[e-lang] [ofe-topic] broken window theory (Re: Wiki?)

[Karp, Alan H]

James Graves wrote:
> 
> But the theory has a strong resonance with my life experience and my
> personality.  Even with mundane stuff like how much clutter is in my
> bedroom.  If I let things go, then things deteriorate quickly.  Books
> and stuff start to pile up, and soon there are no flat 
> surfaces left.  
> Then the clutter-index tends to stay high for a long time afterwards.
> 
My wife says it more simply.  "Put it away NOW!!!"  Of course, I have a
hard time following her advice.

________________________
Alan Karp
Principal Scientist
Virus Safe Computing Initiative
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
1501 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, CA 94304
(650) 857-3967, fax (650) 857-7029
https://ecardfile.com/id/Alan_Karp
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Alan_Karp
  
  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: e-lang-bounces at mail.eros-os.org 
> [mailto:e-lang-bounces at mail.eros-os.org] On Behalf Of 
> Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2006 6:32 PM
> To: e-lang at mail.eros-os.org
> Cc: Discussion of E and other capability languages
> Subject: Re: [e-lang] [ofe-topic] broken window theory (Re: Wiki?)
> 
> zooko at zooko.com wrote:
> 
> > By the way, Broken Window Theory may or may not explain problems in
> > programming language wikis, but most sociologists now 
> believe that it
> > does not explain real crime rates and real windows.
> > 
> > The wikipedia article seems like a fair summary:
> > 
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows
> 
> Yeah, I don't know how valid the theory is in real life.
> 
> But the theory has a strong resonance with my life experience and my
> personality.  Even with mundane stuff like how much clutter is in my
> bedroom.  If I let things go, then things deteriorate quickly.  Books
> and stuff start to pile up, and soon there are no flat 
> surfaces left.  
> Then the clutter-index tends to stay high for a long time afterwards.
> 
> It is psychologically easier for me to keep clean things clean.  But
> we're not here to discuss how tidy I am.  :-)
> 
> In regards to wikis, it is important to establish a set of 
> standards for
> contributions.  Not so much whacking people over their heads about
> violations; more just fixing the mistakes and showing people the right
> way.  And having an easy way to revert edits goes a long way to making
> the site easy to maintain by the community.
> 
> BTW, the link-back to erights.org for all the content is a 
> good idea.  
> 
> James Graves
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