wiki woes
Phil Ehrens
fascist oversight engine that moves content willy nilly,
and specifically prevents comments from being made about
wikit, I will no longer be posting contributions to the
Tcler's wiki.
The transfer of contributed content from a public site to
a commercial site and then removing the content from the
public site is a reprehensible act.
See:
I will continue to post public code on my wiki at:
http://inferno.slug.org/cgi-bin/wiki
And will move all my old pages at the Tcler's Wiki to
that site next weekend.
Wikit is a wonderful piece of code, and it was very generous
of JC Wippler to make it public domain, but if it is going
to have long strings attached that cause it to pass back
and forth between public and private or occupy some undefined
middle ground, well, you know, I can write my own. And since
I have never looked at the wikit (or tclkit) source, there's
not a damn thing he can do about it ;^)
Phil
Phil Ehrens
Bob Techentin
>
> The transfer of contributed content from a public site to
> a commercial site and then removing the content from the
> public site is a reprehensible act.
>
> See:
>
> http://mini.net/tcl/17
Hm. I like the idea of centralization, but sometimes
duplication is a good thing, too. Much of the commentary on
wikit problems at http://wiki.tcl.tk/17 has links into the
Tcl'ers wiki, which are broken if you move them.
Fortunately, you can always copy it back. :-)
Bob
--
Bob Techentin
techenti...@NOSPAMmayo.edu
Mayo Foundation (507)
538-5495
200 First St. SW FAX (507)
284-9171
Rochester MN, 55901 USA
http://www.mayo.edu/sppdg/
Will Duquette
On Mon, 14 Oct 2002 15:30:25 +0000 (UTC),
peh...@nospam.ligo.caltech.edu (Phil Ehrens) wrote:
>Since the Tcler's Wiki seems to have grown some sort of
>fascist oversight engine that moves content willy nilly,
>and specifically prevents comments from being made about
>wikit, I will no longer be posting contributions to the
>Tcler's wiki.
>
>The transfer of contributed content from a public site to
>a commercial site and then removing the content from the
>public site is a reprehensible act.
>
>See:
>
>http://mini.net/tcl/17
>
Are you sure you aren't overreacting? I certainly haven't
seen the kind of automatic content changing you're talking
about. I do know that a while back, Jean-Claude established
a separate site for Wikit-related stuff, and moved a lot of
the Tcler's Wiki content that related to Wikit there, so that
all of the Wikit stuff would be in one place. The historical
content is still available, and it's still possible to post
Wikit problems, but on the new site rather than the old.
Why is this a problem?
Will
Phil Ehrens
person who removed my wikit installation comments from the
Tcler's wiki.
I apologise PROFUSELY to Jean-Claude Wippler, who had nothing
to do with it (the pages were moved to a commercial site with
his name on the homepage, but apparently without his being
involved).
I cannot see under what possible universe it is *better* for
useful information to be available only from ONE SINGLE SITE.
The argument provided by the vandal was:
"...all I had intended to do was consolidate
information in one place rather than see
it spread around and perhaps be overlooked."
How can spreading information 'around' cause it to be
overlooked? No server is up every second of the year.
I had to go on quite a hunt to track down the info
that I put into that page. About 4 hours of my time
were distilled into those couple of paragraphs.
Funny thing, I could tell from the little wizard of
oz notice at the top of the page that it was going
to get "disappeared". If the page that was referenced
in the notice had in fact been more up to date than
the wiki page I might have used it, but it seemed to
be even older at the time.
And it wasn't but a couple of weeks ago that I removed
a paragraph that I put into the wiki that I thought was
no longer pertinent, and it popped right back the next
day, and I was (rightly) told not to expect anything
ever to disappear once it hit the web.
Wikit is an excellent application, written in Tcl. And, as JCW
says, the site http://wiki.tcl.tk is home base for Tcl info.
I rely on the Tcler's wiki to develop code... if folks are
going to take it upon themselves to REMOVE content from the
URL that someone else placed it at on the wiki, then the
wiki becomes unreliable and useless to me.
Phil
Bryan Oakley
> I cannot see under what possible universe it is *better* for
> useful information to be available only from ONE SINGLE SITE.
I would say it's in the universe where the public can edit said
information. Where's the right place to post or search for information?
Place 1 or Place 2? Oh wait, now there's a Placd 3. Which one is up to
date? Place 1 has useful information that no one copied to Place 3. I
need to search -- how can I search across N>1 wikis? And so on...
For things such as live product feedback, having a single point is much
better than having N>1 points which need to be somehow kept in sync.
>
> The argument provided by the vandal was:
>
> "...all I had intended to do was consolidate
> information in one place rather than see
> it spread around and perhaps be overlooked."
>
> How can spreading information 'around' cause it to be
> overlooked? No server is up every second of the year.
> I had to go on quite a hunt to track down the info
> that I put into that page. About 4 hours of my time
> were distilled into those couple of paragraphs.
The Tcl'ers wiki is a public forum. It is dynamic. No one owns the
information, and everyone is free to change it. For better or worse.
That is fundamental rule number one of the wiki (isn't it?). So I think
in that context, you are overreacting.
If you want to make information publicly available, and without a chance
that someone will come along and alter it (by adding to, removing from,
changing or moving), don't post it to a public wiki unless that wiki
supports protected pages (which, obviously, the Tcl'ers wiki does not).
>
> I rely on the Tcler's wiki to develop code...
Perhaps that is a mistake.
> if folks are
> going to take it upon themselves to REMOVE content from the
> URL that someone else placed it at on the wiki, then the
> wiki becomes unreliable and useless to me.
I would have to agree that the wiki is probably useless to you as a tool
for software development in the way you wish to use it. The very nature
of the wiki is that anyone is permitted (if not down-right encouraged)
to modify any page as they see fit.
I can understand why you might be upset over losing some data. The
problem isn't the wiki, or the "fascist oversight engine", but rather
your expectations being different from the reality of the wiki.
All that being said, moving the data from one wiki and putting it on
another doesn't sound like a very good idea to me. I wouldn't have done
it, but I recognize the value in allowing it to be done. I'd lump this
behavior more in the "slightly rude" category rather than the "fascist"
category.
Donal K. Fellows
> If you want to make information publicly available, and without a chance
> that someone will come along and alter it (by adding to, removing from,
> changing or moving), don't post it to a public wiki unless that wiki
> supports protected pages (which, obviously, the Tcl'ers wiki does not).
And furthermore, the lack of support for protected pages is a policy decision.
There's plenty of other places on the web to publish data if you want it to not
be publically editable...
Donal.
--
Donal K. Fellows http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~fellowsd/ donal....@man.ac.uk
-- I could even declare myself a religion, if that'd help.
-- Mark Loy <ml...@iupui.edu>
Cameron Laird
Donal K. Fellows <donal.k...@man.ac.uk> wrote:
>Bryan Oakley wrote:
>> If you want to make information publicly available, and without a chance
>> that someone will come along and alter it (by adding to, removing from,
>> changing or moving), don't post it to a public wiki unless that wiki
>> supports protected pages (which, obviously, the Tcl'ers wiki does not).
>
>And furthermore, the lack of support for protected pages is a policy decision.
>There's plenty of other places on the web to publish data if you want it to not
>be publically editable...
.
.
All true.
'Also feels a little like what I call "piling on" Phil.
I don't understand the facts of the case. I just know
that we've got rough cultural norms for the Wiki. Yes,
anything there can be edited. I'd sure get bent out of
shape if someone frivolously or capriciously began re-
moving valuable content, though.
I don't think anyone's arguing for that--caprice, I mean.
I'm generally on the jacobite wing, arguing that the
Wiki's fine without more security mechanisms. At the
same time, I know things go wrong occasionally. I don't
want Phil to think he's being told everything is "hunky-
dory".
My summary: I applaud Phil for working to share the
information he took hours to research. I think the Wiki
works quite well--fantastically well, in many regards.
I'm all in favor of improving the parts that aren't so
good.
--
Cameron Laird <Cam...@Lairds.com>
Business: http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal: http://phaseit.net/claird/home.html
Kristoffer Lawson
>
> And it wasn't but a couple of weeks ago that I removed
> a paragraph that I put into the wiki that I thought was
> no longer pertinent, and it popped right back the next
> day, and I was (rightly) told not to expect anything
> ever to disappear once it hit the web.
Rightly? I have to disagree here. I think information *should* be
removed from the Wiki, if it is no longer valid or up-to-date. Finding
relevant info on the Wiki is becoming more and more difficult has
pages become absolutely huge with chitchat and old info. For me the
Wiki should primarily be about finding and sharing info. I believe a certain
amount of gardening should be involved to make sure that happens in the
most efficient way possible.
Will Duquette
<se...@gfanrend.fishpool.fi> wrote:
>Rightly? I have to disagree here. I think information *should* be
>removed from the Wiki, if it is no longer valid or up-to-date. Finding
>relevant info on the Wiki is becoming more and more difficult has
>pages become absolutely huge with chitchat and old info. For me the
>Wiki should primarily be about finding and sharing info. I believe a certain
>amount of gardening should be involved to make sure that happens in the
>most efficient way possible.
I have to agree, here. On Ward Cunningham's original Wiki, they have
the distinction between "thread mode" and "article mode". Much of
what we have on the Tcler's Wiki is "thread mode", where the page is
a list of posts by various people. This is normal...but there's a
lifecycle to this:
* Person creates page, writes what they think. Article mode. Info
is easy to access.
* Other people contribute their thoughts. Thread mode. Lots of info,
little filtering. Finding the good stuff becomes difficult, because
you need to follow the whole discussion. Finding changes becomes
difficult, because with all the little posts, changes don't stand
out.
* Finally, somebody needs to come along and do a synthesis/purging
job. This is where we fall down.
On the "Wikit Problems" page, for example, there are undoubtedly many
problems that have been fixed. Why do these need to be retained in
all their detail? At most, all we need is a list of fixed problems,
with the statement "Get the latest Wikit".
On the "Read-Only Text Widget" page, there's a lot of discussion about
various ways to make a Tk text widget read-only--but it's a
discussion, not an exposition. The discussion is pretty much over;
it's time for someone to sit down and rewrite the page. The rewrite
should describe the different mechanisms, with links to specific pages
if need be. No technical detail need be lost; just the history of how
the detail was assembled.
I'd encourage anyone who's interested in how to make the Tcler's Wiki
work better to go browse the original Wiki
[http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WelcomeVisitors];
they have a lot of experience there about how to make this kind
of community work--and most of it is captured in Wiki pages.
Will
Kristoffer Lawson
>
> I'd encourage anyone who's interested in how to make the Tcler's Wiki
> work better to go browse the original Wiki
> [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WelcomeVisitors];
> they have a lot of experience there about how to make this kind
> of community work--and most of it is captured in Wiki pages.
And perhaps even more impressive: http://www.wikipedia.com/
Of course they have some features which definitely help: sub-pages
and a way of commenting on your changes.