[pmwiki-users] increasing preciousness

Monty pmwiki at ioioi.us
Sun Apr 10 23:33:02 CDT 2005


Dear Users,

One thing which strikes me when I view a PmWiki website is that, the 
form is to focus on meaning itself, which has value apart from who cares 
about it, who contributed it, who objects to it, or even who reads it. 
The prototypical PmWiki exists for itself: it is self-centric; which, 
being that it is a data archive, it is data centric.

This is no different from many other forms of journalism.  But it 
provokes me to ponder, (and ponder I might,) how might my PmWiki site 
become more about its users than about it self?  And my inescapable 
answer comes - it is about metadata.  Capturing, tagging, and 
re-presenting metadata in convenient times, at pertinent places.

The eternal problem with metadata is that people are inherently LAZY and 
do not spend time with it because they do not understand The Big Picture 
of the semantic web and the power connectedness brings.  The answer to 
overcoming this sloth is to make metadata DEAR to the user(s) - it must 
become sentimental.

Monty's Growth Hypothesis #1:
The more connnected data is to other data, and metadata is to data, the 
more precious it is and it will want to be.  In other words, the more 
apparent it is that some data is relevant, the more relevant it will become.

This is accomplished
# by leadership/example -- having a core which cares to contribute metadata
# in ways which are primarily visual -- consequently the graphic design 
is crucial - it must say "I am precious, I am dear, I am connected to 
you in ways that are meaningful and matter."
# thru eloquent prose which captures something beyond a b&w 2d world of 
the wiki and distills, in primitive form, beauty
# by photography.  Image inclusion must not only be easy, attaching or 
alluding to a PNG or JPG must be compelling.
# by filtering out everything which is not interesting & relevant to the 
user and decreasing its salience
# by intelligently bringing to the fore those things which the user has 
indicated (through her behavior such as navigation path, search strings, 
or expressed preferences) s/he likes
# by making the website more about the prosumers using it than about the 
data they consume or create
# by giving viewers choice, and intelligently remembering and 
consistently applying her choice throughout the site, whether that be in
## color preference by selecting AN alternate stylesheet ON a particular 
skin,
## "smart folders" like mozilla thunderbird, iTunes, and Google have 
made popular, which are merely remembered searches presented through 
navigation as if they are menus

:) ok!

This is a brainstorming on how to make my PmWiki more audience-relevant 
and prosumer-centric.

How may any recipes, features, skins, templates, or scripts be created 
or altered to implement any of these concepts?

Sincerely Yours,

Monty d.





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