[pmwiki-users] Conceptual challenges from ZAPwiki...

Kathryn Andersen kat_lists at katspace.homelinux.org
Sat Jun 2 22:53:18 CDT 2007


On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 10:13:35PM -0400, The Editor wrote:
> On 6/2/07, Sivakatirswami <katir at hindu.org> wrote:
> > PMwiki is all about collaboration.
> >
> > Set the code aside for a minute and look at the value system of what PM
> > is doing and the way he goes at it and the high, positive level of
> > cooperation among both naive users, naive admins and those who have PHP
> > competency and working together...
> >
> > It is "beautiful to behold."
> 
> Yes it can be beautiful, but sometimes it's not quite so. I came to
> PmWiki knowing nothing about PHP, found the community exceptionally
> helpful, and became incredibly excited about the software. And I dove
> right into learning it, using it, and eventually developing it. Some
> of my ideas may have been misguided, and my code was understandably
> naive and immature. Still I gave the best I could to the community,
> thankful for its generosity to me.

> Yet, for whatever reasons, I have repeatedly had my motives
> challenged, my mistakes ridiculed, my ideas rejected out of hand, and
> much more of the like. There were of course many others who encouraged
> me, patiently answered my questions, collaborated on the code, and
> expressed their appreciation for my efforts. Fortunately, these more
> than made up for the others.

The problem is, Dan, that in all your diving in, you have been
continually stepping on people's toes with your complete lack of
humility.  It's all been "my stuff is the greatest, your stuff is crap,
and anyone who doesn't agree with me is either an idiot, blind,
hidebound, or malicious."

PM has been patient with you.  I've been patient with you, explaining
your mistakes in private, hoping against hope that you would learn to
behave better.

But this is the last straw.  I'm sick of being patient with you.

Your mistakes ridiculed?  I don't think they have been, but if they
were, you were asking for it, with your "my stuff is the greatest thing
since sliced bread" attitude.

Your ideas rejected out of hand?  People have explained (often more than
once) why your ideas won't work, or why they would prefer something
else.  But no, it couldn't be because people have reasons, no, there has
to be a conspiracy against you, does there?

Are you the only one who has been "creative" and "challenging" in this
community?  That's what you're implying -- that we're all so hidebound
that we can't stand new ideas.  Not so!  Just take a look at Ben
Stallings' DataQuery[1] recipe (just to give one example) -- that's radical
and different, to rip out the backend of PmWiki and put a database there
-- but I don't see any hostility of the community towards it.  Why?
Because Ben knows how to behave as a good open source citizen.

You aren't the first person to have written form-processing plugins
(just look at WikiForms[2]), you aren't the first person to have suggested
modifying skins from within the wiki (see SkinAlternative), yet you
imply that you're the only one with "vision" -- bah!  I wash my hands of
you.

We all stand on the shoulders of giants.  Why don't you act like it for
once?

(1) http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/DataQuery
(2) http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/WikiForms
(3) http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/SkinAlternative

Kathryn Andersen
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