WhyNotWiki:About
From WhyNotWiki
Nothing is currently known about WhyNotWiki. (Just kidding...)
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[edit] What is WhyNotWiki?
Technically, it's a wiki, but it also sort of functions as my "blog" (for the time being). It's currently a personal web site, but don't be put off by that. Large parts of it are not personal in nature and are probably still of interest to many people who care not one iota about me personally. I may split off one or more of these parts into their own sites when the time is right, but in the meantime you are free to use and contribute to this wiki right here!
It is my gift of free information to the world, because I believe that information is meant to be free. (WhyNotWiki:License)
I also believe that by taking the time to put things that I learn into my own words (or at least to fit them into my overall organizational system/ontology), it helps me to learn and remember that information better. This is sort of a first step in following through with my idea that students should write their own textbooks. For what better words and organization can be understood by someone than one's own?
It serves as a sort of level-2 cache for me: when I need to look up some information, I first check my "cache" to see if I already have it there. In the case of a cache miss, I do the first-hand research and added to my cache. In the case of a cache hit, I've saved myself some time.
It's a tool for doing research that interests me, collecting evidences for hypotheses, etc., looking for patterns, analyzing things, ...
Fun and/or surprising juxtapositions, connections, and patterns: I hope it will lead to never-before-seen juxtapositions (or at least connections between things; the system may not put them side by side for you, but will at least make it easy for you to do so) of ideas which are surprising and even at times insightful, perhaps leading to moments of "Hey, I never even thought of taking that concept from way over there and applying it over here!" (By generously categorizing and linking everything together, I hope to even find similarities and patterns that cross over multiple domains.) (apophenia?)
- Regarding patterns: Perhaps one will be able to find a pattern among two things that one previously considered to be unrelated. Or perhaps one will be able to discover/learn a pattern from one domain area and, by [synthesis], apply it in some other, unrelated discipline. That to me is a lot of fun!
Comparing, evaluating, and ranking things...
It's a place for me to design and document software, to satisfy my hacker tendencies.
It's a place for me to satisfy the compulsion to collect things, like examples, for example ... but only things that I think are good ... I'm not planning on having a comprehensive list of everything ... just a list of all the best/most interesting things that cross my path... Because you just know you're going to want to find it again later and you'll wish you'd made a note of it . This wiki makes that possible.
So keep your eyes out (not to mention open)!
If you see something useful/interesting/exceptional/good, don't just sit there and admire it -- write it down, put it in a bottle, whatever -- and then share it!
Not comprehensive
It may appear that I'm trying to create a comprehensive collection of everything... Don't be ridiculous!!! I'm perfectly content with being only 70% comprehensive!
Seriously, though, I have to keep reminding myself that my goal is not to be comprehensive. I'm really aiming more towards being a "best of" collection rather than a comprehensive collection.
Many pages (at least in the software domain) start out simply as rough notes or a cheat sheet to quickly remind me in case I need a reference sometime in the future. But then they evolve and grow, still while hopefully being rather selective. I aim to include only the best, the most relevant, the most interesting, and the most useful content. If it doesn't meet those criteria, then I just need to force myself to delete it ... Can't ... make ... myself ... deleeeete!
| “ | So many problems to solve, so little time! | ” |
I also collect problems and look for solutions because I love solving problems... But — I only like to solve a problem once before moving on to other problems, that's why I'm so adamant about documenting my solution once I've come up with it.
To collect the answers to any and all questions that are worth asking.
It is also an experiment to test whether "great works can be written one time a piece at a time". Which is just an extension of my software development philosophy: Many iterations result in a superior product and Release early, release often.
It's also a test of my theory that a wiki is a better place to collect links than in my browser's "bookmarks" or in any of those taggable link sites (social bookmarking sites) that have sprung up (http://del.icio.us/), although I would like to add some del.icio.us features in due time.
It's also to help me be able to better answer people's questions. (Since I'm not great at making up stuff on the spot...) When people ask me... "Why do you think that?" "Why do you prefer this over that?" "Why do you believe that?" I'll have my answer ready...maybe.
It's a playground for a taxonomy, because I like to classify and organize things...
It's a playground for wiki experiments. This site will always be running the latest in wiki technology (see #Technical_details below), right on the cutting edge wikiness.
People don't have to wonder "have you heard of __" yet? If they're wondering whether they should bother sending a link to me about something, for example, they could (not that they would bother, but they could) check my site to see if I have that link / have heard of that news yet, and only send it if not. Similarly, if someone is interested in a topic that I'm interested in, rather than sending them an e-mail with a bunch of links in it, I can just point them to the respective page on my site and say "here, this is what I know about ___ -- enjoy".
[edit] Goals
Many of my goals are mentioned in the previous section, "What is WhyNotWiki"... Here are so more!
- To be the metadataedest, semanticest site in the whole World Wide Web.
- To have the best, most organized, and most useful (in my opinion) taxonomy in the entire Internet.
[edit] Philosophy
See the "3 pillars" on the Welcome page.
Also:
- Show, don't tell.
- Link to and cite primary sources.
- ...
[edit] What makes it different?
- It places a major emphasis on metadata/categorization/organization -- almost as much emphasis on that than on the actual content itself
- Things are very highly interlinked / linked together -- so you will be able to browse from point A to B quite quickly along some dimension they have in common, even if it is a subtle, easy-to-miss commonality
[edit] MetaWiki
[edit] Technical details
Running Semantic MediaWiki on MediaWiki 1.10.0 (the latest as of 2007-05-15)!
See Special:Version.
[edit] Comparison to Wikipedia
| Wikipedia | WhyNotWiki | |
|---|---|---|
| Neutral point of view? | Yes. Don't want to offend anyone here. | Not on your life. The truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. |
| Politically correct? | Yes. | Not if it gets in the way of convincing people of the truth. |
| Include your sources/references? | Yes! | Yes! |
| First-hand/original research allowed? | No | Yes! |
MetaWiki edit (Category edit) ricacelcooub rollibodr eltorc .
