Difference between revisions of "WikiProcess"

Some say wiki is about community. But this misses the initial and central epiphany of wiki: the fusion of community into identity.

When I type words on a page I read them back and I react to what I read, and my reaction leads to my writing more words. This is what authors do for readers - they control the reader's reactions by providing their own continuations. But here I'm not writing for readers ... I'm not targeting my words at an audience ... I don't provide the continuation of these words. I'm jotting down thoughts to welcome everyone who reads them. Everyone is "I" for these words. You, me, everybody, everybody who clicks "edit".

Some inexperienced folk may not understand this - they reply rather than edit and ThreadMess occurs. ThreadMess is community as it is generally known on weblogs and groups, but that's really not the WikiNature. The WikiNature is when I accept that I am writing these words - not "I" the original author of these words but "I" the reader, the "I, yes I, me". I type with my fingers, and my fingers are different fingers every time I click the Save page button. All these "I"s are I, the fused identity of the page as it comes into existence.

So wiki is not about community. It is about the WikiProcess of fusing all our identities into my identity, the identity AboutUs.