distributed wikis
DESCRIPTION
The “right to fork”, a consequence of the “hack on copyright” that is copyleft licensing, helps keep open source and open content project leaders honest. Forking is a political act as much as a version control command, and it used to be that both were a big deal. But now that distributed version control systems (DVCS) have made forking trivial, are there implications for the political act as well? How does political forking work within collaborative prose text projects (i.e. wikis)? English Wikipedia is so large as to be practically unforkable - it essentially has an unassailable monopoly, and unchecked power, in the English language encyclopedia market. One of the core Wikipedia rules is “one topic, one article”, which would seem to prohibit forking, but could we adhere to this principle and still take advantage of DVCS? Can a community be forked while keeping the shared project goals intact?Audience members will benefit from a grasp of version control, distributed version control and the workings of wikis and Wikipedia.Presented at the 'Freedom in the Cloud' miniconf, Monday January 24 2011 at linux.conf.au.TRANSCRIPT
Distributed wikisBrianna Laugher
Freedom in the Cloud miniconfLCA2011
[[SPEAKER:IS]]Wikipedian c. 2005-2010
[[TALK:IS]]Strictly vaporware
Philosophising
[[TALK:ISNOT]]A demo
Concerned with technical specs
Distribute/decentralise what?
Part Software Wiki
Interface Already existed with centralised VCS.
Barely exists, although possible. Vast majority of access via web UI.
Repository/storage
=DVCS meh
Access point Possible but not done, projects use official releases.
“marketplace of ideas” model
Community Kinda, like Linux? Not really
● Multiple versions of articles● Opposite of “One True Version”● Some mechanism allows the best to “rise to the top” (like PageRank?)
● Isn't that like the internet before Wikipedia? …● Similar to Knol? UrbanDictionary? StackOverflow?● Problems:
● rewards older contributions● evaluating is boring ● no canonical/reliable version● does not force/reward collaboration
“Marketplace of ideas” model
No more “One True Version”?
“A new-generation Wikipedia based on Git-style technologies could allow there to be not just one
Ocelot article per language, but an infinite number of them, each of which could be easily mixed and
merged into your own preferred version.”
– Anil Dash, “Forking is a Feature”http://dashes.com/anil/2010/09/forking-is-a-feature.html
● Wiki = VCS + prose text project + web UI.● Copyleft license => “right to fork” => “keeps the bastards honest”.● (Software) releases : (wiki) approved versions?● English Wikipedia is 10. Can it survive to 20?
● Too big to fail?● Too big to fork?
Some ideas
Wiki = web front-end for VCSfor prose text content
What's missing from wiki VCS?
● Diffs need to be per-word, not per-line ●Code contributions generally expected to be self-contained, generally in larger chunks than w/prose ●Code needs to be machine readable, (optionally?) human readable. Onus is on contributor to check machine readability
=> higher technical barrier to contributing is widely accepted
●Drive-by vandalism virtually non-existent● Prose projects rarely do “releases”
VCS for code vs prose
Merging for code vs prose
Code for unrelated technical functions should be able to be merged
Can we make the same promise for prose?
Can Wikipedia survive another 10?
Sense of dissatisfaction in the community
Unlike software, a certain critical mass is needed to stave off vandalism
Low barrier to entry(incl. anonymity)
+high visibility
+many pages
=>vandalism
Wikipedia the monopoly
● One destination – convenient and simple for users
● Great SEO (=> project growth)
● Potential for serendipity in editor activities
● Consistency (at least superficially)
● Practically, impossible to fork● hardware/bandwidth● community
● Widespread bureaucratese, instruction creep
● Impersonal
MediaWiki has a write API!
# Init site objectimport mwclientsite = mwclient.Site('commons.wikimedia.org')site.login(username, password) # Optional
# Edit pagepage = site.Pages['Commons:Sandbox']text = page.edit()print 'Text in sandbox:', text.encode('utf-8')page.save(text + u'\nExtra data', summary = 'Test
edit')
“Pending changes” aka “FlaggedRevs”
“Pending changes” separates
“what change I want to make”(a commit)
from“what I want users to receive”(tag as approved=”release”)
It's almost like having a release branch
mixed in with trunk....
Parsing mark-up :(
Templates :( :(
Free license + API – what's the hold-up?
“WikiProjects” FTW
● Self-organised groups of editors dedicated to a particular topic (e.g. Australia) or, less commonly, focus (e.g. standardising dates)● Very informal, light-weight● Narrower focus => better opportunity for community
Fork the UI?
(a la Twitter API)
“Why would anyone contribute to a feeder wiki?”
Promise of Wikipedia visibility+
Domain-specific and relevant interface+
Community
What is community?People
Intent/aims
Social norms- for interacting
- for contributing (eg. style guide)
License
Meta-planning for all of the above
In summary...
If forking Wikipedia is too hard, what can we do to make it practical again?
CreditsScreenshots and logos are © their respective ownersWikipedia 10: David Peters, CC-BY-SAhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_10mark_rev_k.svg
Vandalism post-its: cdaltonrowe, CC-BYhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/30485180@N06/3490537301/
Coloured post-its: Michael Goodine, CC-BYhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/watchsmart/3227691975/
Branches: Piotrus, CC-BY-SAhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shaped_tree_branches_Tenerife.JPG
Wikimania schedule editing: Kat Walsh, CC-BY-SAhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimania2007_everythings_a_wiki.jpg
WikiProject Council logo: Neurolysis, CC-BY-SAhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiProject_Council.svg
flagged revs maybe: Neurolysis/Kotra, CC-BY-SAhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FlagRevsMaybe.png
pending changes clock logo: Adam Miller/Anomie/Dodoïste, CC-BY-SAhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pending_changes_clock.svg
identi.ca/pfctdayelise
brianna.laugher.id.au
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Thanks!