This is a proposal that community wiki be eventually split into more topically-focused subwikis.
It is not being proposed that this split happen soon. The optimal time to splinter is probably months, rather than weeks, away, and might be over a year. There are two good reasons why the split should not happen immediately:
- We'd like to get a larger community here first. When we splinter, each ChildWiki? will need to have a critical mass. If we splinter into small wikis now, it will be hard to attract a larger community than we currently have.
- The technical tools for binding the child wikis together aren't there yet. When we splinter, we want to be able to interact with the set of splinters as if they were one CommunityWiki; that is, the UI presented for CommunityWiki should be able to emulate the current UI. NearLinks and RecentNearChanges will get us there, but not yet. Also, as NearLinks and RecentNearChanges are new, we need more time to test out NearLinks and RecentNearChanges before splintering.
- It's possible that we would want to wait for additional tools such as MobileContent and the group movement tools that Lion is talking about.
However, it never hurts to try and plan ahead.
Reasons to splinter
No one would disagree that there are a couple of different sub-topics that this wiki discusses. Why should these go on different wikis?
- Some of these subtopics may be able to attract readership on their own that they would not be able to attract if tied to CommunityWiki. For example, MeatballWiki originally tried to be, among other things, a meeting point for wiki software developers. SunirShah has recently commented on this and encouraged MeatballWiki folks to try and win them back.
- I haven't talked to other wiki developers. I suspect, however, that many of these developers found that while they were interested in the wiki software discussions on MeatballWiki, they were uninterested in other discussions that went on there. If this is the case, perhaps a more focused "wiki software" wiki would be more attractive. As has been pointed out, you can't discuss the technical aspect of SocialSoftware without the social aspect; however, with a proper system of NearLinks, it should be possible to discuss both while providing people only interested in the technical aspects with a sub-community and RecentChanges page that only directly covers the technical side.
- Different topics lend themselves to different styles of writing. For instance, feature ideas lend themselves to brainstorming and ShallowPages, while discussions on strategies for community and collaboration lend themselves to PatternLanguage. This would be best served by different wikis with different CommunityExpectations for style
- More clarity about what is on-topic. This would avoid numerous small discussions.
- General elegance. If CommunityWiki were code, I would have split it up into different modules long ago.
- As an experiment in focused, topical wikis. If the splinter-communities fizzle out, it would be relatively easy for us to re-merge the pages.
Method of splintering
Just set up a bunch of OddMuses, set the
NearMaps to point to each other, copy the relevant pages from here into their various destinations.
What to do now
Just think about the idea, discuss it, and perhaps discuss which child-wikis should be created.
Potential child-wikis
- Wiki software development wiki (a superset of Lion's WikiFeatures wiki; comparable to CategoryWikiTechnology + CategoryWikiEngine)
- Community strategies/patterns wiki
- Community discussion wiki (for discussions about community and collaboration which do not form a PatternLanguage; case examples, discussion about social science theories, etc)
- Collaboration software wiki (for non-wiki SocialSoftware discussions)
- Information management wiki (the information management side of collaboration)
- Government and community (for discussing the political implications and examples of our ideas about community)
- Legal aspects of community and collaboration (legal stuff like copyright; a superset of Lion's WikiLegal?)
- Wiki-on-wiki wiki (well, this could use a better name). All of the meta-wiki conversation that doesn't fit in any of the above. For instance, discussions of how wiki will (certainly!) revolutionize the world, etc
- Miscellaneous CommunityWiki wiki (for stuff that doesn't fit in either one) (one could just use the current, or "parent" wiki for this) (if we do a really great job breaking up into child-wikis, we wouldn't need this)
Discussion
I think we should find a way of making split ParallelWikis integrate seemlessly with PageClusters. So, for example, edits to a child-wiki would appear on RecentChanges as edits to a single page on this wiki, as if it were a cluster. --MartinHarper
- Great idea. I agree. In that case, assuming all traffic was moved to the child-wikis, browsing the parent wiki would show every change as a cluster change. For full emulation of the current situation, there should be a way to see the changes page with all clusters expanded by default. -- BayleShanks
So, effectively just an RSS feed on the "home-page" here, but with RecentChanges notified when the RSS feed is updated? And the option to mix the RSS feeds inline on RecentChanges? Sounds like a job for...RSS! 
I assume this ability to expand/etc. changes on the RecentChanges page harks back to the original proposal on MeatBall:PageClusters along these lines? -- ChrisPurcell
How does this differ from RecentNearChanges? -- AlexSchroeder
Well, RecentNearChanges doesn't work like PageCluster changes; there isn't a display mode where if some pages on a near wiki is changes, this appears a single (but expandable) change on your RecentNearChanges. -- BayleShanks
Some Wiki, According to Lion
I've given a lot of thought to how to arrange the things we talk about here. Here are some of them:
- WikiProcess - notes on WikiKM:WikiProcess in general. What types of processes are there? What are the kinds of process decisions a wiki must make? What are their general tradeoffs? This would be an NPOV site. I've made the very beginnings of such a site, but haven't worked on it at all.
- Individual WikiProcesses - people will make and formalize their own wiki processess, and need a place to elaborate on them. One example of my MappersProcess wiki (MappersProcess:FrontPage). It is by no means mature. I suspect that what is traditionally called "TheWikiWay" should have it's own process site. This is a controversial opinion, but hopefully not for long: "The Wiki Way" is just one, particular, way that wiki can be used.
- OnlineInteraction? - notes on how people interact online. Things like gradually reducing interaction, handling flamewars. Also, protocol on email lists, IRC, etc., would be here. This would be an NPOV site.
- Wiki Software Development - I agree that this is an important site, but I list it to differentiate it. This would be a site for wiki software developers. In particular, it would be a site for talking about architectures for wiki software engines, and the tools (APIs, Languages) that people use to develope wiki. It is NOT a place to talk about wiki technologies in themselves. Rather, it is a place to talk about DEVELOPING wiki technologies.
- Wiki Technologies - the place to talk about wiki technologies, and their desirability. You don't have to be a wiki developer to talk about the technologies. I've already made WikiFeatures, but it needs to be generalized to WikiTechnologies?. Obvious cases: Talk about WikiEngines. Non-obvious cases? The "technology" of Futures:StandardPages or pre-made page sets.
- Wiki Government - For talking about the ways that "wiki communities" can self-govern, and attendent technologies. Voting, conflict resolution, both technology-supported and non-technology supported systems.
- Inter-Wiki Technology Organizing. I've already started work on one of these.
- Internet Collaboration Legal - For talking about legal aspects when collaborating over the Internet in general.
- Wiki Collaboration Legal - Basically, WikiLegal?. Will mostly serve to make WikiKM:AugmentedArgument over license for a wiki a whole lot easier.
- Political Wiki Wiki - Wiki on political uses of wiki. For example, the Disinformation wiki project, Consumerium wiki project, Union organizing over wiki, Wiki for the World Social Forum, and general on the democratizing potential of wiki.
- General Community Theory - Related to analysis and considerations of communities in general, identifying patters between communities, regardless of form.
That's just a small, tiny sampling of the wiki that can come off here, and host their own, massive, community.
Problem with the term "SubWiki"
I have problems with the term "SubWiki"- it implies that there's a tree relationship between wiki, which there isn't.
It also implies parental ownership.
Suppose that the Political Wiki Wiki took on a life of it's own. What utility, then, is there in calling it a "SubWiki" of CommunityWiki?
Could there be a "Custody Battle" between two "ParentWiki?"- over who is the parent? (Is it InfoAnarchy, or CommunityWiki?) So, it makes no sense to talk about it as a SubWiki.
Maybe ChildWiki? is best for seperate spawned wiki. A child can have two or more parents, and once it's grown up, it has an individual existence of its own.
SubWiki, in my PatternLanguage, is a wiki within a wiki. For example, ForgiveAndForget, ForgiveAndForgetInSoftware, ForgiveAndForgetInWetware, and RememberThePast could all be part of the Forgive-And-Forget SubWiki. Maybe you implement that sub-wiki by PageClusters, or maybe you do it by CategoryFilteredRecentChanges.
Yes! ChildWiki?. I like that. It has a parent or two while it's growing up, but then it becomes a full adult, with its own distinct nature. -- LionKimbro
Okay, I replaced sub-wiki with child-wiki -- BayleShanks
CategoryThisWiki