a destructive course of action necessitated a serious counter-move. Much like Osama bin Laden "took action" and George Bush respected the fact that he did by creating the War On Terrorism?
At least tell people when you expect to get it off the ground.
I intended to take action before January 1st 2004 when Earle's wiki was taken permanently offline.
Now Richard is back at it. Of course, as predicted, he completely failed to create anything good on his own as he bragged about it. He wants to transform parts of WardsWiki to old style commie propaganda. Such usage is clearly inappropriate for this wiki, and it's an insult brought to honest contributors to this site, and as such it shall be dealt with swiftly and promptly as per the discussion in SensitiveOffTopic and TolerateOffTopic. If people waste time and energy in engaging RichardKulisz in SensitiveOffTopic pages they do it on their own risk while good chances are it will lead no where. Please MoveItElsewhere.
See comment on your homepage. As much as I think RichardKuliszs opinions on politics are a steaming pile of horsey-doo, we don't need you, Costin, acting as LordProtector? of Wiki, charging to the rescue and deleting anything that he utters that you think is dangerous, because it happens to promote an ideology that you despise. Wiki hardly needs rescue from "commies". Communism, in case you haven't noticed, is dead. China is communist in name only; Vietnam is sitting on the fence and likely to fall off (being highly addicted to capitalist money) - only North Korea and Cuba remain as true communist bulwarks, and neither are much to write home about. Cuba will likely undergo radical change once Fidel Castro dies - he's 80+, so it won't take too long.
First of all you dishonestly present the situation, get some of your facts straight, please. It's not a matter of communism, versus fascism, versus whatever you feel like. As someone who invested a great deal of effort into providing content from this wiki, I have a very legitimate interest to clean it from trash.
Of course you'll disagree by replying that one man's trash is another man's piece of jewelry. Since the overall objective is to maximize value for everyone, it has long been established as a wiki community pattern that such controversies on off topic subject are to be taken out. Only some folks keep forgetting history (or pretending they've forgotten it). No need to rehash here old debates, unless you have something new and interesting to say.
This wiki being a collective effort undertaken by many honest contributors shall not be taken advantage of not by RK, nor by RA, not even by CostinCozianu, nor by anyone to serve as a propaganda tool. If you don't like the situation and want to enjoy the pleasure of polluting wiki with rambling on any OffTopic subject, you always have the option to MoveItElsewhere.
Can we delete this page? It seems to be mostly flames and little else...
If we just delete it, a time may come when people will re-learn lessons of the past the hard way. Documenting an interesting episode from the history of this wiki maybe useful for future reference, so I'd like to take a stab at refactoring. If I can't do it by 7th of May 2005, then probably it should be deleted. Is anybody else able to help? -- CostinCozianu
I don't mind helping, but I don't see it as that big a job. What do you have in mind? -- MarkTilley
Nothing big. I thought I didn't have time to put it right so I'll be as concise as I could and leave refactoring or elaboration.
The basic story is: politics, sociology, economics, etc, are SensitiveOffTopic, but on the other hand they are on the minds of wiki regulars, especially since they're tangent to software in many places. But in order to MoveItElsewhere there is a need for someone to CreateAnElsewhere? and EarleMartin generously did just that.
SociologyWiki failed because ReconcilingIrreconcilableDifferencesOnWiki fails in absence of more sophisticated wiki technology and in presence of hostile parties. RK would have liked a place where most of his ideas should be reflected unpolluted by objections of amateurs like myself, but I found such a proposition unreasonable, specifically because Earle's SociologyWiki was projected to become a SisterSite (and therefore be both associated and derive popularity and prestige from WikiWikiWeb). Earle decided to pull the plug so the final analysis should be his.
Other than that, my experience with SociologyWiki as well as with AndStuff lead me to think about WikiChangeProposal. The eternal recurring pattern is this: given a very hot topic (politics, religion, OO vs. relational databases, etc), a non-trivial public interest, hostile parties, what are the features that are needed in the software in order for the community to still be able to build a wiki. WikiChangeProposal is my suggested solution and is kind of complicated, but if anybody has better ideas, improvements or criticism, I'll appreciate the feedback.
The problem to CreateAnElsewhere? for politics, economy, sociology and even religion that is compelling enough to take the heat off this wiki remains open. Creative ideas and solutions will be enormously appreciated. -- CostinCozianu
The elsewhere is now at TheAdjunct.
Possible political/sociology/economic wiki's
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