James's LISA 2005 journal: Invited Talk

Weblogs, Wikis, and RSS for System Administrators

Jonas Luster, Socialtext, Inc.

Success and minimum hassle for system administrators is ultimately tied to having and providing timely and accurate information. Recently, Weblogs, wikis, and RSS have matured to become useful additions in the ongoing battle to keep everyone and everything effectively informed and efficiently working. Weblogs help to announce and explore projects, policy, and plans between individuals in a group and amongst groups. They narrate a flow. Wikis help to store and evolve documentation, solutions, and designs. RSS ties these and other tools together by providing a method to keep abreast of changes in Weblogs, wikis, issue trackers, and many other systems.

The presenter has always been interested in the social implications of
technology.

STORY:

    The word "expect" seemed to be in English.

    The Somalis have a word for people who came in with a suitcase,
    know nothing about nothing, and have a suit and tie.  They call
    them "experts".

When it gets boring for everyone else, it gets interesting for social
scientists.

The Developmental Theory:
  - the urge to communicate is the second strongest urge
  - making sense of communication is the strongest urge

("Go a week without sex; go a week without speaking.  Tell me which is
harder.")

Some people who have been deprived of Everquest some withdrawal
symptoms.

Humans possess an almost frighteningly powerful ability to adapt,
adopt, and improve new means of communication.

"I love to talk about cows and shit."  (This is this "Pastures
Theory".)  But note: your users do not like to be compared to cattle.

Syndication might make sense within a coproprate environment.

Disseminate, Syndicate,  Improve

I believe "viniette" is Russian for "nightmare".

Thank you for listening to me, let's chat.

Jonas M. Luster
dot.social foundation
Socialtext http://www.socialtext.com
http://www.jluster.org
jluster@dotsocial.com

Don't use someone else's wiki/blog if they won't allow you to link
elsewhere.  You *must* be able to control your content.  It must not
be allowed to vanish.