The Adjunct Kills Cee Two

No one reads TheAdjunct. Few still read C2. The moment TheAdjunct and similar SisterSites were spawned was the moment C2 began to lose its purpose and community.

The reason for this is simple. No subject is an island. The moment OffTopic stuff moves to TheAdjunct it loses its ability to stimulate the discussion of PeopleProjectsAndPatterns right here.

PeopleProjectsAndPatterns are often influenced by, targeted at or metaphors for OffTopic subjects. Hiving the meat of these subjects off to some other site as if it were a poor cousin takes the fundamental editing tension out of C2. The fact of the matter is this wiki needs its OffTopic material for reference and color. Without that stuff, this place is dead. And it has been dead for too long.

Down With TheAdjunct! OffTopic wants to be free! -- PeterMerel

My observation and opinion is that C2 traffic is down because there are no new IT fads (for lack of a better word) to stimulate new ideas and conversations. I notice spikes when fads/trends appear. That, and it's interface and presentation could use a rework, such as ridding CamelCase (display-side) and better page summaries, and perhaps move See-Also's to the top. The code-word is also confusing and some IP's ranges are still blocked.

As far as TheAdjunct, it does not steal much traffic from C2 because it's often slow or down.

-- top

There are plenty of IT fads

the mobile and social networking revolutions are in full swing
- Those are mostly application kinds, not software methodologies.
functional programming is in its heyday with new parallelism and testing models challenging lots of old assumptions
- Functional proponents have already inserted their viewpoints into wiki topics before it became a buzzword. Related: ParallelNeedScenario
github, rails, and all the communities surrounding them are alive with buzz and flash
C2 was once a spawning ground for IT fads - it could be again.

C2's interface is intentionally simple and text-oriented. Sure we could make a whole bunch of web 2.0ish crap, markup, markdown, and marksideways, but are those WhyWikiWorks?

TheAdjunct doesn't steal traffic from C2 because there is practically no traffic to steal. But what it does is make the content here partial, confused, and scattered. WhatWikiAmiOnNow??

[The amount of OffTopic content on TheAdjunct is probably negligible compared to the amount still here, and as a SisterSite it's quite coupled anyway -- what does it matter which Wiki you're on now? WikiPedia has likely gobbled up those searching for and/or creating content on general ComputerScience, SoftwareEngineering and related topics. DesignPatterns are now old hat, and ExtremeProgramming has gone mainstream. Wikis in general are both ubiquitous and somewhat deprecated due to spam and vandalism, and niche topics tend to have their own wikis and forums. And, yes, it's true that IT in general is currently in the innovation doldrums -- social networking draws some academic focus but is barely worth discussing, and functional programming, Rails et al. fall into the "niche topic" category, i.e., they've got their own fora and wikis. All these factors, plus the now-archaic interface and a touch of GoogleHatesWiki, have combined to marginalize WardsWiki.]

My opinion? The community moved away. Several factors contributed:

Edit wars. Many valued contributors left as a direct result of GrammarVandal and the draconian measures taken to combat it.
- Yep. I burned out something fierce a year and a half ago. -- Eliz
Removal of identity. A consequence of the GrammarVandal/SharkBot war.
- I miss using my cookie. I miss other people using cookies. -- Eliz
Lack of maintenance. Face it, Ward is an absentee landlord. Instead of moving with the times and implementing a real authentication system, the site is left to the mercy of identity spoofers. Ward himself only chimes in a few times a year these days.
- I doubt technology alone would defeat GrammarVandal. The solution in my opinion would be for Ward to give a few entrusted deputies the ability to work on solutions and cleaning as a group.
Boredom. Folks just move on, it is a fact of life. Many of the old contributors found better uses of their time as the novelty of Wiki wore off.
Topic drift. I can only speak for myself, but arguing with TopMind about databases isn't as fun as past ThingsOnWikisMind.
- What if I inject databases into past favorites? How about DefinitionOfLifeAsTables? :-) -top
WikiPedia. Both the technology and the community process is soooo much more mature and popular. It is more gratifying to edit there.

I personally don't think TheAdjunct was a significant contributor to the decline of WardsWiki. -- IanOsgood

What decline?? If anything, WardsWiki admirably survived the AOL-ization of wikis... --PhlIp

If you look on WikiAtFortyThousand you can see that TheAdjunct is much smaller than C2. I don't think it can have made much difference to what is happening here. Not every one has gone away. I regard this site as an important repository of knowledge and continue to add to it and improve its crosslinkage. I do not know whether that helps anyone except me, but I do still have occasional dialogues on technical topics. I shall continue to do this as long as it and I are both available to do it.

Some bad things are still going on (26th January 2009). Someone edited and used my name on RecentChanges, and someone had deleted WelcomeVisitors, which I have now restored. -- JohnFletcher

I, myself, began to lose interest in c2 when a) I found I couldn't post for weeks at a time. I have no idea what was going on, but there seemed to be a whole lot of "housekeeping" and similar edits, and b) I got the distinct sense that OffTopic was heavily policed, and that much of what I had previously thought relevant was now OffTopic. This was over a year ago, maybe two.

A lot of other stuff came up in the meantime (heavy work, moving, more heavy work, getting drafted into some on-line moderating, (did I mention work?) and then moving) and I simply didn't look in for months at a time.

Which is kinda sad, really, 'cuz I miss the place and its people. -- GarryHamilton

The dictator did rule, and the dictator did ruin.

[quote]"The reason for this is simple. No subject is an island. The moment OffTopic stuff moves to TheAdjunct it loses its ability to stimulate the discussion of PeopleProjectsAndPatterns right here."[/quote]

Pete is correct about this, but there is a main point that is missed. The Adjunct gave excuse to label pages OffTopic, and gave excuse to a PowerMonger? to delete at-will. Very few pages were moved to the Adjunct, because he deleted the vast majority of them. Without the inspiration and stimulation of such pages, this Wiki is in the doldrums of dullness. Wiki is not just a repository turned into an old library, it is a "living community". Wikis, whatever the original shortsighted intent was, are far more then just a tool. Wikis are all about people, and Wikis like this one are all about flexibility and ever in a state of flux. Anything short of that, is simply lifeless and dull.

Re: "Ward is an absentee landlord."

Perhaps we are merely part of his experiment. Observers cannot interfere with their experiments if they want "clean" results. We may just all be ants in his ant zoo. He may be thinking, "Hmmm, how is the wiki community going to react to GV. Will GV drive them all away, or will they find a work-able solution to it?"

I'm glad that someone else also sees the "Great Experiment" picture. When I repeatedly brought up this possibility in the past, I was always quickly berated and shouted-down for it. In my opinion, it is, and always has been, a most likely probability, especially when you look at all the different applications for and directions Wikis have gone, and what Ward himself has gone on to do with Wikis, and the statistics and knowledge gained from this one.
By now, I'm mostly used to be berated.

NeedsToBeReadAgain

CategoryWiki