docWikis

[Timothy Miller]

Hi Marielle,

I appreciate all your thoughtful comments. I am completely sympathetic.

--very big snip--

You asked:

>
>I am very curious... What would be needed to get more of you 
>register and contribute?


My reply is sort of selfish, I fear. It would take -- uhhh -- 
"critical mass" or "momentum." I.e., the belief that this document, 
this community, this wiki, will grow and thrive, at an accelerating 
rate -- it will be around for a long time, and get better and better. 
If -- hypothetically -- I don't believe this, then I will feel that 
my contributions will likely be futile.

I'd guess that this would be a typical answer, if you asked others.

It seems unfair to you, because there's only so much you can to do 
make that happen.

It's not just unfair, or a dilemma, or a paradox. It's really an 
issue that often arises in game theory. The behavior of each 
potential participant depends upon the behavior of every other 
potential participant.

I think your best strategy would be to convince potential 
participants that their contributions will get recycled into other 
revDocWikis if yours does not grow and thrive. Accordingly, no 
contribution will ever be wasted.

You could take that even further. Make deals with owners of other 
revDocWikis: Anything submitted to yours will be forwarded to all the 
others, and posted there, and all submitted to the others will get 
forwarded to yours. That way, any potential contributor to any wiki, 
no matter how small or obscure, will have good reason to believe that 
his/her contribution will ultimately make a difference. If different 
wikis appeal to different potential contributors, that could actually 
be a good thing, as long as contributions get disseminated.

Of course that would require standardized formats, or at least easily 
convertible formats. I don't know enough about wikis to understand 
the practicality.

That's my .00000002 cents worth, anyway. Thanks for asking.


Tim