DocumentMode

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The opposite of ThreadMode, and what we prefer on MeatballWiki. Specifically, this refers to pages that work as documents, rather than discussions or transactions, simply because (perhaps paradoxically?) documents are claimed to make collaboration easier than discussions. However public transactions in the sense of OpenBusiness could boost collaboration even more, this way eliminating the GhostTown effect. DocumentMode brings to OneText.

It looks like this:

: Foo is preferable to quuz as a metasyntactic variable because it is shorter and uses the F character, which is earlier in the alphabet than Q and thus better. There are heretics who recommend quuz, but as they are obviously zealots, we can safely ignore them.

Rather than this:

: I think foo is better than quuz --SomeBody

: Well, you're wrong. Quuz is far superior. I know because I say. --SomebodyElse

While DocumentMode is superior to ThreadMode for collecting and presenting data, there are times when there is interaction between users (bug fixes, action requests, neighborly behavior, disagreements over content or meaning, etc.) that requires the traceable attribution and more-or-less sequential nature of ThreadMode. It makes really ugly pages, though.

It's critical to understand that DocumentMode emphatically does not always mean NeutralPointOfView. It simply means clean enough that others will feel free to add to it by changing the text itself (i.e. a document) instead of simply appending a reply to it (i.e. a discussion). Documents may include personality, such as rhetoric or personal testimony, and in fact it's likely in many cases it's best to leave a hint of life in the page (cf. PerformanceArt). Many forms exist to present ideas clearly and succinctly. The overall goal is to increase clarity, not to reach a forced and false consensus. For an example, see the condensed reaction to RadicalInclusiveness by Meatballers.

Has anybody thought of a MixedMode?

CategoryWikiConventions

DocumentMode

Discussion