From Lilia Efimova’s blog Mathemagenic
My dream wiki/weblog tool
At last BlogWalk I was trying to explain my ideas about ideal wiki/weblog tool, so just writing them down.
I wrote about blogs and wikis for thinking earlier, so just in brief on what is important for me:
• process – weblogs are good to keep track of ideas unfolding; datestamp and preserving the original are important
• outcome – wikis are good for (collaborative) working on integrating, refactoring and connecting ideas
• connection between these two is essential – I’d like to see how bits of weblog posts turn into something more tangible
What my ideal wiki/weblog tool should do:
1. Weblog. Usual one. The only thing I need is something like liveTopics to add keywords to each post. Keywords should not be predefined and shouldn’t behave like categories in Movable Type or Radio multiplying content: I need only an index that allows retrieving posts by a keyword (e.g. blog reading).
2. Linkblog. Something as easy as del.icio.us, with only one difference: when I add a keyword the link is added to the same keyword index as weblog posts (so, my posts about blog reading and links on blog reading are indexed on one page).
2.n Ideally I could have other types of logs – e.g. file log, e-mail log, reference log, book log, recipe log. Same: keywords and joint index (with an opportunity of switching indexing off for sensitive stuff).
3. Wiki. Here all the fun starts. When I post something to my weblog or any of other logs it’s added to two places: keyword index (see above) and keyword wiki page. This is the time when I want the software to multiply my content: I’d like any new post about blog reading it is automatically copied at the end of wiki page called blogReading”. Then I (and others) can do all the usual wiki stuff – editing wiki page making a whole from posts there.
If I add new wiki page, new keyword is added to my keyword index. If I rename a keyword then everything gets renamed and reindexed.
4. Keyword indexes (see above) – list of keywords that leads to keyword wiki pages and keyword indexes (and, of course, these two are linked).
5. Keyword (concept) maps. At least three of them: (1) visualising connections between wiki pages; (2) visualising connections between weblog posts based on co-occurrence of keywords in the same post; (3) integration of the two. All organised as webs (not trees 🙂
6. RSS feeds of every page (especially indexes, so people can subscribe to a keyword).
7. (just dreaming 😉 Time-travel machine that keeps track and visualises changes in weblog posts, wiki pages, keyword maps.
That’s it. Should not be that difficult given existing technologies. Even time-travel machines do exist. The only thing which is not in this picture is access rights (e.g. blogging to the world, to a group, to yourself). Have to think about it.
If you have a tool that integrates 1-6 I would switch to it.
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