a wiki-style format, where prerequisite concepts are obsessively hyperlinked, works fine.
Uncoercive formats can create a tendency for attention to jump all over the place and not spend enough time on any one topic.
There’s a concept here (possible what the OP meant by “coercive”) which I might call “structure”. One of the downsides to wikis (or parts of wikis) is, what if you wanted to read them? Is there a good order? Usually*, no. This limits their usefulness. Wikipedia is like someone who didn’t know what a textbook was, reinvented it badly—pages everywhere, connected by string in random places where one page’s title is mentioned on another page. The fact that you can only (maybe) find something if you know you’re looking for it, and exactly what it’s called limits one of the most useful aspects of books of knowledge—the chance to learn things you don’t already know.
The Sequences are unusual in this regard (there’s an order!) which is why I’ve read them. (One of the downsides of the medium was that I didn’t initially realize that. If I read a physical copy of Lord of The Rings, I’d know I finished it.)
One of the downsides to wikis (or parts of wikis) is, what if you wanted to read them? Is there a good order? Usually*, no. … *I’m not aware of any counter-examples.
Which anyone can create an account on, edit, and make new posts/articles? The fact that it looks like a book, rather than a ghastly mess led me to believe otherwise.
Also, it’s a tree, and it’s obviously self-contained. It...flows. It has a homepage with an introduction and a table of contents which contains tables of contents which contain posts. You read it by reading, scrolling down, clicking (to go down a level), and when you’ve read that level you go back up and continue reading. (On the bottom level, posts/pages, you don’t go any deeper.)
It’s linear because I created views on the pages which present them in a linear order—which is my point. The pages are also hyperlinked together in a chaotic manner, as any other wiki is; and of course you can search it, which ditto.
You read it by reading, scrolling down, clicking (to go down a level), and when you’ve read that level you go back up and continue reading.
(You can also use the next-page / previous-page navigation buttons, which is even more linear.)
Which anyone can create an account on, edit, and make new posts/articles? The fact that it looks like a book, rather than a ghastly mess led me to believe otherwise.
The Sequence posts themselves are not publicly editable, for obvious reasons. The Talk pages (see ‘Talk’ link in top left corner) are publicly editable—with no account creation necessary. You can’t create new pages—but that’s only because I’ve got the permissions set that way. A change of configuration—a moment’s work—and that is enabled, too.
It’s linear because I created views on the pages which present them in a linear order—which is my point.
The Sequence posts themselves are not publicly editable, for obvious reasons.
Then I don’t see a point of disagreement.
In regards to the OP’s point, I’d say that not only are “books” a (linear)/simple structure, but physical books may act to coerce such a structure. It’s not that I have something against other sorts of structures, just ones lacking clear paths. Are there books which suggest a reading order other than first page to last page? Yes, and and they tell you what it is.
The pages are also hyperlinked together in a chaotic manner, as any other wiki is; and of course you can search it, which ditto.
The level on which is this occurs is important. A hierarchy requires (clearly distinguished) levels above posts/articles to only reference lower levels (and call them as such).*
and of course you can search it, which ditto.
The linear/hierarchical structure of ReadTheSequences.com also allows for another kind of searching. If I read it in order, but forget where I am, I can binary search and see if I remember reading something. If I have (including the end), then I can eliminate it from my search along with everything before it. If I haven’t, I can eliminate it from my search along with everything after it.
*This isn’t undermined if these higher level pages note the page which contains them (while being explicit at a minimum that it’s “a page which links here”) I’d say something wikis miss is not having posts/articles contain a list of pages which link to them. (If not in the sense of not having the tech, then in not making it obvious: UI.)
I’d say something wikis miss is not having posts/articles contain a list of pages which link to them. (If not in the sense of not having the tech, then in not making it obvious: UI.)
FYI, this is an artifact of the specific wiki software that you’re likely familiar with (namely, MediaWiki, on which Wikipedia is built). Other, better wiki platforms have easily accessible lists of backlinks (see “Backlinks” at the top right).
One of the downsides to wikis (or parts of wikis) is, what if you wanted to read them? Is there a good order? Usually*, no.
You are conflating multiple different issues here, which must be examined separately or else any conclusions you reach will make no sense.
The first issue is that of content type. Many pages on Wikipedia, and on many other wikis, are simply not the kind of thing that you would “read”. They might be lists, or disambiguation pages, or category pages, or reference pages, or summaries of other pages, or meta pages, or media galleries, or blog-type updates, or “latest [whatever]” pages that communicate the status of something, or pages designed to be transcluded as components into other pages, or pages designed to be disassembled by transclusion and viewed elsewhere, or pages that implement some dynamic functionality, or data pages, or logs, or “Talk” pages, or profile pages, etc., etc., etc. Asking “what order should I read these pages in” is completely nonsensical when it comes to pages of any of these types.
The second issue is that of grouping. In what order should you read the following set of Wikipedia pages:
This, too, is a nonsense question. You could read them in any order you like, because they’re on completely disparate, unrelated topics. There just is not any kind of ordering that you can impose on them and say “there, now these three pages form a natural progression; certainly you shouldn’t read the last one first…”.
And this problem isn’t unique to Wikipedia. Even topical wikis often have pages that span a far wider range of subjects than would make sense to arrange into any kind of ordering.
And the third issue is that of views on information. Let us suppose that Wikipedia contains some subset of pages which, together, constitute the contents of a good cookbook (a bunch of recipe pages, some pages about cooking techniques, etc.). But these pages aren’t arranged in any kind of order…
… but what is stopping you from putting them in order? You could create a list of pages, which, if read in order, would make up the cookbook (or whatever). You could even make such a list… as a wiki page. Via transclusion, or such tools as wiki trails, you can assemble the list of pages into a single page, or into a structure which behaves just like an ebook would (or a web book, like ReadTheSequences.com or Butterick’s Practical Typography). And—importantly—each of those pages would still be a wiki page; it would still be browsable in the usual way, could be included in other “books”, etc.!
So, you see, to ask “in what order should I read this wiki” is simply to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of wikis—as well as their tremendous power…
Content type: I can read a book by skipping the introduction, table of contents, and go straight to the index/indices.
Grouping: This is a fair point, though most Wikis seem to have a narrower purpose than “encyclopedia”. They’re usually the encyclopedia of something (and these days Wikipedia supposedly has some limits, though they seem kind of vague).
But if someone separated parts of Wikipedia out into groups, and say identified a subset of pages to be ‘Math Wikipedia’ or ‘Wikipedia Math’, or the ‘Math Project on Wikipedia’ then they might start by identifying all ‘Math’ pages, putting together a list of ‘Math pages’, and deciding how important different pages are, and how much work needs to be done on them.
Views on information: Yes. What I see as missing are 2 things: clear groupings*, a reading order within groupings, and flow. Some articles are contradictory because there were fights and so the top of the page has something opposite the middle. Yes some groupings contain others. But when all the organization happens on (topic) articles, then it’s a rather messy graph instead of an list which says ‘all these things go together’.
*One way of doing this is to have a set of groupings which covers everything (level 1), then, within each of those top level groups, a set of groups which covers everything (level 2), and so on.
Basically, my point (which, I think, you have now understood, so I am stating it explicitly for the public benefit) is this:
The problems you outline are not downsides of wikis, the technology—they are downsides of Wikipedia, the project (and some, but not all, other wikis that are run in a similar manner). In fact wikis, the technology, are not uniquely bad, but uniquely good at solving these problems (since they so easily enable the creation of arbitrarily many different views on any given set of information-chunks, or any subset thereof)!
While they may make it easy to create different views of information chunks, what’s the benefit of such pages if no other users can find them? Having an official, well put together* page hierarchy which starts at the homepage and includes all pages is pretty valuable.
*If the organization system doesn’t “cleave reality at the joints” then it’s probably not doing it’s job.
While they may make it easy to create different views of information chunks, what’s the benefit of such pages if no other users can find them? Having an official, well put together* page hierarchy which starts at the homepage and includes all pages is pretty valuable.
I concur, but again, this is not a problem with wiki technology any more than it would be a problem with book technology if I were to publish a textbook without a table of contents or an index.
An analogy: suppose I say that a knife is uniquely good at cutting things (compared to other tools like hammers, chisels, etc.), and you protest that you have only ever seen knives used to smash things, whereas it’s hammers that you’ve seen used to cut things (with the claw side of a claw hammer, say). That would hardly be a sensible reply, yes? It’s simply that you’re not using knives (or seeing them used) correctly!
In short, you’re saying that if the power of a tool isn’t actually used, then it doesn’t do any good. I agree entirely! The answer is to go ahead and use it, not to discard the tool; knives, books, and wikis are, in fact, quite powerful, even if some foolish people use them to smash things, publish ones without indexes, or fail to create publicly visible index pages.
We ought to learn from the folly of others—not be discouraged by it.
We ought to learn from the folly of others—not be discouraged by it.
I agree.
I would note that while past examples of failure are something to improve upon, function should determine form, and past examples where form determined functionality to it’s detriment are important. While TVTropes may be fun to read, because I value LessWrong, and the ability to read LW, among other ways, via time, so I can read the latest posts (like how this site is going to change with the addition of new features), I don’t want LW to become exactly like the TVTropes wiki.
For some explicit examples:
If someone wrote a book without indentations or paragraphs, or ends to sentences it would be hard to read.
Likewise, a book with the binding broken and the pages out of order would be hard to read, but fairly simple to put in the right order—if there were page numbers. If there weren’t page numbers, and some pages were missing, it’d be hard.
An example of a problem, and a possible solution:
A) Suppose someone writes a new wiki page (on Batman (Franchise)). Then (maybe) they remember to add it to to Comics or Fiction.
(If new wiki pages show up on the frontpage, and are by default tagged “not categorized yet” (and categorized if the author categorized them) then maybe someone else can see that it needs to get slotted into the appropriate list and fixes it. This way of operating might work—unless there’s too many new articles all at once and the “categorization checkers” are flooded, and end up backlogged.)
B) Someone goes to the Fiction page (which is a list of pages) and adds a link to a “Batman (Franchise)” page (which turns red because it hasn’t been made yet). And then they go to the Batman page and write the article.
TL:DR; (Main point)
My point is that if organization is something that maybe happens after content creation as an afterthought there will be unorganized pages. But if organization work goes in beforehand then there aren’t unorganized pages. Yes sometimes things change as they’re worked out, and the pre-organization needs revision. But pre-organization is better than no organization.
Great post by the way.
There’s a concept here (possible what the OP meant by “coercive”) which I might call “structure”. One of the downsides to wikis (or parts of wikis) is, what if you wanted to read them? Is there a good order? Usually*, no. This limits their usefulness. Wikipedia is like someone who didn’t know what a textbook was, reinvented it badly—pages everywhere, connected by string in random places where one page’s title is mentioned on another page. The fact that you can only (maybe) find something if you know you’re looking for it, and exactly what it’s called limits one of the most useful aspects of books of knowledge—the chance to learn things you don’t already know.
The Sequences are unusual in this regard (there’s an order!) which is why I’ve read them. (One of the downsides of the medium was that I didn’t initially realize that. If I read a physical copy of Lord of The Rings, I’d know I finished it.)
*I’m not aware of any counter-examples.
Minor errata:
Oh, and by the way—
ReadTheSequences.com is, in fact, a wiki.
Which anyone can create an account on, edit, and make new posts/articles? The fact that it looks like a book, rather than a ghastly mess led me to believe otherwise.
Also, it’s a tree, and it’s obviously self-contained. It...flows. It has a homepage with an introduction and a table of contents which contains tables of contents which contain posts. You read it by reading, scrolling down, clicking (to go down a level), and when you’ve read that level you go back up and continue reading. (On the bottom level, posts/pages, you don’t go any deeper.)
It’s linear. There’s a clear path through it.
It’s linear because I created views on the pages which present them in a linear order—which is my point. The pages are also hyperlinked together in a chaotic manner, as any other wiki is; and of course you can search it, which ditto.
(You can also use the next-page / previous-page navigation buttons, which is even more linear.)
The Sequence posts themselves are not publicly editable, for obvious reasons. The Talk pages (see ‘Talk’ link in top left corner) are publicly editable—with no account creation necessary. You can’t create new pages—but that’s only because I’ve got the permissions set that way. A change of configuration—a moment’s work—and that is enabled, too.
Then I don’t see a point of disagreement.
In regards to the OP’s point, I’d say that not only are “books” a (linear)/simple structure, but physical books may act to coerce such a structure. It’s not that I have something against other sorts of structures, just ones lacking clear paths. Are there books which suggest a reading order other than first page to last page? Yes, and and they tell you what it is.
The level on which is this occurs is important. A hierarchy requires (clearly distinguished) levels above posts/articles to only reference lower levels (and call them as such).*
The linear/hierarchical structure of ReadTheSequences.com also allows for another kind of searching. If I read it in order, but forget where I am, I can binary search and see if I remember reading something. If I have (including the end), then I can eliminate it from my search along with everything before it. If I haven’t, I can eliminate it from my search along with everything after it.
*This isn’t undermined if these higher level pages note the page which contains them (while being explicit at a minimum that it’s “a page which links here”) I’d say something wikis miss is not having posts/articles contain a list of pages which link to them. (If not in the sense of not having the tech, then in not making it obvious: UI.)
FYI, this is an artifact of the specific wiki software that you’re likely familiar with (namely, MediaWiki, on which Wikipedia is built). Other, better wiki platforms have easily accessible lists of backlinks (see “Backlinks” at the top right).
You are conflating multiple different issues here, which must be examined separately or else any conclusions you reach will make no sense.
The first issue is that of content type. Many pages on Wikipedia, and on many other wikis, are simply not the kind of thing that you would “read”. They might be lists, or disambiguation pages, or category pages, or reference pages, or summaries of other pages, or meta pages, or media galleries, or blog-type updates, or “latest [whatever]” pages that communicate the status of something, or pages designed to be transcluded as components into other pages, or pages designed to be disassembled by transclusion and viewed elsewhere, or pages that implement some dynamic functionality, or data pages, or logs, or “Talk” pages, or profile pages, etc., etc., etc. Asking “what order should I read these pages in” is completely nonsensical when it comes to pages of any of these types.
The second issue is that of grouping. In what order should you read the following set of Wikipedia pages:
Batman
Myelin
Potato
This, too, is a nonsense question. You could read them in any order you like, because they’re on completely disparate, unrelated topics. There just is not any kind of ordering that you can impose on them and say “there, now these three pages form a natural progression; certainly you shouldn’t read the last one first…”.
And this problem isn’t unique to Wikipedia. Even topical wikis often have pages that span a far wider range of subjects than would make sense to arrange into any kind of ordering.
And the third issue is that of views on information. Let us suppose that Wikipedia contains some subset of pages which, together, constitute the contents of a good cookbook (a bunch of recipe pages, some pages about cooking techniques, etc.). But these pages aren’t arranged in any kind of order…
… but what is stopping you from putting them in order? You could create a list of pages, which, if read in order, would make up the cookbook (or whatever). You could even make such a list… as a wiki page. Via transclusion, or such tools as wiki trails, you can assemble the list of pages into a single page, or into a structure which behaves just like an ebook would (or a web book, like ReadTheSequences.com or Butterick’s Practical Typography). And—importantly—each of those pages would still be a wiki page; it would still be browsable in the usual way, could be included in other “books”, etc.!
So, you see, to ask “in what order should I read this wiki” is simply to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of wikis—as well as their tremendous power…
Content type: I can read a book by skipping the introduction, table of contents, and go straight to the index/indices.
Grouping: This is a fair point, though most Wikis seem to have a narrower purpose than “encyclopedia”. They’re usually the encyclopedia of something (and these days Wikipedia supposedly has some limits, though they seem kind of vague).
But if someone separated parts of Wikipedia out into groups, and say identified a subset of pages to be ‘Math Wikipedia’ or ‘Wikipedia Math’, or the ‘Math Project on Wikipedia’ then they might start by identifying all ‘Math’ pages, putting together a list of ‘Math pages’, and deciding how important different pages are, and how much work needs to be done on them.
Views on information: Yes. What I see as missing are 2 things: clear groupings*, a reading order within groupings, and flow. Some articles are contradictory because there were fights and so the top of the page has something opposite the middle. Yes some groupings contain others. But when all the organization happens on (topic) articles, then it’s a rather messy graph instead of an list which says ‘all these things go together’.
*One way of doing this is to have a set of groupings which covers everything (level 1), then, within each of those top level groups, a set of groups which covers everything (level 2), and so on.
Yes, there may be multiple reasonable such sets.
Basically, my point (which, I think, you have now understood, so I am stating it explicitly for the public benefit) is this:
The problems you outline are not downsides of wikis, the technology—they are downsides of Wikipedia, the project (and some, but not all, other wikis that are run in a similar manner). In fact wikis, the technology, are not uniquely bad, but uniquely good at solving these problems (since they so easily enable the creation of arbitrarily many different views on any given set of information-chunks, or any subset thereof)!
While they may make it easy to create different views of information chunks, what’s the benefit of such pages if no other users can find them? Having an official, well put together* page hierarchy which starts at the homepage and includes all pages is pretty valuable.
*If the organization system doesn’t “cleave reality at the joints” then it’s probably not doing it’s job.
I concur, but again, this is not a problem with wiki technology any more than it would be a problem with book technology if I were to publish a textbook without a table of contents or an index.
An analogy: suppose I say that a knife is uniquely good at cutting things (compared to other tools like hammers, chisels, etc.), and you protest that you have only ever seen knives used to smash things, whereas it’s hammers that you’ve seen used to cut things (with the claw side of a claw hammer, say). That would hardly be a sensible reply, yes? It’s simply that you’re not using knives (or seeing them used) correctly!
In short, you’re saying that if the power of a tool isn’t actually used, then it doesn’t do any good. I agree entirely! The answer is to go ahead and use it, not to discard the tool; knives, books, and wikis are, in fact, quite powerful, even if some foolish people use them to smash things, publish ones without indexes, or fail to create publicly visible index pages.
We ought to learn from the folly of others—not be discouraged by it.
I agree.
I would note that while past examples of failure are something to improve upon, function should determine form, and past examples where form determined functionality to it’s detriment are important. While TVTropes may be fun to read, because I value LessWrong, and the ability to read LW, among other ways, via time, so I can read the latest posts (like how this site is going to change with the addition of new features), I don’t want LW to become exactly like the TVTropes wiki.
For some explicit examples:
If someone wrote a book without indentations or paragraphs, or ends to sentences it would be hard to read.
Likewise, a book with the binding broken and the pages out of order would be hard to read, but fairly simple to put in the right order—if there were page numbers. If there weren’t page numbers, and some pages were missing, it’d be hard.
An example of a problem, and a possible solution:
A) Suppose someone writes a new wiki page (on Batman (Franchise)). Then (maybe) they remember to add it to to Comics or Fiction.
(If new wiki pages show up on the frontpage, and are by default tagged “not categorized yet” (and categorized if the author categorized them) then maybe someone else can see that it needs to get slotted into the appropriate list and fixes it. This way of operating might work—unless there’s too many new articles all at once and the “categorization checkers” are flooded, and end up backlogged.)
B) Someone goes to the Fiction page (which is a list of pages) and adds a link to a “Batman (Franchise)” page (which turns red because it hasn’t been made yet). And then they go to the Batman page and write the article.
TL:DR; (Main point)
My point is that if organization is something that maybe happens after content creation as an afterthought there will be unorganized pages. But if organization work goes in beforehand then there aren’t unorganized pages. Yes sometimes things change as they’re worked out, and the pre-organization needs revision. But pre-organization is better than no organization.