(urth) Whorl Wikied Wolfe
JWillard
aldenweer at charter.net
Sat Jun 24 14:56:35 PDT 2006
Jonathan & Rachel Laidlow wrote:
>I wonder whether a wiki is really what is needed.
>Surely a wiki purports to a level of certainty on a
>par with an encyclopedic or other authoritative
>discourses such as dictionaries. How can we be certain
>that the interpretation in the wiki is correct? It is
>only an interpretation, after all. What is to stop the
>next person who edits it from changing your
>interpretation beyond all recognition?
>
>Furthermore - what's wrong with searching the urth
>mailing lists? I found some fantastic discussion of
>"the Tree is my Hat" here when I found myself asking
>questions earlier this month.
>
>J
>
>
>
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First and foremost, I think we want a gathering place of information.
If someone wants to know Thecla's eye color, it would be there, with a
reference to where the quote is that says that. I believe we all have
copies of the book and we're all pretty anal about checking information
we are looking at. (Not to mention, all reading is interpretive. If I
do an entry on Kurtz from Heart of Darkness in Wikipedia, can I truly
present a perfect unbiased thumbnail?) Knowing the people on this list,
I think everyone would be pretty quick to slam someone who presented
something without textual evidence. Severian cuts of Morwenna's head:
any arguments? Maybe someone could argue that *Thecla* cuts off
Morwenna's head - that would have to go under a theoretical entry.
But a wiki could separate information, speculation, etc. If someone
wanted to read about the multiple Severian theory, that could be a
sub-entry in the theory section, with quotes from the book defending
that theory's advancement.
And I don't think anyone plans for this to replace the mailing list. If
anything, we'd like them to supplement each other.
I know I feel like a dog chasing its tail, bouncing from one place to
the next - and the Wolfe oevre is pretty extensive now. It would be
nice to have a tool to start gathering so many straggling
ideas/details. But, obviously such a tool would not be compulsory, and
one is always free to explore the works independently. I don't really
understand some of the emails against the project that seem to sound
threatened by it. No one here has a whip!
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