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CommunityWikiThemes

Historically, CommunityWiki has been about several things:

Discussion

If we don’t want to FishBowl this wiki, we need to figure out what topics it affords, what topics interest us.AlexSchroeder, 2009-08-28

What will CommunityWiki be about now?

Increasingly, in my OffLine? life, that which you will find written about in my notebooks, includes:

Psi:

  • TeilhardDeChardin – “what he thought” – much more said than the cursory treatments given
  • the ImagiReal? – that which is both real (both literally real and “truth,”) & imaginary (in the wildest senses of the term)
  • sense – as different than “understanding”
  • teleology – the study of ends (where are we going? Greg Bear & other sci-fi writers)
  • things that would make the FiveWorldsMandala blush
  • movies, mass culture, the main stream, authenticity, communicative theory (that is, I still think about the nature of reason & rationality)
  • cults, new societies, religions – and the new agreement, the three-layered society
  • esoterics of action – “how do we actually do anything with all of this?”
  • (hard) science & (new age) spirituality – by “hard science,” I mean no quantum mysticism. It should pass the Richard Dawkins’ understanding of science.
  • language & simulation – conversation on WordMagic is timely – “Did you know that WordMagic works in reverse? That even our ordinary words have “magical” effects on us?”

Computationally:

  • new methods of string parsing – “channels, tracks, and text”
  • human-readable human-editable databases (think “YAML for databases”)
  • megalibraries – libraries containing every piece of code you’ve ever written, and that you and your friends have ever written, for instance – “leave no function behind”
  • microframeworks – “frameworks” on the order of 10-20 lines long; super-powered “samples”
  • new methods of organizing software code
  • further developments of object theory
  • AlanKay?’s ideas (separation of meaning from tactics)

There is a possibility of fruitful conversation around pen & paper role-playing games, though I don’t know how it would proceed. I just know that I keep bumping into RPGs as I study practically everything in the “Psi” category above.

The above topics are “that stuff that I am made of” right now.

Ideally, I would have each person on the wiki dump a list like mine of the contents of their head.

We may want to extend e-mail invitations, since most of us are not actively reading. (Like: “What in the world is BayleShanks thinking about right now?”)

I prefer for the community not to have an explicit goal – NathanielThurston, on LionKimbro’s NamePage, 2009-09-02

Personally, I prefer for the community to have an explicit goal. An explicit goal allows me to say: You do not belong. Go build your own community.

This sounds harsh. It hurts people who are rejected. Some people get rejected a lot in life. Explicit goals help draw boundaries. But boundaries have positive side-effects!

  • It lets people choose between the various communities instead of everybody trying to drag the existing community in this direction or in that.
  • The ability to exclude people makes it easier to enjoy the existing community.
  • It helps to avoid conflict because there’s a tendency to be on the same wavelength
  • I get to choose from whom to learn, with whom to interact.
  • Leadership conflict is concentrated around the splitting period, followed by long periods of silence instead of dragging along and dragging everybody else in.
  • Once a community splits, everybody else gets to choose one, the other, or both. Community membership is not a ZeroSumGame.

Yes, it is true, having an explicit goal would do that.

But we could also just draw boundaries around people explicitly.

Don’t mistake me – I am open to an explicit goal, but it isn’t at all clear to me what it would be.

I’m just thinking, “Can’t we say that there are some people that we play with and some that we don’t?” Why do we have to ground it in mission? I am remembering when we set up the CW whatever-it-was-called (I can’t even remember,) – “association” or something like that – and we said, “CW is not a government.” This was a very adamant opinion. It was not mine, but I came to agree with it.

We could just say: “AlexSchroeder is the discerner.” It’s like “the decider,” but different, because you can’t send America to war with Iraq. The qualitative difference in level makes a difference.

Though I do have a sense that CW could reach another plane of existence, if we could find some new norms. I find myself writing on CW, and people agree “yay” or “nay,” and there is some additional conversation. I do wonder if there is a way to draw more thought from others, and I wonder how much do I contribute to preventing that? So there is a quest, in my mind at least, for a higher plane. I do not know if it is our norms, or my way of communicating, or if it is simply that people don’t have time. If we can find some new principles, that can permit us to reject, as well as to inspire, it would be great. I search for it.

Regarding the explicit goal – here’s how I see it. A little bit of OralHistory?. :)

  • Right now I don’t think Community Wiki has an explicit goal. It used to have one, and then everything grew quiet. I though: TargetReached. No problem. Move on.
  • Then you said can we move some topics here? And I wondered: Would it be good o bad to just set ourselves a new target? I think we should set ourself a new target.
  • Then NathanielThurston said (the quote I provided above) that he was fine with having no explicit goal. I am fine with not having an explicit goal right now. To do a little random walk and see what catches on.
  • But I still want an excplicit goal, even if we have none right now. Just keep looking. (That sounds like a song text to me… Radiohead?)

I’d be interested in reaching a higher plane of existence in my life. I’m not sure that there’s enough of me in Community Wiki to try and reach it here. My hunch is: no. I’d have to give a lot. I prefer to give a lot around real people sitting at my table, playing ping-pong, pétanque, D&D, drinking, eating, playing. This wiki is but shadows on the wall. It’s not real. We’d be talking about it and mistaking the finger for the moon.

Oh, and the word you were looking for was CommunityWikiAssembly. I’ve added a search for matching pages to the top. I find it very useful.

You wonder whether we can draw lines around people. Maybe we can. But in real life I find nobody – not a single person! – whose interests are in sync with mine. Even my wife, a true soul mate of mine, is interested in dancing and not in coding. That’s why it makes sense for me to set up communities and boundaries around areas of interest. If we share several of those, we might share several communities. But I don’t think that you or anybody on this wiki is part of my cosmic group of souls making the long trek to Nirvana – of my Karass (new word I learnt today, thanks Lion :)).

Also, I find your enthusiasm contagious, but I remember from past interactions that what I see in it and what you see in it to be very different, to the point where I felt that my taking up of your ideas and going where I wanted to take them was taking the wind out of your sails. Or maybe I’ve mellowed with age. No more nerdly maniac storm of activity. :) I’m also reminded of the “other people” section in SeedPosting. If you do all the work and write like a maniac, other people feel unable to join in, or they feel they’re too slow, or they are relaxing as the show unfolds before them without their intervention. It’s difficult to get in sync with other people and to find MutualInspiration.

Various points:

  • I didn’t mean anything metaphysical when I say “draw lines around people,” – I just meant, “Can’t we just say: we don’t want to play with you, here, Freidemar?” (Without grounding it in some kind of principle of governance, adherence to mission, or anything other than – “This doesn’t seem to be working” ..?)
  • If we set up communities and boundaries around areas of interest – well, – that’s what I meant by “themes.” I think I meant the same thing.
  • If you like “karass,” you may also like “wampeter.” A “wampeter” sounds like much more fun than an “object” in SocialNetwork theory. :)
  • I cannot see your faces, when I write. If people like what I write, I do not know. If they think “Lion is taking the wiki in a direction that I don’t like,” I do not know. If people want to say something, and are fearful that I will say “No,” I do not know. I write, and people seem to like it, but I do not know. If you were to write about RPGs here, I would be overjoyed. If BayleShanks were to write about AI research here, I would be overjoyed. If RadomirDopieralski were to write about his programming experiments here, I would be overjoyed. If we could find a way to share our fascinations, it would be great. What is it that I can do or not do, to fulfill the impetus?

We share the same understanding regarding lines, people, and themes.

I discovered Wikipedia:Bokononism. Thanks! :)

As for roleplaying games: I’ve already found a community to share my enthusiasm with:

  1. I play in plenty of games.
  2. Some of my blog pages categorized as RPG posts are part of the RPG Bloggers Network (built around a Planet)
  3. I do the same thing with some German RPG posts which are part of RSP Blogs
  4. I am subscribed to an extensive list of RPG blogs (see my RPG Planet feeds for a start)
  5. I listen to a ton of RPG podcasts
  6. Many of the same people and many more professionals are on Twitter

I just feel no need talk about it, here. My community is strong.

I feel that I could use my interest in roleplaying games as examples for patterns, problems, and solutions to issues of modern net-based society. Gaming via Skype, cross media, media affordances, circles, DocumentsVsMessages, and so on. Interesting stuff, but right now nothing that excites me enough to share. It just works.

Yep. I understand and agree.

Heck, I read your blog.

Heck, I am planning with my daughter a game from the one page dungeon contest that I learned about from your blog and for which you were a judge in. I’ve shown the one pagers to so many people, they’re so awesome.

Yep, yep, yep, …

This wiki is but shadows on the wall. It’s not real. We’d be talking about it and mistaking the finger for the moon.

It is truth, and I saw that so clearly as I walked the territories of Damanhur.

Damanhur: http://uneideeunjour.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/damanhur.jpg

It’s really real.

I tap my pencil on the desk, and stare at the ceiling.

For me, CommunityWiki has been a place of testing and developing and sharing ideas. This has been utterly invaluable.

It has also served to connect me with absolutely amazing people, both online and in real life. This is good.

It brings me to tears that Radomir thinks to say, “Please forgive me for using this opportunity,” because I’m perpetually in awe at his works; It reminds me of when I saw my daughter for the first time, in feeling. There is a seeing and a recognition. I know joy and promise when I see his work.

Hmm…

Well, Alex, I don’t know. You want to FishBowl this wiki? No one else is saying anything.

If I want to develop ideas, I can always do so elsewhere.

I’d prefer to keep CW around, but it might be good for me and for my efforts if it weren’t. 1 Nobody else is particularly saying anything. Helmut’s mad because I said that interiority was essential to our picture of the universe, but beyond that, I don’t see anything.

I’ve slept on it, and I am even more convinced that FishBowling CommunityWiki is the right thing to do.

The question is, “how?”

My thoughts are:

  • Change the FrontPage to say that we’re closing. Change CommunityWiki page to say that we’re closed.
  • Give a brief (say, 3 paragraph) synopsis on the history of CommunityWiki, what happened in different periods, and how it has come to close.
  • Point to some of the highlights of CommunityWiki. There are parts that I particularly like, (such as CategoryReasoning,) and point to them. I’m guessing this is another 1-2 paragraphs.
  • Point to everyone’s blogs, so we can easily see how everyone is doing and what they’re doing. (How to keep in touch.)
  • Disable editing.
  • Email everyone who substantially participated, and say, “Thank you, we’re closing, we’re glad for your participation.”

I’m happy to do the work of all these steps.

Thoughts?

It seems to me that fishbowling is a defensive act: I cannot keep up maintainership anymore, we’re being attacked by vandals all the time – but none of that is happening. So while there has been very little reason to discuss anything on Community Wiki, there is also little reason to actualy make it read-only.

I’d therefore suggest the following steps instead:

  • Change the FrontPage to say that we’re usually inactive. Point people to RecentChanges and CommunityWiki.
  • Give a brief (say, 3 paragraph) synopsis on the history of CommunityWiki, what happened in different periods, and how it has come to be so quiet.
  • Point to some of the highlights of CommunityWiki. This is another 1-2 paragraphs.
  • Clean up the sidebar. Move the list of contributors onto a separate page. (How to keep in touch.) Or just leave it as it is?

OK. :)

I like it.

As for the SideBar, I’d just – change it from “Some Contributors,” to “Previous Contributors.” Or, “Credits.”

It is too warm, having a list of people, to throw away.

You know – if we are talking about doing very little with it --

I have had some ideas about how to completely rework the wiki en masse.

Download all the pages, perform various analysis, construct a visualization of the periods of our history. Restructure pages into a regular format, organize the categories a little bit, upload a page an hour, …

Thanks for encouragement Lion, I’m blushing but it works – I already feel motivated. I still haven’t read even half of CommunityWiki or MeatBall, and I keep on finding great stuff – and great people here. Almost every time I have something to add and check for it in search, it’s already here in some form. Perhaps it really is finished, at least in terms of adding content. Organizing content is of course always a difficult thing on the wiki, and just reading with understanding of all those things is a great effort too. I’m not sure the history of the wiki is the most important here, but of course I wasn’t directly involved for most of its lifetime, so I’m not attached to it. As for closing – fishbowling maybe is not necessary, but perhaps it’s good to mentally prepare for turning the lights off – make a backup, finish dangling discussions, remove unneeded and temporary pages and messages, etc.

I am seeing a plan forming in my mind:

  • Download each and every page, using the mechanism Alex described and explicitly told me is not for making backup of the wiki.
  • Get a sense for what percentage of the pages follow CommunityWikiPageLayout.
  • If I’m able, get all pages up to CommunityWikiPageLayout, perhaps with some mass scripting.
  • Collect notes on when each page was created, as much as possible. Do this both automatically and manually, and put it into the output. (That is, I would amend the CommunityWikiPageLayout to include a place for some basic statistics on the page, including the page creation date.)
  • Figure out some kind of visualization, likely per-year, and likely making use of Inkscape.
  • Annotate the imagery with, from memory and the pages themselves, some story-telling about what was going on. (Periodizing.)
  • Upload the pages back (don’t look at RC!), and upload the history.

I’m not committing to this; It is just an idea at this point. I do wonder, “How difficult would this be?”

It would be a proto-TimeConsciousWiki.

I believe I have said this many times before, but adding temporality to online activity – no, human activity, I think will make an enormous difference. It is history and self-reflection.

Footnotes:

1. Wikipedia:Anaïs_Nin wrote, “This diary is my kief, hashish, and opium pipe. This is my drug and my vice.

Define external redirect: AlanKay ChangeIntelligenceTheory OralHistory OffLine ImagiReal

Diese Seiten lokal erstellen: MeatballWiki WikiMatrix ZeroSumGame PatrickAnderson MeatBall SeedPosting TargetReached FishBowl

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