<div dir="ltr">Appropriate structure! Yes, that was exactly my point.  As to ownership, even within the current wiki(s) there are pages that can't be edited and someone chose and installed and set up the wiki.  The problem is that now that it's there, nothing imposes discipline or makes important information obvious because the wiki is basically an undifferentiated heap with various ad hoc cross references.  Great for a dictionary or an encyclopedia; not so great for a novel or a newspaper.  And we need a bit of all of these.<br> <br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 7:32 AM, Sameer Verma <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sverma@sfsu.edu">sverma@sfsu.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div class="Ih2E3d">On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 7:41 PM, Martin Langhoff<br> <<a href="mailto:martin.langhoff@gmail.com">martin.langhoff@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br> </div><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c">> On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 12:16 PM, Carol Lerche <<a href="mailto:cafl@msbit.com">cafl@msbit.com</a>> wrote:<br> >> The reactions to my post remind me of the story of the lumberjacks<br> ><br> > Fantastic story. However, in practice a CMS is often inferior to a<br> > wiki in that it appoints "keepers". The cook amongst the lumberjacks<br> > has to cook daily and cannot decide not to feed a particular<br> > lumberjack. The keepers of the CMS can get antagonistic, or just<br> > ignore their duties, and that just kills community collaboration.<br> ><br> > Same with CVS and SVN - the centralisation spawns politics.<br> > Distributed control is the right thing -- for all its flaws, the wiki<br> > *social dynamic* rules -- you get lots of contnet, perhaps a bit<br> > disorganised, and a thriving community around it. CMSs are<br> > hierarchical and mere observation shows what they do to community.<br> ><br> > All the observations that Linus Torvalds (in various flamerwars :-) )<br> > has made on the social and political flaws of CVS and SVN apply<br> > squarely to classic CMSs. Clay Shirky's "Designing social software"<br> > essay is also relevant here.<br> ><br> > cheers,<br> ><br> ><br> > m<br> > --<br> >  <a href="mailto:martin.langhoff@gmail.com">martin.langhoff@gmail.com</a><br> >  <a href="mailto:martin@laptop.org">martin@laptop.org</a> -- School Server Architect<br> >  - ask interesting questions<br> >  - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first<br> >  - <a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff" target="_blank">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff</a><br> </div></div><div class="Ih2E3d">> _______________________________________________<br> > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)<br> > <a href="mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org">IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org</a><br> > <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep</a><br> ><br> <br> </div>I think Carol's point was one of structure, more so than ownership or<br> hierarchy. The hierarchy can be incredibly flat, but lend itself to a<br> good structure. For example, in Drupal, you could use the taxonomy<br> module to set up a structure so that when content is created, it has a<br> home to live in and not be a free floating node in the Wiki sea. Even<br> in the CVS vs Git type argument, there is some structure to the<br> process.<br> <br> Sameer<br> <font color="#888888">--<br> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.<br> Associate Professor of Information Systems<br> San Francisco State University<br> San Francisco CA 94132 USA<br> <a href="http://verma.sfsu.edu/" target="_blank">http://verma.sfsu.edu/</a><br> <a href="http://opensource.sfsu.edu/" target="_blank">http://opensource.sfsu.edu/</a><br> </font></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>"The water won't clear up 'til we get the hogs out of the creek." -- Jim Hightower<br> </div>