Re: Wiki madness

On Mit, 2003-01-15 at 15:59, Andrew Gilmartin wrote:
> > > - it's hard to comment on stuff.
> > Usemod-based wikis typically use subpages for discussions.
> 
> We have tried to use a wiki for discussion and it does not work. Restricting
> yourself to commenting only at the bottom of the page or using another page
> raises the need for a referencing system (eg "Re paragraph 27"). While you
> can create such a system that you have to create one in at all indicates you
> are using the wrong system.

I don't know how you did it, but on Wikipedia and UseMod discussions
work like this:


first post

: reply to post

:: reply to post

---------

another post

: reply to post

: reply to post 

:: reply to post

---------

And so on, where the "----"s are translated to horizontal lines and the
":"s to indentations. The end result is very similar to any threaded
discussion forum, but you can refactor discussions in ways that are
impossible in a forum. In my experience, this is often more productive
than mailing lists or forums. Trying to find the right place to insert a
response, however, can be counterintuitive. 

There has been some discussion to make wiki talk pages easier to use by
providing links that 1) append a new comment, 2) reply to an existing
comment. (To this end, comments have to be tagged. This is already done
by signing them, so the signature could include the tag.)

Regards,

Erik
-- 
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de

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