There is an inevitable conflict. People want to contribute to systems that make it simple to contribute. Other people love tbe content and think that it would be wonderful if it just did that and also had extra structure X. Unfortunately if it had extra structure X from the beginning, you wouldn't get so much raw content. What to do?

I don't have an answer for that. I just see this as yet another trade off. And then the question becomes how to trade it off.

To me the answer strongly resembles the one made in a different space in End To End Arguments in System Design. (That paper was critical in coming up with the design for the basic Internet.) And the answer is that worse appears to be better, the system that makes contribution easiest, succeeds. That is what tbe Web does. CPAN works the same way, low bar for admission, and it doesn't do a lot of what people want. Perlmonks, ditto. Wikis build excellent documentation.

That doesn't mean that a wonderfully structured repository of our collective wisdom wouldn't be wonderful. But build the framework for it, and it won't get filled. Build a simple system, and it gets filled overflowing with knowledge fertilizer.

In short, Worse is Better. Even though common sense (uninformed by a detailed understanding of human dynamics) would argue otherwise.

In reply to Re: Learning Space by tilly
in thread Perl Learning- Personal Expert System at PerlMonks by artist

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