Ward Cunningham’s Wiki

You know, I knew, that, one day, I would write an article about the original Wiki, [Ward’s wiki]:http://c2.com/cgi/wiki . The Wiki is a sort of concept that really flies in the face of technical convention. The term “Wiki” comes from the hawaiian for “quick”, and wikis are really quick. Wikis work by social, not technical convention, and operate because of human goodness, not pareto efficiency or rules or restrictions. It’s absolutely fascinating, and truly wonderful to see what it creates, simply by existing.

Anyway, the original wiki is a goldmine of information on software engineering and programming. Yet, I believe that computing in general is so abstract and general, that it shares models with human life. So, very often, I find myself reading about some software concept, and relating it to concepts in real life which exist independently of computing. I love it. One could probably teach a class using only content from it, and it would be one of the most fascinating classes. (Actually, having a wiki class might not be bad… it could inject even more life into the wiki community)

Here, have some links to pages in Ward’s wiki.
[WardCunningham]:http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WardCunningham The wiki concept is Ward’s brainchild. I put him up among the greats.
[StartingPoints]:http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?StartingPoints places to start surfing. Like the WWW, you have to start somewhere, and let the links carry you as they may.
[VeryGoodSeats]:http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?VeryGoodSeats not everything is directly related to computing… 🙂
[TheLordOfTheRings]:http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheLordOfTheRings see? it talks about normal things too.
[GoodThing]:http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GoodThing a universal concept, right?

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Also, check out some pages on other notable wikis:

[AssumeGoodFaith]:http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?AssumeGoodFaith on [MeatballWiki]:http://usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl the meatball is a sort of community of communities.

[Anime]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime on the [wikipedia]:http://en.wikipedia.org I almost feel bad about adding to server load for the wikipedia, but it’s awesome. A free encyclopedic source of information, maintained by everyone, beholden to none, that seems more up-to-date than, well, anything else. Visit it, donate, etc. The world would lose big, if it were to lose this.

[everything2]:everything2.com Everything2 has some similarities to wiki communities, but it applies a modicum of technical order, which makes it feel different. Everything2 is no less an amazing community. [original post]:http://www.wilyness.com/micro/archives/2004/03/18/everything2.php

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I think, for once, I’ll be re-editing this entry as I feel the need. Maybe it will even become a real *article*. Hah!
(first draft 23Apr2004)

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