Re: [dita-fa-edboard] Wikifull Thinking

On 12/13/07, Su-Laine Yeo < su-laine.yeo@justsystems.com> wrote:

Re (from Bob's article): "Why is the wiki weak?  Because most wikis do
not employ standards-based technology and are clueless about today's
content management best practices like content reuse, modularity,
structured writing, and information typing."

The wikis that work do adopt these practices. MediaWiki's transclusion
functionality is extremely strong - in some ways more powerful than DITA
conref - and is used extensively throughout Wikipedia to give pages
consistent formatting and structure. Wikipedia has dozens of pages of
style guidelines and content policies to promote consistent,
well-structured writing. The encyclopedia has radically simple
information typing: encyclopedia articles, lists, disambiguation pages,
a very few "portal" pages to tie things together,  and nothing else.
The Wikipedia community consistently votes to delete pages that cannot
conform to the "encyclopedia article" model, such as essays.

The project also strictly enforces a policy of having a single article
on each topic: Life would be much easier for the writers if there were
20 articles on George W. Bush, each written from the point of view of a
different part of the political spectrum. However, for the sake of the
readers, writers are expected to maintain a single article with balanced
inclusion of all significant points of view.

Here's a presentation I've put together:
http://www.slideshare.net/syeo/dynamics-of-wikipedia/

Su-Laine

-----Original Message-----
From: Don Day [mailto:dond@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 12:23 PM
To: Bob Doyle
Cc: DITA Editorial Board
Subject: Re: [dita-fa-edboard] Wikifull Thinking

My quick read, Bob, reminded me about this seminal article, a few years
old
in Web time, that is still a good resource about expectations. To me, it
is
the justification of why DITA as an architectural design point for Wikis
could really be a game changer for folks who need predictable, reusable,
scaleable capability out of their collaboration platform:

http://www.hacknot.info/hacknot/action/showEntry?eid=71

Regards,
--
Don Day
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
Chair, IBM DITA Architects Board
Email: dond@us.ibm.com
11501 Burnet Rd. MS9033E015, Austin TX 78758
Phone: +1 512-244-2868 (home office)

"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
   --T.S. Eliot

             "Bob Doyle"

             <bobdoyle@skybuil

             ders.com>
To
                                       "DITA Editorial Board"

             12/13/2007 02:08          <dita-fa-edboard@lists.xml.org>

             PM
cc

Subject
                                       [dita-fa-edboard] Wikifull
Thinking

Hi all,

Attached is my article for January.

Cheers.

Bob

--
Bob Doyle
Editor In Chief, CMS Review - http://www.cmsreview.com
Founder, DITA Users -   http://www.ditausers.org
Former Technology Advisor, CM Pros -
http://www.cmprofessionals.org/membership/cm-profiles/bob-doyle
Contributing Editor, EContent Magazine -
http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleIndex.aspx?ContextSubtypeID=7
1
President and CEO, skyBuilders - http://www.skybuilders.com
77 Huron Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: +1 617-876-5676   Skype:bobdoyle [attachment "EC0108.doc " deleted
by
Don Day/Austin/IBM]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
This publicly archived list is provided by OASIS for the use of the
Editorial
Board of DITA XML.org . Subscription and posting privileges are reserved
for
members of the Editorial Board; others should contact
communications@oasis-open.org for assistance.

[Un]Subscribe: dita-fa-edboard-[un]subscribe@lists.xml.org
List archives: http://lists.xml.org/archives/dita-fa-edboard/
XML.org DITA Focus Area: http://dita.xml.org
Committee homepage: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/dita
List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php

---------------------------------------------------------------------
This publicly archived list is provided by OASIS for the use of the
Editorial
Board of DITA XML.org. Subscription and posting privileges are reserved
for
members of the Editorial Board; others should contact
communications@oasis-open.org for assistance.

[Un]Subscribe: dita-fa-edboard-[un]subscribe@lists.xml.org
List archives: http://lists.xml.org/archives/dita-fa-edboard/
XML.org DITA Focus Area: http://dita.xml.org
Committee homepage: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/dita
List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php