Sorry to jump in, but I thought I'd put in my thoughts as a Wikipedia administrator...
Collisions: They do happen, but it's rare. That's why there are section breaks so you can just edit the section. I have a zillion edits, and I've only run into a handful of edit conflicts.
No one reads talk pages: Not true on WP. Talk pages are alive with tons of discussion. People are always responding on talk pages and it's a great way to talk about the article while not messing up the article itself.
Too many places to check/watch: Huh? All discussion about an article should be on that article's talk page. That makes only 1 place to check. However, if you mean across the whole wiki, then yes, there are a lot of pages. But, you don't necessarily have to get involved in all of them.
Higher-order things: Perhaps you need a Project Page to deal with those "higher-order things". Things like [[IcehouseOrg:Categorization]] or [[IcehouseOrg:Function Proposals]] or something. WP's
Village Pump works kind of like what you're talking about, so maybe that's what you need.
Admin Requests responses:
That's probably the admin's fault. They should be checking that all the time; as that's part of their job (I'm guessing here, but it makes sense).
Back-and-forth conversation:
Ah.... I've had this discussion with Kristin, and it's really too long to repost here. Yes, wikis are not designed for conversation, but that's part of the point. It's a repository of information, not a social site. Also, I have found that back-and-forth conversation works quite well. If it's between 2 people, use your user talk pages. If it's between more people, a centralized discussion on an article's talk page is better.
Anyway, I should stop now before I ramble any further about WP...
~ Melissa
On 4/13/07, David Artman <
david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:>Should we perhaps set up a mailing list just for discussing the wiki?
<snip>
Exactly. Though the wiki has Talk pages, they are NOT very good for
actual discussion (cross-posting collisions, no one reads them, too
many places to check/watch). I suggest considering Talk as a sort of
"Test" or "Drafts" page--to try out formatting or to pre-stage or
pre-qualify content additions--and continue discussions here on the
list, for higher-order things like, oh, categories and special page
additions and functional proposals and admin-only tasks.
As a particularly telling example, if the Admin Requests on the wiki
EVER got any responses, I'd have never started this thread or asked to
become an admin! So, if Admin Requests don't even get answered, how can
we expect various comments, "posts", or random user suggestions on Talk
pages to ever get any attention?
David
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