MOTD

Message Of The Day

Tue, 25 Nov 2003

18:20 [zork(~)] cat postnow.txt

POST NOW

I know a lot of good writers, and I have a lot of friends that support our effort with <a href="http://www.wikitravel.org/">Wikitravel</a>. Many have offered to "submit something", or "help out", but I've noticed a tendency on their parts to think of wiki pages as magazine articles. In their mind, the page must be complete and exquisitely crafted on initial posting.

This is a daunting task, and most people just don't have the time or energy for it. Some folks have, in fact, come through in this way: Johnny Royale wrote up the hilarious <a href="http://www.wikitravel.org/article/Walnut_Creek">Walnut Creek guide</a>, and Siduri started <a href="http://www.wikitravel.org/article/San_Francisco/Tenderloin">a guide to the Tenderloin</a>. Tjames made <a href="http://www.wikitravel.org/article/Santa_Barbara">Santa Barbara</a>, which is such a great professional page. I love it.

But most people don't, or can't, and then they get intimidated and guilty and they don't want to talk to me about Wikitravel anymore. Which is kind of a bummer for me, because I never wanted a magazine article in the first place. It's like if your Dad promises you some expensive gift for Christmas, and then he can't afford it, so he doesn't get you anything and feels guilty and goes and gets schnockered at the pub on Christmas Eve instead.

The thing I'm starting to grok about wiki -- and I'm not a wiki expert by any means -- is that <a href="http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html">Worse is Better</a>. You don't have to create something beautiful the first time around. In fact, great initial postings may actually be counterproductive. They kind of discourage editing by readers, meaning that community knowledge doesn't get included. It's the <a href="http://www.wikitravel.org/article/Wikitravel:stub_articles">stub articles</a> that seem to really grow into something information-rich.

I love my friends and I appreciate their goodwill. I know some of the best people in the world. But I wish I could think of an easy way to tell friends who offer to create a new article for Wikitravel that that's not what I really want. Just come over and help out. Create a stub for something that's not there. Expand a stub that is there. Correct someone else's spelling. Look up the phone number for a restaurant listing. Just, y'know, <a href="http://www.wikitravel.org/article/Wikitravel:plunge_forward">plunge forward</a>. It's more fun that way, anyways.

So, Nick, if you really want to help out, check out the pages for <a href="http://www.wikitravel.org/article/Bay_Area_(California)">the Bay Area</a>, for <a href="http://www.wikitravel.org/article/San_Francisco">San Francisco</a>, or for <a href="http://www.wikitravel.org/article/East_Bay_(Bay_Area)">the East Bay</a> and <a href="http://www.wikitravel.org/article/Oakland">Oakland</a>, and just start dribbling in bits and pieces of transit info. You know plenty more about <a href="http://www.wikitravel.org/article/Seattle">Seattle</a> and the <a href="http://www.wikitravel.org/article/Pacific_Northwest_(United_States_of_America)">the Pacific Northwest</a> than is on those stub pages. That's really what I want.


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