Wiki Episode

Good joke

My favorite WikiEpisode was the one where they all thought they were going to get off the island, but in the end they didn't.

Episodes are part of the evolution of Wiki, while not being its main focus

The NobleExperiment of the wiki is not an episode. While there are pages which might be characterized as WikiEpisodes, the wiki is more correctly an ongoing experiment in the ability of an open and freely editable IdeaSpace? to evolve and to facilitate collaboration and aid in the growth of ideas and knowledge. -- MarkRogers

Unconscious irony?

Did this page need an IronyWarning? For by ending WikiEpisode in that (to me) rather negative way, twelve months ago, just after I had started it, Mark beautifully illustrated my point. He ended the WikiEpisode I had started. And hopefully I've just opened another one. -- RichardDrake

A more open way would be better ...?

As is often the case in (initially) abortive episodes which are closed down by "those that know", there were a number of more open-ended options to keep the episode going. One would have been to ask, humbly, what WardCunningham has meant by episode applied to software development. It was always one of my favorites of Ward's ideas. And the analogy between building a bit of software and building a wiki has been enormously strong and influential here. The point of this page was to open up, for those that were interested, one more angle on the analogy. But the WikiEpisode episode didn't prosper ... so much so that this page ended up being deleted early this morning Portland time. It still could prosper though.

Another way to go would have been to try to enumerate a few of the larger-scale episodes on WardsWiki. How does the SamGentle episode of early 2000 compare to the Robert Abitbol episode of 2003/04, one might ask (but not necessarily stay around to hear the answer!). How about the JimCoplien episode, way before I was born, wiki-wise? Not that all episodes have to be named after a person, the young man says hurriedly. But to say that the idea of episode has no place, at a small-grained or a larger-grained level, and that to be the end of it ... well I can't prove that point of view wrong, but I do think that it's just a little bit limiting. -- RichardDrake

The examples you offer as episodes are illustrations that episodes do exist. What is clear, at least by the ones offered, is that some who enter into this experience, this NobleExperiment, have invested a great deal of personal effort in influencing or reflection upon what is going on in the interpersonal exchanges.

This investment and the feeling of ego that go with such investments together with what some may construe as attacks or bias, inevitably lead to exchanges which cannot be characterized as friendly and collaborative. In my way of thinking, hostility and investment of ego-centric ownership of areas, thoughts, types of emphasis tend to destructive, rather than constructive interchanges.

I do not think that Mark was attempting to shoot down or sabotage and characterize that a WikiEpisode has "No Place", but that Episodes are not the "Main or intended" scenarios and that they are often examples of how interactions can become emotional expressions of one's ownership of the ideas, methods and in what is the "norm".

This wiki is not about norms; it is about what is not and has not been "normal", the examination of new ways of looking at things, of new ways to interact and collaborate, of innovation and development, not only of software and computing, but also in the mechanisms of communications, which must be based more on agreements than on combat and proof of the rightness and wrongness of what one thinks and expresses.

Time and truth can act as filters in determining what will survive, who will remain, and how this site will continue to be. One and only one thing is certain: all of these will change. -- DonaldNoyes

A lot of points taken and well-made. However, I've just given SecondGenerationProgrammer as another example of a WikiEpisode. Of 4-5 years duration, very largely positive, and still going strong. But thinking of it as a WikiEpisode today also made me want to edit the page reasonably radically, as I've just done. Precisely away from the destructive and combative patterns of interaction.

I am putting forward the WikiEpisode concept as neutral, in other words. But I also suggest that by encouraging a more positive kind of WikiEpisode the NobleExperiment has much more chance of success.

Please also don't forget that I was alluding to Ward's ideas of development. That grounds the idea for me. And did you know the same term is used in the technical analysis of Bach fugues? That tickled and intrigued me, given my interest in AnalogiesFromMusic (for software, if not wikis). -- rd

In this definition is would not be a stretch to typify Patterns as an Episode, and also ExtremeProgramming. For that matter, in a sense, Categories and Categorization could also be included. Not to mention all of the pages with what some call navel-gazing or Wiki-On-Wiki emphasis. Most certainly the WikiSpringCleaning and WikiPageRefactoring? could also be so construed. -- DonaldNoyes

Well, as I say, I'd want it to be grounded at least partly in what Ward meant by the term for software. I wouldn't see XP as an episode - it's way too big and has far too many ramifications - or indeed any of your examples. Least of all the sum of all navel-gazing on Wiki. Anything less like an episode I would struggle to describe. -- Richard

Then I am a little confused - What page or what source is the one indicating "what Ward meant by the term for software"? -- DonaldNoyes

I don't remember where I read the stuff about episodes - or if they were discussed in person, on the phone or even in Instant Messenger. As I remember, it was a theme of Ward's before Kent turned all the knobs to ten to produce XP in a large corporate Y2K replacement project. For example, Ward was using the idea in product development in a small company context at Wyatt, with which I really identified. At least I think. Memory can also deceive. But best to ask the great man. The grounding I was talking about was a putative one, therefore, but one I felt could be extremely fruitful. Based on one of the many resonances I felt with Ward's ideas when first exposed to them in 1999/2000. I have no idea where I picked this one up. But then open-ended is a key phrase in an IdeaSpace?, no? -- RichardDrake

Applicable Extraction from IdeaSpace?:

contain clear and widely understandable artifacts or
remain unclear with the attachments, implications, interpretations, applications not fully realized or expressed within the space

My expression of confusion is rooted in the second bullet point. It is unclear to me, though perfectly clear to you. I was seeking to realize what the "understandable artifacts" are with regard to what is said here. I am not just playing around with words nor is it meant to be "SemanticTag?". Evidently you view "Episodes" as delimited in size and scope, since you rule out examples given in the part where the mention is made of "ExtremeProgramming" and "Patterns" as "Episodes". Can Episodes grow? Do they have a subject, lifetime and scope? Can it be said that an "Episode" is over, complete, ended? What is it that identifies a page or group of pages as part of an "Episode"? -- DonaldNoyes

I think the "over, complete, ended" is key. An episode must be able to be these things, even if it isn't yet. This leads on to the very interesting observable Wiki phenomenon of the long WikiEpisode. I'm seeking to describe RealWorld experience here. I remember how struck I was with this a long time ago in the case of ExternalAndInternalDesign and TimBernersLee (the page here, not the totality of the man!). There was valuable feedback and conversation over a much more prolonged period that I had been used to anywhere else. This led on to the idea of SlowWiki, one of the great contradictions or oxymorons I've ever coined. -- rd

Clarifying question

Maybe this will help. For me, the question

Which WikiEpisode have you learnt the most from?

is quite different from

Which WikiPage have you learnt the most from?

Yet the first question and its corollaries remains a very interesting one. For example, I learnt a lot trying to be explicit about AnalogiesFromMusic in 1999 and the extremely good feedback this generated within a few weeks. In this case, the episode is well represented by the page but this is by no means always the case. (Indeed, one may fairly argue that in the limit, as time goes to infinity, it will one day not be the case for any WikiEpisode. SecondLawOfThermodynamics and all that.) But AnalogiesFromMusic was a great WikiEpisode for me. Well, at least until the last contributor came in and said something so difficult to understand that the free flow of ideas was abruptly terminated. I remember it oh so well. Incidents like that got me interested in PseudonymityWithUntraceability and how it could badly affect any WikiEpisode of real value to the RealPerson. That whole scene led to less positive episodes again. But holding up the positive is surely the right way forward. -- RichardDrake

This is helpful to me in understanding where you are coming from. It appears however that in some cases the episode is terminated without being finished, which sounds to me (using AnalogiesFromMusic) like an "Unfinished Symphony". It seems tragic that someone coughing during a performance should cause the orchestra to cease playing. It would seem to me better in WikiEpisodes? to acknowledge the event by perhaps blinking the eye, while all the time continuing as though the diversion had not occurred. It may be that at times we would do well to suppress the emotional reaction and overcome it with an intellectual realization of what an interrupting incident really is. I from time to time have entered into dialogue only to find that I did not understand the parameters under which most of the participants were operating and found that withdrawal of my part (which was confusing the issue as other had perceived it) was the best thing to do. But I think it is wrong to remove oneself from participating, to cease or withdraw because of feelings hurt or because of someone's intentional attempt to silence by attack or deflection or confusion. PositiveDialogue can occur when one faces honestly the ideas and the basis of the idea being in fact and demonstratable, rather than being in personal opinion and preferences. I like the idea of something having the capability of being finished, as a definition of an "Episode". -- DonaldNoyes