docWikis

[David Bovill]

Hmmm... not going to convince you then :)

If you have seen the progress of wikipedia over the last 2 and a bit  
years from unfunded nothing to one of the worlds most valuable  
multilingual encyclopaedias based on idiotically simple technology  
that could have been built in revolution in a month by a single  
developer, and based on the input of hundreds of thousands of  
unherdable cats, plus a few freaks, with nothing but an collectively  
organised skeleton of an editorial process...

Try deleting a page on wikipedia or defacing it and see how long it  
takes to be replaces by all those "cats". Take a look at how many  
tiny contributions and corrections are posted every minute by people  
with "wives that would kill them" - the best sort :) There is an irc  
channel somewhere - which last time i checked was showing around 20  
posts (ie modifications and new contributiuons) every minute.

Paid dedicated centrally controlled editorial is not the only way to  
produce quality - social filtering and structured openess goes a long  
way in defined application areas.


On 18 Oct 2005, at 03:06, Jim Ault wrote:

> Of course, who decides what qualifies as good/excellent content..   
> Expert
> level, moderate, beginner, one example, two, five, .. fastest  
> algorithm,
> easiest to write..  how to put pieces together to solve scenarios..  
> catalog
> the exceptions and bugs.. even to build a rudimentary decision tree  
> for
> someone to follow to build an app..
>
> All would be a very large task for several individuals.  Add to the  
> mix that
> the most accomplished contributors are advanced because they do  
> this for a
> living which means they have no time for their own documentation of
> projects, let alone building a knowledge base.
>
> In our little corner of the programming universe, I think that most  
> anyone
> only has time to skim, collect some valuable tidbits, contribute  
> answers as
> time and mood permit, then go on with our lives.
>
> As they say, "managing programmers is like herding cats", and that  
> is the
> way it should be.  I wish you good luck getting support.  If I  
> decided to
> follow this path and contribute, my wife would kill me.