Archive for the ‘wiki’ Category

Nature and the web

Thursday, June 8th, 2006

Nature is not afraid to experiment with a core process — peer review — that they believe is working well, to see what the internet might bring: they are piloting one variation of an open peer review process, and have initiated a web debate (good supporting content from those links). Here’s an organization fully engaged with the question of what the web does.

From the comments on the oreilly post, a reminder that Nature was also behind the Britannica-vs-Wikipedia study last December that found W close to B in accuracy.

(via oreilly radar)

Wiki as framework

Tuesday, April 11th, 2006

In a comment on another post, Barry points me to TiddlyWiki. This is an interesting implementation: it’s very ajaxy and opens entries in the current page, in the context of the other entries you’ve already opened. Furthermore, all the data and code lives in a single html file that you access directly with your browser: there is no server or other software, so this is a very convenient PersonalWiki approach. Put it on a key for mobility. And here’s a clever feature: edit functionality is present when browsing via file:// but degrades to view-only with http://.

Barry also points out GTD TiddlyWiki, which is an excellent illustration of wiki-as-framework. This can serve as an easy entry into GTD, as it is a basic, illustrating implementation that can then be further modified to suit. It’s open source, and clear text on disk using basic, standard web technologies; very geek-friendly. It’s very light entry — if you’re at all interested, I encourage you to save either wiki file and start playing with it. Or save both, and look how the one was used to make the other — whether or not you call this 2.0 mashup, it’s a compelling approach to making apps.

Finally, Barry has documented something he calls PocketGTD, which gives PocketMod-like printouts of GTD TiddlyWiki. I haven’t tried it, but having GTD actions printed out in a nice, fold-up pocket booklet sounds really excellent, covering a real-world gap for those of us with nearly entirely digital GTD implementations. At first glance these things don’t fit well with my current GTD, PersonalWiki and MultipleDesktop implementations, but some of these features are compelling enough that I’m looking for how to integrate them.