It is an extremely funny thing that the CategoryEasternThought pages, which emphasize harmony and non-contention, are now the subject of a bunfight between the proprietors of the two most prominent child wikis. Before we are consumed with guffaws at the antics of these peculiar little men, however, it might be a good idea to talk about how c2, and WikiDom in general, are to harmoniously grow, interlink, and share content.
Several protocols seem to be floating abroad, with obvious and subtle benefits and flaws:
- Mirrored content. When pages become the subject of a wiki, they are simply copied - no deletion occurs on the original.
- Problems: violates OnceAndOnlyOnce, causing severe maintenance and refactoring problems; drains child wiki participants back to the oversubscribed original wiki, which is bad for both; doesn't help with off-topic content.
- Benefits: allows different pages to take on different viewpoints appropriate to their environment. Same name pages on MeatBall and WikiWikiWeb cover similar ground, but each go into greater detail on different tangents.
- Pillaged content. Pages are moved and deleted at whim.
- Problems: various wikis have various different policies that may affect access; InterWiki isn't sufficiently mature, especially on c2, to make navigation easy for those who still have an interest in the content of both wikis - there is that o so annoying extra click; wiki participants with an overzealous sense of ownership may get up in arms.
- Negotiated movement. The current scheme. Wiki hosts and the concerned page authors negotiate privately. Upon agreement they announce their intention to move a set of pages. They create a prominent page - such as CategoryEasternThought - stating their intention to move the pages. They leave this intention and category up for comment for some period - in the CET case it was nearly six months - and deal fairly with anyone who dissents.
- Problems: there will always be people who are too lazy to care until the pages are moved; hosts and authors are not commonly held to represent the community in which they work; the evolution of the pages may be affected by the move in ways not expected by these hosts and authors.
There are probably other options to consider too. In short, we have another
TragedyOfTheCommons to avert.
WikiPrimeDirective, anyone?
Could someone please explain the concept of "growth by budding". It sounds like an interesting subject, and maybe contains some insights for how to "prune" wikis as they grow. Or how to just smell the flowers.
WhenFlowersFinishTrimStem.
Meta-Comment:
"I removed the troll/flame/ballyhoo, but some of this should be relocated to WikiEmigration, and the whole mess there refactored. Yet another page to put on the to-do list."
See WikiEmigration.
CategoryWiki CategoryGardeningMetaphor
Wiki Grows By Budding