[Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

Ken Manheimer klm@digicool.com
Fri, 15 Sep 2000 11:40:09 -0400 (EDT)


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[I'm running out of time here, so pardon the brief responses.  Make no 
mistake, though - i'm glad to be having this discussion!  It's good to 
be getting this input, seeing suggestions for other ways to look at
this discussion problem...]

On Fri, 15 Sep 2000, Toby Dickenson wrote:

> I dont actually have anything against Wikis in general; I have used on very
> successfully for what I would describe as "document refinement", and a
> better annotation scheme will enhance that use of Wikis.
> 
> The passage you quoted uses terms like "subject document", and at the moment
> I dont see that as the best model for a *debate*

Do you feel that weblogs are bad models for debates?  I think they're
pretty good least-common-denominators.  I would probably prefer the
kind of annotation-based thing i described in my last message (and
began to sketch in the WikiNG proposal) for collaborative generation
of documents, but i can see the place for weblogs, just as i can see a 
place for network chats.  With adequate integration of email
(for notification and response), i see them as better than just
email...

> > The ability to subscribe for notification (above) and/or to track what
> > you personally have seen, and not, is intended for this kind of thing.
>  
> It would keep me happy if the notification includes a link to the new
> content (rather than a link to the page that contains new content). Even
> better, the email notification could *include* the new content.

Different options for different purposes - but we need at least
notification!

> But Wikis don't (for me, today) work for loosely structured commentry.
> Quoting from http://dev.zope.org/Fishbowl/Introduction.html
> 
> >In some cases a mailing list will be setup for substantive,
> >large-scale projects. Otherwise existing mailing lists can
> >be leveraged (for now, use zope-dev for this).
> 
> Perhaps I should rephrase my objection..... The *real* problem is that this
> isnt happening - discussion is stored in Wiki pages like
> http://dev.zope.org/Wikis/DevSite/Proposals/XxxxDiscussion

I think we all agree this is a problem.  We seem to have found a short 
term solution - though i'll tell you that with time constraints, i
won't immediately have time to incorporate the points raised in the
documents.

Ken
klm@digicool.com