30th WikiBirthday: Difference between revisions

<center><h1>'''''30 years of the Wonderful Wiki Web'''''</h1>  

 

* An open video call - featuring one or more names wiki folk will recognize and want to hear from, *and* with plenty of time (probably in breakout groups if it's a lot of people?) for people to catch up or get to know each other, share some wiki stories, etc. Learn something, connect with someone, and celebrate! (Details to be clarified on Feb 25 planning call)

* ''Add other things people are organizing here''

That is a Tuesday. So, we could lean into the '''[[Tech Tuesdays]]''' thing. And/or, March 26 could be a global retro/reunion for '''[[WikiWednesdays]]''', everyone organize whatever they want locally. Suggest we pick one of these early on and go for it.

'''WonderfulWikiWeb'''

Many people are understandably pretty down on the Internet and web these days, as for-profit companies exploit their attention (and pocketbooks!) with dark patterns. But these tools have also given us so much, and continue to! We want people to notice and love and defend the wonderful things about the Internet, and we're [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tgZ86ugijXPUOo_lD3kLfQBPbneecUNzZim1GOgkC1M/ inspired by how the IETF organizes itself], and some of the [https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8890 things they say]. We want people to notice and love and defend the wonderful things about the web, and wiki has brought so much wonder to so many, we see this 30th WikiBirthday as an opportunity to celebrate and share that wonder with each other, and as much as we can with the rest of the world as well.

* After a few days intensively focused on reading & writing in the new-to-me WikiWikiWebs in 1998(?), I knew my experience of the web had changed forever when I saw an error on some other website '''and was confused when I couldn't find the edit button'''. I had internalized that the web is editable! Wiki became part of my ongoing life, as with [[Open Space]]. What makes a wiki a wiki is an amazing conversation to get to be a part of, especially as it becomes clear that there is almost no agreed-upon list of core features. For some, collaboration among people is central, while for others a personal wiki is still a wiki, for some the naming dimension is immense, for others, it's a sideline. Are structured wikis still wikis? It depends? "What is a wiki?" quickly (over a period of years) became one of those questions that will never have a definitive answer. I believe that the web, and the world, will be endlessly grateful it was Ward and other early wiki folks who put hypertext on the map of the early web, a space of many ecosystems that wiki continues to inhabit and grow into. In any case, HippoBirdieToYou on your 30th birthday, wiki. --[[User:John Abbe|John Abbe]] ([[User talk:John Abbe|talk]]) 19:02, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

* Ward, I was glad to meet you at a Wikipedia meetup. I, too, have been a fellow traveler on the Wiki-Wiki shuttle, but more importantly I am a fervent editor on several Wikis that run on the descendants of the software that you developed. Thank you for changing our lives!  [[User:Peaceray|Peaceray]] ([[User talk:Peaceray|talk]]) 16:53, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

* Wikis are the true Internet. Accept no substitutes. Thank you to Ward and everyone who had enough faith in humanity to let us help each other out. &ndash;&nbsp;[[User:Mxn|Mxn]] ([[User talk:Mxn|talk]]) 00:09, 26 March 2025 (UTC)