Write Where They Read. Bruce Anderson invented this technique when he left a note for Jim Coplien on Jim's name page, although it's no longer there. [See also: Wiki Mail , Wiki Mail Box]
Write the answer to your own question. Patrick Mueller wrote that he had cloned wiki. I wanted to know more. So I added "see Wiki Wiki Clone" to his page, as if I were speaking to a third party, and then wrote what little I knew of his system in that page. Pat filled in the details that afternoon.
Send email. It's old fashioned, but it still works. It's also a little like whispering in class. If you learn something this way please bring it back to the web. We'd all like to know.
"Email? Faster than snail-mail, less intrusive than phone calls ... sorta like passing notes in class." That's been my line for years. -- Ben Tremblay
Links not Questions (or Prompting Statement) When you have a question, try to ask it in the form of an unresolved link. I saw someone refer to a company called "Wall Data". I thought, "what's that?" Rather than post the question, I just turned it into a link - Wall Data - trusting that someone will fill it in later. -- Kent Beck
Does that actually work? I tend to interpret the question mark as meaning clicking won't help. I don't see it as a request to create the page. This may be because there are too many accidental matches to the Link Pattern. I also sometimes create links without caring whether the page exists, on the off-chance it does. That's what I just did with Link Pattern. I know what a Link Pattern is.
Writing a Prompting Statement worked for me - I now know what a Con Lang is :-)
Might it be better to actually create the page, but leave it blank or containing only the request for data? Or (preferably?) a half-baked guess at the answer which someone else can correct. -- Dave Harris
I think so. If only because it will then show up in Recent Changes. -- Phil Goodwin
I'd prime the pump by putting in a 1st cut slab of text, with the appropriate caveats. -- Ben Tremblay
The community here at Millennium (where I've ported Wiki at the request of Mitchell Model) finds the "accidental matches" to be an enormous benefit. These amount to automatic citations and glossary entries, especially helpful with jargon words. We find these to be useful Prompting Statements, that invite a response.
In this community, even though you as the author might know what a Link Pattern is, many others might not. And so the presence of the Prompting Statement of Link Pattern invites someone to fill in a description of the Link Pattern. Since Dave Harris knows what it means, he won't bother to follow it very often (unless it changes...*smile*). Newcomers, however, appreciate having it so readily available. -- Tom Stambaugh
What can also happen is that a Prompting Statement is written, and then someone else realizes that there is already a page but with a different Wiki Name, and so they fix the Wiki Link. This may be a good reason not to create the empty page, as suggested above. -- Eric Scheid
Very true - but equally, don't let fear that a link already exists under a different name stop you from creating a new page. Certainly, some level of due diligence is required before starting a new page - but do place some faith in the notion that the same Wiki Citizen who might flesh out your new page could just as well perform the Dis Ambiguation.
See original on c2.com 