Wiki Nature

WikiNature is typing in a bunch of book titles, coming back a day later, and finding them turned into birds in the Amazon.

Writing on Wiki is like regular writing, except I get to write so much more than I write, and I get to think thoughts I never thought. (...like being on a really good FreeSoftware project, where you wake up the next morning to find your bugs fixed and ideas improved.)

It reminds us of minimalist Japanese brushstroke drawings; you provide the few, elegant slashes of ink, and other minds fill in the rest.

It befuddles and enlightens. :-D)))

Really, it's not accurate to talk about a WikiNature; we would do better recognizing that Nature itself, is Wiki. WikiNature as UniversalMind.

Note that the WikiNature is now actively opposed by the gang controlling this here wiki - see WikiContentGenerationProcess for their arguments that WikiNature is dead, gone, sawed off, and an idiot fantasy that never actually existed.

A WikiWeb lends itself to an organization of human expressions of thought into 'bite-sized' chunks just right for the attention-deficit culture of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. -- TimChambers

But what about those who have a hard time comprehending things that aren't flashy? Anyway, I like more stylistic elements, and I created. a WikiStyle that people are free to use. It doesn't take away anything from the minimalism, but it does make the pages easier to read. -- SeanPalmer

The following quote (received via an e-mail from CliffordAdams) got me thinking about WikiNature again: "Then again, Wiki is largely defined by people who find it valuable enough to live with its imperfections."

I was tempted to respond that Wiki is, in fact, valuable because of its imperfections. I think that there are essential "imperfections", such as limited formatting and no security, which increase the usefulness of Wiki. Also, the lack of an obvious differencing mechanism forces me to delve into the context of a Recent Change before firing off a response which, all in all, is also a good thing. However, before I hit "save" (luckily) I realized that there are also undesirable "imperfections", such as the lack of a way of ensuring the preservation of intent while refactoring (i.e. no unit tests), which decrease the value of Wiki. The underlying code of Wiki is freely available, and Wiki itself has an OpenSource flavor to it which implies that the imperfections would be self-healing; but the critical role of the content at this site (independent of the underlying application) changes the nature of the stewardship role that WardCunningham has.

I keep coming again to the idea of PhysicalCuesInSoftwareDevelopment and wondering if there aren't changes deeper than the typical WikiWikiSuggestions which would make WikiNature more obvious (and natural?) to newcomers and old-timers alike. Also, how do we effectively try out these ideas when we need the applications and the participants to find out what really works. Any thoughts?

-- JeffShelby

Wiki nature is never knowing when someone will erase what you typed yesterday. [Or, even 2 seconds ago!]

"Mud sometimes gives the illusion of depth." MarshallMcLuhan

"Our integrity is the sum of our imperfections." (-author)

"...while our ingenuity endures because of those imperfections" (-author^2)

Imperfection generates love. -- FridemarPache

(see also: WabiSabi)

Wiki Wiki Web

Better than HTML? Less glamour = more fun

Reminds me of the TaoTeChing -

 Knowledgeable people don't talk;
 Talkative people don't know.

(http://www.chinapage.org/gnl.html#56)

It is reversed on the Wiki: Knowledgeable people do talk, and Talkative people do know.

Sometimes true, but often not. Wiki attracts a few of the relatively talkative among the knowledgeable, but still attracts some of the talkative among the unknowledgeable as well. But how, I whine, will I ever know if what I read on Wiki was written by a WiseMan or a talkative fool? I know I can't trust everything I read in the papers, but is Wiki a paper?

Wiki does not redefine human nature, it only attracts a subset of it; and it does not really constrain that subset very much.

<Tei>I am a "talkative fool", but I have some keys of the millions of the keys of the world. The wiki is a tool to refine knowngement. Me Think </Tei> (can you explain that word please? it looks good, but how do you break it up? known+ arrangement? knowledge management?)

Ah, but you see, those who only recently realized are still flush with the excitement of the moment of illumination. While they yet burn with excitement, they MUST speak, however joyously awkward a thing it is. Criticize it how you will, it is truly spontaneous, and while this endures is one with the Tao.

Later, others now more calm come along and review these words. Those which do TOO MUCH violence to the TAO of the matter are allowed to remain, those which confuse, blind, mislead are gently and silently removed.

Remember that the TRUE mysteries are incommunicable, AKA ineffable, aka you only come to understand them by DIRECT EXPERIENCE. This 'direct experience' of the nature of a matter is named GNOSIS.

Write. Post. Read. Edit. In the doing is found the true meaning of the wiki nature.

And remember, the Tao is your everyday mind. -- Deliberatus

Wiki has many [natures]

[moved from elsewhere, regarding a minor argument about a page deletion:]

This does raise the interesting point that those of us who weren't around to witness the history culminating in a MindWipe are doomed to repeat it, because no evidence has been left. I have no idea what XYZ stuff led up to this, as the evidence has been so effectively erased, so I have only the word of people who appear to be engaging in mass deletions (with comments like 'delete XYZ junk' on pages that appeared innocent) that they're acting the best interest of the community. My ignorance notwithstanding, all seems to be relatively well once more, so I'll stop complaining now :-) -- DarrenHobbs

I think this is a side-effect of the WikiNow - we have a very effective MemoryHole. With regards to this particular incident - it lasted about eighteen months, and count yourself very lucky indeed that you missed it. Best, -- EarleMartin

That is indeed an interesting point, and one that goes to the heart of the WikiNature. Aside from the aberration of the escalated EditWars in unfortunately-recent memory, the general theory is that mistakes made by those who say that they're acting in the best interest of the community, but are not (accidentally or maliciously, either way), will eventually be repaired by the slow but inexorable force of lurking WikiGnomes, usually after LetHotPagesCool, sometimes long after. And that this is the more important part of the WikiNature than the short term noise in RecentChanges. It's like the InvisibleHand theory of economics, perhaps. -- DougMerritt

Doug, I already copied this segment to WikiNow. If you think it's better suited to here, that's fine with me. -- EarleMartin

See MuHinShu

CategoryEasternThought