2010/12/31 Conrad Irwin conrad.irwin@gmail.com
Evolution is the best model we have for how to build something, the way to keep progress going is to continually try new things; if they fail, "meh", if they succeed — "yay"!
Just to add a little bit of "pure theory" into the talk, wiki project is simply one of the most interesting, and successful, models of "adaptive complex systems theory". I encourage anyone to take a deeper look into it. It's both interesting for wiki users/sysops/high level managers and for complex systems researchers.
I guess, complex system theory wuld suggest too politics. Just an example: as in evolution, best environment where something new appears is not the wider environment, but the small ones, the "islands", just like Galapagos in evolution! This would suggest a great attention about what happens into smaller wiki projects. I guess, the most interesting things could be found there, while not so much evolution can be expected into the "mammoth" project. ;-)
Alex (from it.source)