From the StoryBase ...
TITLE: Overcoming Openness
Author: WardCunningham
Email: [email protected]
I run a server that is a little like storybase. To keep things simple I made it completely open. That is,
anyone can modify any page any time. I figured it would last a few months before someone came in
and trashed it.
Well it hasn't happened yet. In fact an interesting conversational style has evolved. One asks a
question by stating part of an answer. Someone will notice the omission and fill in the rest. A third
party may not even notice that a dialog is in progress.
It takes visitors a while to overcome their shyness and self doubt. Then they find themselves looking
at a well known author's grammatical mistake and they think: gee I could fix that; yea, I'll just fix that;
there, I fixed it; it reads much better now; I have value too.
There lies the hook. Closed pages may convince the reader that the writer is smart. But open pages
can convince the reader that he himself is smart.
--------
Annotation by: Joseph Fox
Email: [email protected]
Date: Tue Nov 21 02:27:51 1995
And a reader who is smart, may discover the book has been open along. She/he never realized that
the value in smartness lies in the ability to recognize openness.
Annotation by: eichin
Date: Sun Dec 03 23:38:00 1995
I've seen a comment on the net to the effect that "The best way to get good information from the
net is to post bad information -- you'll get corrected, vehemently, even abusively, but if you can
put that aside, you've got the information you wanted far more effectively than just asking a
question." Maybe it's something about the way we're schooled, that encourages us to make such
corrections...
In the spirit of this pattern,
I've tried to repair the misspelling
of the title
and a few other spelling mistakes.
The
WikiWikiWeb makes it easy to know
what words are misspelled,
but doesn't make the mistakes easy to find!
--
PaulChisholm
Yes,
BadSpellersNeedHelpFromBrowsers. --
WardCunningham
Annotation: Firdyiwek
Date: 10/29/97
The fear of falling into the abyss keeps us from recognizing the value of openness. I admire this little program for challenging us to fill the void. It has a fresh IHaventThoughtThroughAllTheProblemsYet feel to it. All power to it. AStoryAStory roared the crowd . . . well maybe later . . .
Annotation: [email protected]
Date: 11/29/98
What a wonderfully odd thing, this Wikiweb. So sprawling and hard to understand. I wonder if it could be used by writing students.
Without a doubt. In fact the use of the Wiki in Education could be the next really big thing in
WikiEvolution.
used by writing students -- yes, poetry and fiction writers are already using the
http://WriteHere.net/ wiki.
See:
CategoryComputerEducation
CategoryEducation
CategoryWiki CategoryStories