[pmwiki-users] Off-topic ish - was - Re: Why all this zapping?

[Crisses]

On Apr 30, 2007, at 12:57 PM, Ben Stallings wrote:

Someone said my name.....

> And as for the confusion among Dan and Caveman and their coyote
> associate, perhaps the Crisses can offer them some advice on how to
> present a united front to the world.  :-)

Oh my.

A long time ago on another mailing list FAR FAR away, I/we went in  
search of a collective name.  I could almost blame names for some of  
my internal confusion:

I was born "Christina".  My godmother wanted the name "Chris" and my  
mother wanted the name "Tina".  They combined the two to make  
everyone happy.  My father wanted a boy, so he doesn't count on this  
one.

During early formative stages, my mother called me Chris, and my  
godmother called me Tina -- go figure!!  I have no idea why they  
swapped.

Early childhood abuse took place in the home in which my name was  
"Tina".  It is no wonder that the person that goes by that name in my  
head is messed up and still quite young.  In search of an identity I  
could be comfortable under,  I went through every derivative of  
"Christina" I could find (Chrissy, Christine, Chrystal, etc.).  I was  
13 when a young friend of mine  misspelled my name on a Dungeons &  
Dragons character sheet and I became "Criss" -- he thought everyone  
spelled their name "Criss" because he was a Kiss fan (aka Peter  
Criss).  But I liked it, and that name stuck, and I still use it to  
this day.  About 2-3 years after "Criss" I figured out I was multiple  
-- back in 1985-6.

When exploring my multiplicity as a group entity, circa 1998-9, we  
were on many mailing lists and when speaking in first-person-singular  
I used names such as "Tina of Criss" but that wasn't quite right.  I  
went in search of a collective-group name, and took suggestions from  
the other members of the list.  "The Crisses" came from that search,  
and it stuck, and it was good.  Now it would be "Tina of The Crisses"  
which we find much more comforting.  I now use "The Crisses" and  
"Crisses" interchangeably.  "Criss" is a public mask -- a group  
attempt to portray a single unified identity to the world, and it's  
mainly self-protective.  "Crisses" is my out-of-the-closet name, the  
exact opposite in many ways of "Criss" -- the "out" and flamboyant  
multiple that I generally prefer to be.

I came to PmWiki around 2003 as part of the project for Kinhost.org,  
where I'm "The Crisses" and so I'm here entirely out of the closet as  
a multiple.


I have some difficulty when discussing "ZAP" (or Acme) and it's  
author, Dan.  I don't know who to refer people to on the list :)   
When someone comes by and asks me about some functionality, I refer  
them to "The Editor" "Dan" or "Caveman" on the mailing list. :)

I have been merciful and used one name on this list ;)  I don't have  
much in the way of advice for Dan, The Editor, Caveman or W. E.  
Coyote, except that people should probably get a sense of humor.   
"What is a name?  A rose by any other name..."  It's a label.  As  
long as you're not changing the label to mislead or pull off some  
shady business, it continues to simply be a label.  The banks don't  
care if I use the name "Criss" as long as it all points to the same  
social security number as "Christina".  I use names to try to give  
people a clear picture of me and my identity, and some people  
actually care "Which Crisses" they're talking to.

I have not been reading anything about the public debacle about Dan/ 
Wile E. Coyote -- when I read the web page, I thought it was funny in  
a sad way.  I took it as a big public sticking-out-of-the-tongue or  
tongue-in-cheek humor in spite of obvious adversity.  My only  
reservation is that this is an international and multi-cultural  
community, and the humor might not come off as well to people who  
were not exposed to Warner-Brothers cartoons from the time they got  
out of diapers:

Wile E. Coyote is a cartoon figure who often used products from the  
"Acme" company in his pursuit of the Road Runner -- his main target  
for dinner.  The Acme products ALWAYS blew up or failed, much to Wile  
E.'s disappointment (and often humiliation or pain), and the target  
-- the tasty and emaciated Road Runner -- always threw it in the  
coyote's face and got away.  I dabble in psychology, dream  
interpretation, and symbolisms:  I took this to be Dan's humorous way  
of saying that Dan is getting burned for creating ZAP.  I see from  
what Ben has to say about what's going on in the PmWiki world, that  
this is not far from the mark.  By making this bold allusion, Dan has  
publicly said that Acme ZAP is a plausible solution that is turning  
into a painful problem for him.  To the people who are giving him  
hassles over it:  that's not a very nice way to say "thank you" for  
someone trying to contribute to the community.

On Dan's behalf: OUCH!

> Instead of "lightening up," I think it might be enough if we could all
> just acknowledge that Dan has done an awful lot of work in a very  
> short
> time to produce a useful product (and unlike his detractors, I can say
> that I've used it and am actively using it, and it is, in fact, very
> useful)

I was an early-adopter of ZAP -- I used it in its first "FAST"  
incarnation, and have been using it since.  I have NOT upgraded all  
the sites I've used it on:  it worked, I left it alone, and used the  
newer products on any new projects that came to me.

My primary use of ZAP has been to save data to wiki pages.  I'm now  
holding back waiting for PM to finish putting that functionality into  
the core, and I'm using ZAP for flexible email form processing, which  
I find absolutely invaluable.  I'm trying out features in ZAP slowly,  
and there are features that PmWiki does not have, and likely will not  
have anytime soon, that help take PmWiki from wiki-with-attitude to  
wiki-as-cms.

Here's my honest opinion of ZAP:  It's a little too confusing.  It's  
getting less and less confusing as the documentation and the  
application improves.  If it were not for DAN's dedicated and patient  
support for ZAP, I would not be able to use it.  I spontaneously come  
out of the blue with problems implementing ZAP, and he works through  
the issues with me.  If that level of need for support is too much  
for anyone, then ZAP is probably not for them -- yet.

Could it be better documented?  Yes, absolutely.  So could PmWiki and  
almost every piece of open-source software I've ever used.  Is it  
documented? Yes.  Does it have a support team? Yes.  Does it work?   
Absolutely.  Is it safe?  [If you want REAL safety, get off the  
web.]  It's pretty darned safe.

When Dan first started talking about FAST->ZAP he was so excited he  
couldn't type in English, and he kept talking about what it could or  
would do, but never told us how or gave sample code.  BUT the amazing  
thing is that he delivered exactly what he was babbling about.  He  
thought outside the box that PmWiki had drawn and handed us a free- 
form tool to do many things, and rather simply, that we weren't even  
considering before then.  I think he deserves the "PmWiki Plug-In of  
the Year" award for 2006.  ZAP is amazing.  Now we just need Dan to  
sit still long enough to document it better, and for the people who  
DO "get it" to help him out by submitting useful "recipes" for ZAP or  
helping with the documentation.

Unfortunately it takes a lot to "get it" at first.

Regardless, a million Kudos for him stepping up and LEARNING PHP to  
hand us something different and useful.  He was not a programmer.   
Maybe that's why he was able to do this.

> So thank you, Dan.  For most of us, confusion is a temporary state.
> --Ben S.

I agree.  Thank you Ben & Dan :)

Crisses
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