Curious about the "reverts" reference in the last paragraph of the original articule, I clicked on the link and got the attached image... and got curiouser? Have there been technical failures in the Wiki system? Could an angry member delete, erase, or otherwise foil antagonistic text? (removed large screenshot image: Picture 2.png, the technical glitch at Wikipedia has nothing to do with this article.)
If you want to talk about edits you have made or consider making -- you can edit this page, or even easier, click "Add Comment" above. If you'd like to interact with the original author, Ryan Singel, you can do so on the Comments page.
I've added a paragraph at the end on Wikipedia's conflict resolution policies and guidelines. Wikipedia has developed some quite sophisticated, anti-confrontational ways of dealing with conflicts, and it never ceases to amaze me to see them working, and holding the whole thing together. The paragraph might need a bit of tweaking to fit it in with the surrounding text, especially the closing sentence. *Kieran
Apologies for the repeated "Revision 48/47/48/47/etc" -- Apparently SocialText does not cooperate with the Opera browser, and all submitted changes blank out the page instead of making the intended change! Now editing with IE.
(Firefox works great, as well. -- Peter Kaminski)
(Konqueror has the same problem! I tried to submit a change to this page, but blanked a page, and had to restore revision 8. I now edit with Firefox; I guess that I do not like SocialText. xkernigh@hidden)
Looks like the "%27" in the Tim O'Reilly link isn't sticking. When someone goes back to edit the page again, it's converted back to an apostrophe, and therefore gets saves that way unless the editor happens to change it back during their edit. I suggest leaving it alone for now (since future edits will kill it anyway), and leaving a note in here for the final edit...
DEAR WIRED: When you are about to publish this article, please change:
"Tim O'Reilly"{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_O'Reilly}
to:
"Tim O'Reilly"{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_O%27Reilly}
(with < and > instead of { and }) (Thanks Andrew -- Ryan Singel)
I added a reference to the Wired wiki project at the end of the article.. and I also mentioned Colbert's "wikiality" and linked to the new-ish wikiality wiki site (wikiality.com), and altered the wording in the 'laptop to every child' statement in that same paragraph.
(Crap, I just realized that the comment area is meant to ask questions to the author, and not to talk about what edits were made.. just ignore this comment)
(Do we need a page to talk about edits to the story? I'm finding it hard to follow what changes were made --Ryan Singel)
Created this discussion page, Ross Mayfield
contributed by Daniel Kirschenbaum on Aug 29 7:35pm
In my opinion, the new aricle has WAY too many links. The original article had 19 (which might even be a bit high), but the current revision has 53! A few are ok, but too many become distracting. I suggest taking out most of them. If folks are interested in finding out about a particular topic, they can Google it...
contributed by Marion Jensen on Aug 30 11:45am
One other comment... Temember that sometimes less is more. The original article was clear. My first impulse was to jump in and add a bunch of additional information. But if you add too much it begins to detract from the main message. The central message is lost in a sea of information. I think we might be at a point where there is too much information, and the message is a bit convoluted. Any thoughts?
contributed by Marion Jensen on Aug 30 11:51am
Moving these comments from the main page to the Discussion page...
"After programmers introduced wikis to large companies by sneaking them inside the firewall to manage software documentation, some large corporations replaced their entire intranets with wikis. "
This sentence is great, but it probably needs to be backed up with a reference.
Keiran -- see below -- Ryan Singel
contributed by Kieran O'Neill on Aug 30 6:11am
The obvious problem with collaboratively authoring an article like this is that it will never be as cohesive and delightfully flowing as your typical Wired-news article (whether online or in print). The poetry of Wired Magazine content is what keeps my buying the print issue, I cant see that quality appearing in a group-authored article, tho I guess some crafty editing at the end could streamline things. Am really interested to see how it turns out.
contributed by Dean Stringer on Aug 30 3:53pm
contributed by Andrew Lebrun on Aug 31 6:30am
Anyone up for updating the section on the first anniversary of Bar Camp? It happened and there's info on the barcamp site and on Chris Messina's blog. -- Ryan Singel
"After programmers introduced wikis to large companies by sneaking them inside the firewall to manage software documentation, some large corporations replaced their entire intranets with wikis. "
This sentence is great, but it probably needs to be backed up with a reference."
I can't prove this with documentation, but I can attest from personal experience that both Apple Computer and some of the divisions of Sony Computer Entertainment (SCEA, SCEE, and others) use wikis a lot internally. The original sentence might be over-reaching a little ... I certainly wouldn't call either of them 'replacing the entire intranet', but there is definitely extensive use of collaboration tech_ in general -- wikis, newsgroups, forums, mailing lists, SourceForge, etc. -- at both of these major corporations.
Where did the original statement come from, anyway? Ryan's discussions with Socialtext?
Drew, yes it did. I also got this statement today from Mike Cannon-Brookes, the CEO of Atlassian, one of the largest enterprise wiki companies. He said:
"Definitely, we have a few companies who have replaced their intranets with Confluence. It would be harder with a simple wiki ... but with something more advanced this is definitely being done more and more."
It might be wise however to change the sentence to read "some companies" rather than "some large corporations.
contributed by Drew Thaler on Sep 1 2:03pm
The ArmchairGM example of a wiki community was stuck into the lead of the article, disrupting its flow. Since many contributions are from and about burgeoning communities, I'm starting a section on public wiki examples that may be of interest.
contributed by Ross Mayfield on Sep 3 9:41am
xkernigh AT netscape DOT net made two significant edits to Wired Wiki ( 168 and 169) and was kind enough to put them on an Enumeration page. While a well-intentioned move to remove spam, significant chunks of the original story , and their derivatives, were removed. For example, Wikipedia projects, LostPedia and WYSIWYG in Wikipedia.
Any opinions about restoring text from the original article?
contributed by Ross Mayfield on Sep 3 10:21am
Sep 3 10:21amA brave move by xkernigh, but one which certainly improved the article. LostPedia is not a significant wiki. There are many Wikia sites with more articles and editors than this and dropping in random wikis without saying how they're significant to an article on wikis in general just looks like spam. I don't think it's worth mentioning WYSIWYG here until it's actually in use in any MediaWiki sites. Wikiwyg is a great idea, but it's still very much in the alpha stage, and not especially interesting in this article. I don't think there's much value in listing all the Wikimedia projects, but perhaps the more significant or interesting ones (Wikibooks and Wikinews) could be re-added if there's something to say about them that will be useful or interesting to the readers - not if they're just stuck in as "see alsos". Angela
The placement of this page was not as accessible as it could have been (unlike the "talk" pages of MediaWiki), so I've added a link to it from the front page description of the article. I've also clarified above that the "Comments" page is meant for interaction with the original author, a distinction that wasn't even entirely clear to me at first.
contributed by Elizabeth Stark on Sep 3 10:42am
Here's a roundup of edits I made: I noticed that we hadn't made reference to wikis at universities, so I added a graf about wikis in the Harvard Cyberlaw course. I was the TA for the class, and obtained the quotes from Zittrain. I've noticed that several other educators have added their projects/quotes (perhaps it went out on an educational wiki mailing list?) but I think we should limit it to one university and one high school example max.
I also added a paragraph on wishing the rest of the world were more wiki-like, condensed educational information, and removed an oudated graf on BarCamp that I thought was superfluous.
Comments/feedback welcome.
contributed by Elizabeth Stark on Sep 3 11:25am
: on
Comment: If this document is going to be produced offline (I'm not sure that it is), the word "meatspace" although defined is confusing. It also is related to the end of the document narrative and I'm not sure it truly relates to that heading. I truly think that any good wiki has a good EDITOR who can make the work more concise. I hope that will be done to this article.
contributed by Vicki Davis on Sep 3 1:39pm
: on
Comment: I added a comment about the deletion of collegiate examples, but I am not entirely sure where it went.
contributed by Beth Ritter-Guth on Sep 4 8:20am
: on
:
Comment:
I struggle with the scope and purpose of this project. My understanding is that this project is meant to highlight good information about the use of wikis in the global community.
I wrote a section within the education section about the uses of wikis at the college level. I added text about the revolutionary use of the wiki-centric model at Drexel University to disseminate scientific data. I wrote about how that usage inspired the use of the same model at a community college.
As an informational article, I believed that examples of various were appropriate. Since my additions were systematically deleted by another user, I must have been mistaken.
I believe this article should share "best practice" ideas; however, I do see the potential problems in listing all best practice materials.
So, the question becomes one of definition. What is a best practice? Does a Harvard stamp indicate best practice? Does length of use define best practice? The lack of definition will cause many problems. Perhaps we should determine what constitutes best practice.
The problem will be one of competition, and this is something I vehemently oppose. Wiki and blog technology is, at its root, meant to celebrate collaboration. It isn't meant to be a popularity contest.
I maintain that several examples of each level of education should be present. You will need to figure out which ones constitute a "best practice" model.
contributed by Beth Ritter-Guth on Sep 4 8:12am
contributed by Beth Ritter-Guth on Sep 4 9:38am
A few words on timing.
The deadline for edits is going to be 3:00 Pacific time Wednesday. At that point, our copy desk will come in and do a final edit, which will be limited to correcting errors of grammar and punctuation, and bringing the copy into conformity with Wired News style.
That means Wednesday early-afternoon would be a great time for some brave soul to give the prose a final polish -- perhaps give the story a more integrated feel, and do some trimming. That's your call, of course. The main story is at about 1,900 words now, which is a long piece for Wired News, but not excessive.
In addition to the main story, we now plan to run the Enumeration page as a sidebar. Both pieces will run Thursday morning, along with a meta-article by Ryan describing the experiment and his impressions of the process.
Thanks to everyone whose been participating, and especially to Ross for hosting the wiki and shepherding things along.
contributed by Kevin Poulsen (Wired News) on Sep 5 11:35am
Comment for Mike Cannon-Brookes: I noticed that you changed the wiki application paragraph from "wiki applications created by users" to "embedded wiki applications". While I agree that many enterprise wikis offer canned applications created by the vendor (such as your bug tracker), only TWiki and JotSpot (as far as I know) offer true programmability of wiki applications by its users. I rephrased the paragraph accordingly.
contributed by Peter Thoeny on Sep 5 3:06pm
Comment on "DekiWiki as enterprise wiki": I never heard of this wiki, it is certainly not on the radar screen of enterprise wikis. Visiting the website, it states that "this program will be limited to select sites until general availability in Fall 2006". Any objections if we remove the work in progress DekiWiki software from the article?
contributed by Peter Thoeny on Sep 5 3:12pm
I've made a couple of edits relating to my own role in the article.
Firstly, I've changed the line in which I'm introduced to
Secondly, in the section at the end where I talk about Second Life, I added a sentence pointing out similarities with Ning. Given that I (a) there is a direct relevance here and (b) there's very little else about Ning in the article, I hope this is okay - it provides a little extra context about my involvement. I'm more than happy to find another compromise if people take issue.
Also, something I haven't fixed: Due to the way my introduction has been shifted down in the article, I'm currently quoted before I'm introduced. I don't know the best way to fix this so I'm just pointing it out.
contributed by Yoz Grahame on Sep 5 3:58pm
Comment for Beth and others -- My feeling is that the article is meant to tell a story. That story for me is about the growth, explosion, challenges and future of wikis and collaborative projects. I think a listing of best practices, for example, is outside this scope, but talk about how best practices have evolved from challenges and how these processes point to the future of collaborative processes is very germane.
But remember, this isn't a manual or an encyclopedia entry. It's a story and it should have a narrative arc and a flow.
Thanks for all your efforts - RS
contributed by Ryan Singel on Sep 5 5:28pm
Peter - a fascinating viewpoint but I would disagree. We have over 150 plugins, many of which would classify as "applications" in the TWiki mode (certainly in the Jot mode). They're mostly written by customers. Some of them allow further programmability (forms, datafields etc of various types). Are you saying because they're Java rather than some arbitrary language they don't count? That seems excessively harsh to me.
We provide all sorts of tools, development kits and examples to help users create their own applications, and have hundreds of enterprises actually doing so. Are these not wiki applications? Must a wiki application be created in a textarea? God forbid.
I'd also wryly note that every application in the Jot gallery is written by Jot - perhaps you should edit it read 'wiki applications inspired by users'? ;)
As for Dekiwiki - I'd agree with you there though. It has no traction at the moment in the enterprise space, but then again - as per my blog post - this article isn't really about facts!
contributed by Mike Cannon-Brookes on Sep 6 12:48am
Mike: Listing the roles in a wiki might help clarify things. There are end users, wiki champions, wiki extension builders and vendors. You might call them differently, but you might agree on the levels of users.
Vendors and extension builders are programmers, skilled Java coders in your case. Extensions are created by the vendor and by 3rd party; they create value for the whole project. TWiki has over 300 extensions (plugins, skins, add-ons, contribs); it scales into vertical markets we would never had anticipated. Extensions are canned applications, customers can install and use them.
A Wiki champion is a person who both understands the process of the work for a given project or business (the domain), and how to use a wiki (best practices in collaboration). This person creates also light weight wiki applications. TWiki and Jot are structured wikis, they have a database within the wiki where users can create wiki application simply by using wiki markup, e.g. no programming skills are required to create customized trackers, inventory lists and vertical applications of all sorts. Structured wikis are in the long tail of implementing business processes. The wiki champions help automate business processes.
End users use wikis as a whiteboard. They also use applications, which can be canned applications or tailored wiki applications. A whiteboard can be intimidating; an application reduces the choices, e.g. makes it easier to participate. Both, whiteboard use and application use of a wiki is valuable. It is important to start as a whiteboard, and add structure only when needed (iteratively, in bazaar-style.)
contributed by Peter Thoeny on Sep 6 10:24am
I restructured the Enumeration page with the same sections of the story. Hopefully this will make editing out redundant examples and links from the story.
Joseph, I moved the ArmchairGM example to Enumeration, I hope that is okay with you.
10 minutes later... Joseph, I think the way you edited it back in is appropriate and fits the story. Thanks!
sumanthr, I moved the link to your company out of the article earlier. I do not think that the example of your product, or the category of "desktop publishing" fits the story of the wiki effect section. It is appropriate for Enumeration however, and hope you can accept that.
contributed by Ross Mayfield on Sep 6 1:17pm
Page Last Updated: Sep 6 2:19pm by Ross Mayfield