Tag: wiki

Concept Refactoring

If you’ve ever maintained a Wiki, you’ve probably noticed that there is a lot of refactoring involved. Ideas are written down in one place, then rewritten, moved, titles changed, links redirected, pages split and merged.

Hypertext wants to be refactored. This is a feature of hypertext, not a bug. Through constant refactoring, knowledge in a hypertext network evolves to find the right packets for a given domain, where 1 packet = 1 idea. What if we introduced the minimum amount of structure for working with text? Something simple for people, simple for computers, and meaningful for both? That is my goal in experimenting with this new markup language, Subtext. Not formatting, but a kind of minimal markup for making notes legible so software can help you refactor them. “CSV for thought”.

I’ve found the same to be true for blogs with their tags, and better links over time.

Geowiki

you can log into your Google account to edit a place on the map. You can even mark that a business has closed to save someone an extra trip. Of course, we’ve taken steps to help protect accuracy — for example, you’ll still be able to see the original listing information along with the history of changes made.

edit those maps, people

The new Google Maps feature to allow every user to create a new business listing is now live. Here is a comprehensive slideshow detailing the process step by step. Some items of note about the process:

The option to add a place to the map is available at the bottom of the page on ANY Map’s search. In my case I searched for 8th & Sullivan, Olean NY as it was the location of a shop that I utilized but had a very low profile. Login is required and will be used to track changes per user. Google allows a business to be added without an exact address but by dragging the marker to the location. Not all details need be available to create an entry. Google uses a much more flexible categorization in the “Type of Place” entry than currently exists in the Local Business Center. While you type, it makes suggestions as to existing categories. As you type suggested categories appear but if you continue you are allowed to enter a category that is not in the suggestions. In this case, I added “Used Computer Parts”

MindBroker

MindBroker ist ein virtuelles GlaesernesUnternehmen in der digitalen Republik NooPolis. Es erforscht, erfindet, baut und lebt neue Konzepte für VirtuelleOekonomie’n und SocialNetworks der nächsten und übernächsten Generation.

something feels wrong about using german for something so net-centric. building the global brain requires a shared language, and why not go with english? at least until lojban is ready 🙂

New Zealand wiki laws

“People are calling it ‘extreme democracy’ and perhaps it is. It’s a novel move but when it comes to the principles that go into policing, the person on the street has a good idea … as they are a customer. They’ve got the best idea about how they want to be policed.”

halfway there. now make the wiki the canonical way to make sausage and laws. and do a nice diff highlighter for all those riders.

Galaxiki

would be way better if based on a mature setting like orion’s arm. instead, we get a mostly empty site with the very occasional hello world. but then again, maybe that is closer to the real galaxy.