ResistanceToDelegation

Resistance to Delegation

A delegation between two wiki is an agreement to post certain types of things on one wiki, and certain other types of things on another wiki. For example, a Japanese language wiki and a Japanese animation wiki may agree to post about the Japanese language on the Japanese language wiki, and to post about Anime on the Japanese animation wiki, and to post translation notes for anime on a new Anime translator's wiki. Read "UnderstandingDelegations" to understand delegations in greater depth.

For various reasons, wiki members may resist delegation. They may not want to post elsewhere for a particular subject. They may like posting on their immediate wiki, before their immediate community, rather than a wiki where what they are saying may be more topical. This is a form of "Resistance to Delegation."

Responding to Resistance to Delegation

There are many ways to respond to resistance to delegation.

• Don't do WikiNodes.

• Participate loosely.

• Focus the wiki.

• Soften the delegation's impact.

Don't do Wiki Nodes

You could just not participate in a WikiNodesNetwork. Nobody says you have to, after all. It's a completely voluntary system.

Participate Loosely

You can participate in the WikiNodesNetwork without using delegations.

You can just point to neighbors, and suggest those places as good places to talk about certain things.

Again, the WikiNodesSystem is completely voluntary, and loose. It's really all about you and your neighbors. There is no "right way" to do it.

Focus the Wiki

If you have some influence over the wiki community, you can focus the wiki. Give the wiki specific achievable goals, and clear topical boundaries.

When a wiki is unfocused, delegation is hard. There is no accepted decision about what is on or off topic, and hence there is little room for judgement and enforcement. People would rather not dispute what is topical and what is not, and so the tendency is to accept more and more on the immediate wiki.

But when a wiki is focused, delegation is easy. It's simply a matter of "Does this help us with our mission?" If not, send it elsewhere. If it does, keep it local, and keep it focused.

The trick is in the very act of focusing the wiki. If there is an accepted authority figure or trusted process (a government system), then the wiki is focused by the authority figure or by the trusted process. But if there isn't, it can require a lot of persuasion work. It is likely not be possible.

Soften the Impact of Delegation

There are many TechnologySolutions that can help soften the impact of delegation.

Some of the technologies are:

• UnifiedRecentChanges, NearRecentChanges

• InterLink``s, NearLink``s

"Near" technologies make it so that another wiki's edits and links are transparent to the immediate wiki. If there is resistance to delegation, but the delegation would be good for organization and community, you can use NearRecentChanges and NearLink``s to make it appear that all traffic and pages on the near wiki are transparently available to the immediate wiki. This should ease objections to delegations.

Summary

A delegation is an agreement about what to post where.

Some people may resist delegation. There are many ways to respond.

• Don't use WikiNodes, period.

• Do WikiNodes, but without delegation.

• Focus the wiki.

• Soften the impact of delegation with TechnologySolutions.