Even Wikipedians, with their very specific, umm, "culture," use mailing lists. Wikis and mailing lists are complementary tools with different strengths and I agree with Karen that email should continue to be the primary discussion forum. Wikis are great, though, for refining proposals, documenting agreements, storing help/documentation/instructions, and all manner of other stuff. We can make good use of both. A community wiki integrated with openlibrary.org has the added advantage of being in the sight line of users who visit the web site.
As for what OpenLibrary should be when it grows up (and those who think it has no place), I agree with Ms./Mr. Kltrg that that belongs on another thread... Tom On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 8:09 PM, Tom Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: > > I wouldn't want to have to use one for planning the encyclopedia. > > That's exactly what Wikipedians do. It actually works brilliantly. > > On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 4:57 PM, Lori Bowen Ayre <[email protected]>wrote: > >> And how! or +1 >> >> I agree that wikis are lousy for discussion. They seem to work well for >> online encyclopedias but I wouldn't want to have to use one for planning >> the encyclopedia. >> >> Lori Aure >> >> On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 4:48 PM, Lee Passey <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On Thu, March 14, 2013 8:47 am, Lars Aronsson wrote: >>> >>> > Before discussing a new tool, what are we trying to achieve? >>> > Anyone can install the Mediawiki software, with or without >>> > some extensions, and try new ideas on a small scale, but >>> > what are those ideas that you want to try? >>> >>> I continue to be bewildered about why any kind of Wiki software is >>> desirable at this point. Wikis are great tools for documentation and >>> exposition, but not so great for discussion and consensus. Beware the >>> hammer/nail syndrome: "When your only tool is a hammer, every problem >>> looks like a nail." >>> >>> > What else is needed, and what role does OpenLibrary >>> > play? When we know this, I think we can find the >>> > right tool for the task. >>> >>> +10! >>> >>> Right now, it appears to me that Open Book Catalog is lacking a vision >>> and a visionary. Even the platitude "one web page for every book" is so >>> broad as to be essentially meaningless. That is what we already have, so >>> what's missing? The data may be incomplete, it may be unreliable, it may >>> be unreusable for legal reasons, it may be unreusable for technical >>> reasons, and it may not lead to any actual content, but hey, there /is/ >>> one web page for every book! >>> >>> A wiki is a great way to expose our vision to the world, and to help the >>> rest of the world to profit from that vision, but it's a lousy way to >>> develop the vision in the first place. A contentious (and archived) >>> mailing list is a much better tool for that. When a vision is in place >>> /then/ we can decide how to surface it. >>> >>>
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