I'm excited to see that wikiHow now lets people log in with OpenID, and also provides identities to all wikiHow users. (I'm not sure what wikiHow project members are called -- my best guess is "wikiHowards", but I'm pretty sure that's not right.)
wikiHow is a great company, and the people I know there -- Jack and Travis -- are personable and smart. I think wikiHow is a great example of a conscientious company participating well in Open Content and the wiki world; I think implementing OpenID is one example of their good wikizenship.
One of the things I really wanted with implementing the MediaWiki OpenID extension was that we'd get really portable identity across wikis; that someone who'd established a reputation on Wikipedia could expect some respect for that reputation on Wikevent or Wikioutdoors or whatever.
I think there's some danger to that model -- so many wikis today are implemented on wiki farms like Wikia or Pbwiki. I think some wiki farm companies see value in corraling their users into only using wikis on their servers, rather than in participating in the larger wikisphere. (You can occasionally even see this attitude in the Wikimedia community, although obviously that community is more self-governing and evolved about Free Culture and peer-to-peer processes.)
That attitude is short-sighted, and wiki hosting companies that insist on maintaining identity silos are probably going to pay for it in the future. It's a competitive market; people have a lot of choice, and nobody wants to be fenced in. If there's been one lesson of Web 2.0, it's that openness is a competitive advantage. Good karma pays off in intense customer loyalty.
And, yes, I'll stop using wiki-prefixed neologisms now. Sorry about that.
Anyways, I'm really glad to hear that wikiHow is joining the OpenID network. I hope it continues to work well for them.
tags: wikihow openid wikisphere wikizenship wikineologism
Rands in Repose
I continue to find it mind-boggling that this gay alien is also a well-known blogger about software.
Yeah, I know, I know, Jerkcity guys: they're just cartoon characters. They're not people. But still. In ancient times, I did an interview with Rands for Pigdog Journal. I guess that's a long time ago, though.
tags: rands jerkcity interview pigdogjournal
Not quite spongeworthy
So, there was an article in Slate about Wikipedia biographies over the weekend about how saddy-sad it is when your biography is deleted from Wikipedia (and how writing an article about Wikipedia can save that biography quite well). I've seen a lot of such breast-beating in blogs and such lately.
I think it's important for folks to remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a wiki-about-everything. Some people, places, and things meet an encyclopedia's requirements for notability (see Wikipedia:Notability (people)); others don't. That's just the way it is.
But just because your bio isn't on Wikipedia, doesn't mean you can't have an Open Content, wiki bio preserved for posterity. I've written about WikiBios before, but I have to insist that it's one of the most awe-inspiring projects I've seen: a biography for every human. Every human. That's all they do. Yeah, their sample text is a little bit trivial, but I think looking beyond that, you can see a pretty amazing possibility for a project.
Maybe Timothy Noah and all the other people who are teetering on the edge of being spongeworthy for Wikipedia should take some time to build out their WikiBios page. Get friends, colleagues and family to contribute, and really build out a high-quality bio. If at some period in the future WP deigns to include them, then the bio is right there -- GFDL-licensed, no less.
Anyways, here's Evan Prodromou's WikiBio. Feel free to fill it out.
tags: slate wikipedia timothy noah wikibios
BarCampAustin
While I'm thinking about BarCamps -- I'm a little nervous about my presentation at DemoCampMontreal1 -- I'm finding out that BarCampAustin is going to be the same week as South-by-Southwest Interactive 2007. Which, really, makes a lot of sense. I'm going to try to show up for Friday morning -- it'll be interesting to bounce back and forth between SxSW and a BarCamp.
tags: sxsw barcamp barcampaustin