Ward Cunningham

Wikimania 2005Frankfurt, Germany

Where From? Where To?Prehistory and Speculation about

Wiki

You will find these slides at

http://c2.com/doc/wikimanina

They are yours to use under the

Creative Commons Attribution License

http://creativecommons.org

Imagining the Network

http://c2.com/~ward/morse/SimNet

Simulated in Pascal and Java

http://c2.com/~ward/morse/SimNet/SimView.html

Representation & Communication

Computer Radio

How Ideas Spread

• People Cards• Project Cards• Idea Cards

CRC Design Database

Class

Responsibilities

Collab

orato

rs

http://c2.com/doc/firstcrc.pdf

CRC Index Cards

Foo

DoeFooReBar

PiBarZigFoo

“This Guy”

http://c2.com/doc/crc/draw.html

Representation & Communication

Computer Radio

Ideas Experience

Patterns as a New Literature

WindowPer Task

Nouns andVerbs

ShortMenus

StandardPanes

Portland Pattern Repository

Hypertext of Patternshttp://c2.com/ppr/

Generated HTML

DOCUMENT.TXT

HTMLgenerator

1994: Run generator by hand1995: Form interface to generator

Wiki Wiki Web

Window Per Task

Mumble mumble blah mumble

blah blah mumble mumble

mumble blah blah blah

blah mumble blah mumble

blah blah mumble mumble

mumble blah blah blah

blah mumble blah mumble

Edit Contents of this page.

Window Per TaskMumble mumble blah mumble

blah blah mumble mumble

mumble blah blah blahblah mumble blah mumble

blah blah mumble mumbleSaveSave

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WindowPerTask

Wiki Design Principles• Unified - Page names will be

drawn from a flat space so that no additional context is required to interpret them.

• Precise - Pages will be titled with sufficient precision to avoid most name clashes, typically by forming noun phrases.

• Tolerant - Interpretable (even if undesirable) behavior is preferred to error messages.

• Observable - Activity within the site can be watched and reviewed by any other visitor to the site.

• Convergent - Duplication can be discouraged or removed by finding and citing similar or related content.

• Open - Should a page be found to be incomplete or poorly organized, any reader can edit it as they see fit.

• Incremental - Pages can cite other pages, including pages that have not been written yet.

• Organic - The structure and text content of the site is open to editing and evolution.

• Mundane - A small number of (irregular) text conventions will provide access to the most useful page markup.

• Universal - The mechanisms of editing and organizing are the same as those of writing so that any writer is automatically an editor and organizer.

• Overt - The formatted (and printed) output will suggest the input required to reproduce it. http://c2.com/wiki?WikiDesignPrinciples

Representation & Communication

Computer Radio

Ideas Experience

Patterns Wiki

Wikipedia

My question, to this esteemed Wiki community, is this: Do you think that a Wiki could successfully generate a useful encyclopedia? -- JimboWales

Yes, but in the end it wouldn't be an encyclopedia. It would be a wiki. -- WardCunningham

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiPedia

Representation & Communication

Encyclopedia Wikimedia

Do not think of

Wikipedia as just

an encyclopedia

Representation & Communication

Writing Roads

Scientific Method Printing Press

Integrated Circuits Fiber Optics

Wikipedia

Limits to Growth

1995 2005

Ward’s Wiki(changed programming)

Wikipedia(changing what?)

Agile Methods

Limits to Growth

• Population

• Energy

• Climate

These are forces

that demand we

reframe the way

we think.

Representation & Communication

Integrated Circuits Fiber Optics

Object Models P2P Networks

Simulation Evolution

Imagining the Network

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FolkMemory

Objects Show Many Ways

abcxyz

Servers Copy Objects

copy

12.156.32.95

32.26.97.11345.31.29.56

copy

Objects May Be Missing

Objects Trail Location History

793

Servers Resolve Duplicates

793

321

821321

Server Heuristics

• Connection - Chooses when to open, accept and close connections. Guided largely by “trail climbing” of interesting objects and average channel performance. Allocates sockets, total bandwidth, and processing time devoted to transmission.

• Distribution - Chooses which objects to distribute through each open channel. Guided by authority, apparent interest from hosted application, and interest shown by peer servers. Allocates channel bandwidth to individual objects.

• Preservation - Chooses which objects will be kept in the server. Guided by authority, network and application interest, connection behavior and available space.

Adaptive Federation

copy

copy

copycopy

copy

Right to LifeRight to Choose

copy copyNew

Fra

min

g

Adaptive Federation

copy

copy

copycopy

copy

copy

Tolerant Scripting

Enter

Representation & Communication

Encyclopedia Wikimedia

Simulated Worlds FolkMemory

Real World Cultural Evolution