Wiki Dream World

Originally posted on RealPersonalityPlease:

There are some "little" problems in your "Wiki dream world".

Firstly, the human mind being as it is, it is nothing short of a miracle that any two minds can come together with even a 20% understanding on any subject, let alone when this is on an global/international scale. Individuals tend to be individualistic in their approaches and understandings, and there are LanguageBarriers too. One person's idea of a valuable contribution, can be another’s idea of garbage. Wiki is like that, in that "easy come, easy go" (easy to contribute, easy to delete) is a big part of the game here. For those of us that have been here for many, many years, we have learned that there are certain cycles to Wiki, but there is a definite change/decline taking place now. You are also not taking into account the demoralization of Wiki that came about from its past of the big EditWars, surviving Dictatorship, dealing with GrammarVandal, and now the inhuman SharkBot. Ignoring the spoofing of UserCookie?s and UserNames, only adds to the confusion and insures that more contributions may be suspect and therefore open to deletion (as trying to determine what is legit or not, is complicated by these same practices).

Unfortunately in this case BottomMind might be against you.

Taken one at a time:

1 That people should see things clearly!
- "the human mind being as it is, it is nothing short of a miracle that any two minds can come together with even a 20% understanding on any subject, let alone when this is on an global/international scale. Individuals tend to be individualistic in their approaches and understandings, and there are LanguageBarriers too. One person's idea of a valuable contribution, can be another’s idea of garbage."
  - That can be handled by Positive and Meaningful Dialogue
2 That some people play this site as if it were a war game!
- "Wiki is like that, in that "easy come, easy go" (easy to contribute, easy to delete) is a big part of the game here."
  - That is why it is important for there to be Helpful and Cooperative Discourse
3 That experience has shown that things cycle and presently we are in a decline!
- "For those of us that have been here for many, many years, we have learned that there are certain cycles to Wiki, but there is a definite change/decline taking place now."
  - See the appeal made below meant to reverse that decline!
4 That there are entities (made to appear as a virtual enemy) who do not and will not cooperate with robotic manipulations of their edits, and make senseless attempts to re-verse them many times in the matter of just a few minutes, consuming server time and resources in the process!
- "You are also not taking into account the demoralization of Wiki that came about from its past of the big EditWars, surviving Dictatorship, dealing with GrammarVandal, ... "Ignoring the spoofing of UserCookie?s and UserNames, only adds to the confusion"
  - All the more reason for Sensible and Accurate Contributions
5 That non-human solutions are being employed to handle the above situation and problem and that those who do so are not prevented or admonished from doing so!
- "and now the inhuman SharkBot." ... "insures that more contributions may be suspect and therefore open to deletion (as trying to determine what is legit or not, is complicated by these same practices)."
  - Why not in this CallForCollaboration can we conduct instead, Helpful and Cooperative Discourse

I am not appealing to GrammarVandal, Dave, or the SharkBot to change. They will not and have not, this battle lasting so far at least 4 years. I am only appealing to the rest of you to make what you do here real, and to express and ContributePagesFromYourExpertise , AddingValue while you CreateNewPages about PatternsBenefitsExperiences . Don't be caught up in battles trying only to win, present stuff you do successfully and daily in your own Programming and Internet experiences. See XpCourageValue. Talk about what is really on your mind in a proactive and contributory sense. It is not a dream world to think that this can happen. I've been around for 10 years now and intend to be around for the next ten years. During that time I intend to contribute via authorship and commentary to another 2 to 3 hundred pages. A few of them may even turn out to be ReallyValuablePages. I will do so while signing my real name as I do here: -- DonaldNoyes.20110314

"I will do so while signing my real name as I do here:" Then, don't get all bent out of shape if your contribution gets deleted, or if it gets confused with GrammarVandal, as you have been asked and warned that now is not the time to be using UserCookie?s or UserNames... You just don't seem to get it. And, for the most part, WikiUsers are already doing what it is that you are suggesting. Remember, this is a Wiki, and "sh*t" gets deleted, altered, and such here, because that is what it is all about... game or no game, it is the function/purpose of a Wiki, i.e. Wiki is in a state of constant flux (just a little reminder to make sure you are on the same page as everyone else).

In WhyWikiWorks, WardCunningham says (Emphasis mine):

A wiki is a body of ideas that a community is willing to know and maintain. That community has every right to be cautiously selective in what it will groom. This particular wiki has been blessed with thoughtful, diligent, diverse and open-minded volunteers, who have invested years learning what works here and what doesn't. When volunteers tire and depart, others take their place. I remain amazed that this works without mechanically enforced authority. Possibly it works because there is no mechanically enforced authority. In any event, I remain grateful to all volunteers, past, present and future. -- WardCunningham

This is the way he dreamed Wiki would be. I hold to the dream. I have used a UserName since 2001. I am not, and I believe Ward is not "Bent out of shape".

If you insist on deletion by assumption, I quess I will have to live with it. Because though I could do it, I will not waste Wiki Resources by imposing a "mechanically enforced authority" with a bot of my own. What I will live with is the same sort of participation I have, for over 10 years, continued.

That you see it necessary to continue as you have, allowing your bot to target UserNames assumed to have been spoofed, I am saddened. It would seem to me to be fair, that in doing away with what you consider "rubbish", you would do so like all the rest of the wikizens here do, manually. This after having read and considered what it is, and who it is that has made it. -- DonaldNoyes.20110314

You do realize that I agree with you, right? You do realize that I have nothing to do with the SharkBot, right? My comments about that, were what we have to do currently with both the SharkBot and GrammarVandal being active on Wiki. You do see that, right?
{Indeed. Donald, your previous correspondent has nothing to do with the SharkBot. I am the author of the SharkBot. Please note that GrammarVandal frequently uses a "DonaldNoyes" UserName cookie more than you do. That renders your UserName meaningless. The UserName cookie was conceived in a time when Wiki presumed all users were cooperative and shared a common purpose. That time has passed. Let's not forget that only a few years ago, GrammarVandal effectively halted discourse by interrupting (i.e., forcing users to re-edit pages) by injecting every discussion with StupidLittleEdits. Furthermore, he sometimes edited posts to change their meaning, and continuously badgered an active participant until he left. The SharkBot prevents a repeat of those unpleasant times. If you stopped using your UserName cookie, you'd probably never have an edit auto-reverted. By the way, the SharkBot automates precisely the same edits I would make myself. I built it by observing the edits that I was making manually, and made it model the decision-making process I was using. Rather than regarding the SharkBot as a dumb machine, think of it as an automated model of DaveVoorhis's GrammarVandal-wiki-edit intelligence. It is, if you will, a means by which my manual edits are generated automatically.} -- DaveVoorhis

Thanks to you and the voice represented above your comment. I appreciate your clarification about your position and perception of where wiki is and how it works. It is clear to me now. I can handle and it, and this wiki will allow it. Let us move on.

The nature of my comments are about what we can do about the situation while it continues. Far to much really important stuff is going on in the technological and particularly the Computing field for us to place a great deal of time on this issue. This is wiki after all, and the great thing about it is that people are free to do things here, and while we may expect good things and behavior to occur here, it sometimes doesn't. What I am for is not correcting spelling and or grammar, or preventing it from being done, but instead the contribution of thoughts, ideas, projects, concepts, new hardware, software and cooresponding methods, and the social fabric of a wiki in bringing them together in a place where like-minded individuals will engage themselves. I have called that PositiveDialogue, but what it is called is not as important as having it happen.

Over five or six years ago this wiki began to have people who were concerned not about contributing stuff, but with correcting, being in conflict and opposing stuff. That was followed by people who concentrated on keeping the wiki small, at about 30,000 pages or so. To do so, they involved themselves with a deletion binge. At the same time others began to see the potential in this NobleExperiment and began creating other venues where the topics and extents were expanded or where other ideas and presentation and editing methods were employed. The ExtremeProgramming people moved on and wrote books and conducted seminars and conferences and created their own separate community. Patterns had been wanting for new participants for years. The only thing left, Programming ended up being the focus here. While during my first five years here the wiki moved from about 16000 to almost 30,000 pages, the last five years has seen a flattening out at just over 32,000 pages. I happen to think that this can become an exciting place again if just a few, a handful of a dozen or more individuals would take up the challenge of revitalization of this, the birthplace of wiki.

You can see, I skirted around the question of whether I see things as you see them, or that you see things as I do. It is because I have come to the point where I could care less about the things that divide and destroy this place. I am and will be (along with you and hopefully many others) involving myself with what is new and what is important and what is going to happen. I intend to be a ChangeAgent who speaks sincerely and earnestly about what we can do with the technology we have in our hands. It is marvelous. I say ShaZam! -- DonaldNoyes.20110315