Re: Wiki qualms

> >> However, I think these downsides are counterbalanced by:	
> >> 	a push rather than pull mode of discussion
> >
> > Why do you prefer "push", or think it's better?
> 
> Because every place I have to "check" is another bit of work I have to 
> motivate myself to do. It's bad enough having to sort through the 
> mailing list, but at least if I travel or something, I can figure out 
> what's going on. It also makes it harder to say, "I didn't see that" 
> and have to revisit discussion.

Makes good sense.   I hadn't really thought of that.

> >  Myself, I happen to
> > prefer to see more final-results (and work back) and less
> > discussion-leading-up-to-it (and work forward) but maybe that's just
> > my work style.
> 
> Since there have already been concerns express about openness and 
> transparency, I think it's better to conduct the discussion in the 
> canonical forum. With email, you can, with more ease, wait for a 
> conclusion then go back. With all these sundry, some what redundant  
> mechanisms, you have to do more rok.
> 
> >  (I hestitate to make a comparision to backward and
> > forward chaining rules.  :-)
> >
> >> 	the ability to refer to email points and drafts by the "normal" W3C
> >> uris (archive and wd)
> >> 	well understood structure
> >
> > I guess I'd like to see those points in side-by-side detail.
> 
> ? No idea what you want.
> 
> >  I'm not
> > disagreeing -- I just don't quite see the issues.
> 
> I want to be able to say, "This proposal was put forth by Jos in the 
> email on the list at <archive uri>. There was a thread discussing it in 
> the archive and we discussed in the Jan 16th telecon (see minutes, 
> which have references to key email uris)." I.e., the way every other 
> working group I've been involved in or seen does.

I agree. 

I think e-mail works well for message passing, and web space (eg a
wiki) works well as a shared workspace.  Trying to talk through a wiki
is like conversing via sticky notes -- it's okay for little things,
especially when you don't know who will come along and care about
something, but gets unweildy for dialog.

The case where I think wiki discussion (where people add signed
comments to the bottom of the page, etc) makes sense is on things the
WG as a whole doesn't (yet) care about, like when a few people are
collaborating on a glossary entry.  By the time something is near
being decided by the WG, discussions should happen on the
public-rif-wg and in telecons, as you say.

> [snip]
> >> I think either can be made to work, but I would prefer that the wiki
> >> *shadowed* traditional W3C practice (or generated it in parallel, as
> >> with the agenda) rather that we leap into replacing it. Esp., as is
> >> evident, that this group is not, as a whole, wiki savvy. There's 
> >> enough
> >> to learn :)
> > I think W3C practice is (and should be) pretty fluid.
> 
> Well, I disagree, esp. when it seems gratuitious, or not a clear huge 
> win. It's important for transparency (and for building transferable 
> skills, or transfering skills) to not depart for marginal gains. 
> Changing our working strategy means that everyone who has W3C 
> experience has to adapt to it.
> 
> Now, some accomodation can be made. E.g., if "proposals" are put on the 
> wiki and annouced on the list...fine. That's actually standard (some 
> people put their proposal on a web page rather than sending it to the 
> list, although that leads to archiving issues). But people should have 
> a chance to discuss it on list and I would say that the default should 
> be to discuss it on the list.
> 
> >    Each group has
> > different needs and strengths, etc.
> 
> I would be very interested to see how we are so different from other 
> working groups that we need to depart so radically. I just don't 
> believe it at all.

Given the above, perhaps this part is no longer relevant.  (IE I'm not
supporting anything so radical as saying we should use the wiki for
real WG decisions.)

     -- sandro

Received on Tuesday, 20 December 2005 20:13:31 UTC