Warp and Wiki
December 02, 2003
Joe recently asked: (1Y9)
How does Warp compare and contrast with Wiki? Do you consider it a successful experiment? (1YB)
and I thought the answer would be good blog fodder, so here it is. (1YC)
Warp is a system I wrote to provide the backend for my Hypertext and Knowledge Enhancement project. From the History section: (1YD)
The first version of Warp was written on a few cold winter nights to experiment with creating unexpected links between dynamic documents. It was inspired, in part, by systems such as Wiki and Everything2 but is intentionally much simpler. Those systems are cumbersome because they were designed to do something. Warp was never designed to do anything other than screw around. It turns out, however, to make a nice glossary engine for a project that has something to with hypertext, authorship, thought augmentation, etc. (1YE)
Now, with a few years of information science, philosophizing, collaboration work and PurpleWiki coding under my belt, I view Warp as something of an experiment in unintentional emergence or context development. (1YF)
Wikis encourage emergent understanding: people make their edits, create their WikiWords. With time, meaning bubbles to the surface. When someone uses a WikiWord there is intentional naming of a concept, the making of a Word: (1YG)
This is where WikiWords come in as a helpful tool. In asynchronous modes of communication the eyebrow raise, hand waving, tone of voice or trenchant gaze that indicate an important concept are not present. Something else is needed to indicate a sense of "this is important" and perhaps more importantly "I think this might be important". For a group that has trained into the behavior WikiWords do this very well. The smashed camel case says: there's something here and it is more than a simple hypertextual link: it is a Word, a Name, a Label, an Identifier of something that matters or will matter soon. T (1YH)
Warp's linking occurs, in the way I've used it, with words that already exist. There is no creating of a new word, just the assignment of a somewhat arbitrary value as the definition of a word. When that word is used in the warpspace, anywhere it is used it is linked back to the definition, where all the BackLinks are exposed. (1YI)
That linking is functionally similar to Wiki linking, but because it is "normal" words that are being linked, the linking is a bit more fecund and the connections between word use and definition less clear. (1YJ)
What I wanted to see happen was that when using Warp I would leap nimbly across short links in Warp that were representative of long traverses in my brain. Folding the space of the brain. Thus the name. (1YK)
You might try the following traverse in warp (go to the first link, read, click the word of the next link that you will find on the page): (1YL)
You may see something different, but I see a search for meaning and expression combined with ways to manage that expression out in the world in a maximally flexible fashion. (1YS)
From the discovery perspective Warp is somewhat successful. Digging up that traverse just now made me very pleased with it. It was an enlightening experience. (1YT)
On the other hand Warp is not actively productive, it is sort of like wanking. Good for you and pleasant if you have the time but if you need to get something done, lacking in directive structure. (1YU)
My switch over to Wikis and a PurpleNumber oriented universe is an acknowledgment that there needs to be, at least some of the time, some guidance and structure if there is to be progress. That is, if there is a known goal, we can make headway if we are able to (somewhat) reliably point to it and its constituent parts. In the absence of a known goal, systems like Warp that stir the pot do good. (1YV)
I have to admit that I'm a little let down by this realization. I'd like to exist in a universe where semi-random noodling is more available as a legitimate pursuit. I had a teacher who called genius the ability to draw connections between apparently distant ideas. Genius is often a luxury when immediate needs press but don't we need genius to solve those immediate needs? To climb up out of the darkness, into the beauty and good, where there are structures that support and sustain us in learning and growth. (1YW)
Comments
I hadn't really understood the value of something like Warp, until I did actually follow your traversal. Now I feel like I understand it, and you, much better. (1YX)
It's not clear to me that wanking doesn't have direct value for bringing people together, as above. Your Comms Philosophy Notes, however, would deny that bringing people together without a goal is really any good. I'm of two minds about this. (1YY)
On the one hand, there's the idea that you need to bring people together to get shit done, or else they end up wanking all day. Which, of course, I've seen evidence of. But then, there's the mindeset that says that bringing people together is an end in itself, and that shared goals can emerge from a sense of community. A slightly banal example might be the collection of Farscape fan discussion blogs which became the Save Farscape community. (1YZ)
As an example, I would find it hard to believe that Ghandi's Satyagrahists were just a bunch of guys sitting around talking about philosophy one day who just said, "Hey, let's see if we can depose British rule in India nonviolently. Wouldn't that be a hoot?" On the other hand, I don't think that the work Ghandi and his followers did would have been possible without a broad social network that integrated disparate individuals and brought them together with some sense of community. At the local level, this was village councils, but at the national level, it was the manufacture of the very concept of an Indian nationality. (1Z0)
This leads me onwards to seperate thought-paths: a) Nationalism is just the sort of wanking you describe Warp to be, at least when it's not being directed towards some goal, like the obliteration of a particular ethnic group. This is likely to be viewed as a tautology in liberal circles. b) It's not at all obvious that one can or should (and one probably should _not_) make too-sharp a distinction between wanking and achievement. (1Z1)
The problem, then, seems to be one of time management. Are you trying to accomplish a goal, or are you trying to accomplish everything you can? (1Z2)
If the former, than you need only spend the time achieving that is necessary to reach your goal. If the latter, then pile on more goals and recur. (1Z3)
I've gone pretty far afield, and most of it's been wanking. Thanks for reading. (1Z4)
Cool, thanks for documenting this. (1Z5)
If you have enough wiki links, covering a number of topics, you can get a bit of serendipity. Esp when you have something like TouchGraph to speed up the interface... (1Z6)
On further reflection (preparing a blog entry of my own), it occurs to me that what you call wanking might be described in a more value-neutral way as 'play'. Naturally, the sort of goal-oriented behavior you [seem to] attribute to Wiki use (as one of many tools) might be called 'work'. (1Z7)
Perhaps we're just discussing the same dichotomy we've been on since we were in grade school? (1Z8)
Responding to Joe's comments, for which I'm grateful. (1ZA)
It's not clear to me that wanking doesn't have direct value for bringing people together, as above. Your Comms Philosophy Notes, however, would deny that bringing people together without a goal is really any good. I'm of two minds about this. T (1ZB)
Wanking definitely has value, in exactly the way you describe. It's not that bringing people together without a goal has no value, but that if people have already expressed a desire for action, if they do not express, acknowledge and commit to a goal, they won't get anywhere. (1ZC)
Many times people who are wanking (to use the term because it is there) will somehow manage to crystallize a goal. I'd argue, though, that there needs to be some kind of catalyst to start that crystallization. For example, one's favorite TV show being cancelled. (1ZD)
Furthermore, I think there are different forces at play in the loose ties of broad social networks and the tighter, sometimes enforced, ties of a work group or collaborating team. There's often more fresh air, more circulation in the larger networks that brings in new material and thought that could cause crystallization. (1ZE)
In a tighter network, there is less circulation, a stagnation, and little that acts as a catalyst unless there is a crisis (something breaks) or a newcomer joins the mix. (1ZF)
I think you've seen this at work at work. (1ZG)
Part of the reason I think blogs and (in the old days) Usenet are often more interesting than mailing lists is their designed in openness. (1ZH)
Re nationalism: I'd certainly disagree with you that it is wanking, simply because I think that it is an actively evil force in the world. Something that active and that evil, is not wanking. (1ZI)
Re wanking v achievement: I think you can and should make the distinction in an environment where activity towards goals (no matter how nebulous they may be) has been defined as the mission. At work one is supposed to get stuff done. On this blog (where I'm most definitely wanking) I'm creating loose ties to the rest of world and that is a beneficial achievement, but it is of a different type. Context is everything. (1ZJ)
On your second comment: (1ZK)
On further reflection (preparing a blog entry of my own), it occurs to me that what you call wanking might be described in a more value-neutral way as 'play'. Naturally, the sort of goal-oriented behavior you [seem to] attribute to Wiki use (as one of many tools) might be called 'work'. T (1ZL)
Two things: (1ZM)
Hrm. I realize that wanking is a perfectly normal, healthy thing. That doesn't make the term any more value-neutral in our barbaric culture, than, say, 'work.' (1ZP)
Work connotes both hard things that I don't want to do, but it also connotes big important things that I do with devotion. It's often difficult to tell which I mean. (1ZQ)
Do I enjoy my work (ie, my job) because it is work, or because it is play? More often the latter than the former, I fear. I still don't really feel like I've found any kind of calling, even in the context of my work/play/work. (1ZR)
Still, I feel a lot closer to such definition when I have discussions like these. (1ZS)