The central problem of any wiki system is [1]”what edits do you accept to a wiki page?”. The lenses system is trying to provide a better answer to that question.
My default experience on e.g. Wikipedia when I am on pages where I am highly familiar with the domain is “man, I could write a much better page”. But writing a whole better page is a lot of effort, and the default consequence of rewriting the page is that the editor who wrote the previous page advocates for your edits to be reverted, because they are attached to their version of the page.
With lenses, if you want to suggest large changes to a wiki page, your default action is now “write a new lens”. This leaves the work of the previous authors intact, while still giving your now page the potential for substantial readership. Lenses are sorted in order of how many people like them. If you think you can write a better lens, you can make a new lens, and if it’s better, it can replace the original lens after it got traction.
More broadly, wikis suffer a lot from everything feeling like it is written by a committee. Lenses enable more individual authorship, while still trying to have some collective iteration on canonicity and structure of the wiki.
I assume the idea of “lens” as a term is that it’s one specific person’s opinionated view of a topic. As in, “here’s the concept seen through EY’s lens”. So terms like “variant” or “alternative” are too imprecise, but e.g. “perspective” might also work.
IIRC you are wrong, lenses are just different ways to see the page of same topic. They’re also used for “version ML programmers”, “version for DT professors”, “version for usual people”. Or for Wikipedia it would be “scientifically precise encyclopedia” and “quickly get useful info about topic for usual person”.
Edit: oh, also, as I know, lenses are from tvtropes (caution: addictive memetic hazard)
The fact that you so naturally used the word “version” here (it was essentially invisible, it didn’t feel like a terminology choice at all) suggests that “version” would be a good term to use instead of “lens”. Downside being that it’s a sufficiently common word that it doesn’t sound like a Term of Art.
I don’t feel a different term is needed/important, but n=1, due to some uses I’ve seen of ‘lens’ as a technical metaphor it strongly makes me think ‘different mechanically-generated view of the same data/artifact’, not ‘different artifact that’s (supposed to be) about the same subject matter’, so I find the usage here a bit disorienting at first.
Literally it refers to a method of 3D-2D projection used by eyes, painters, cameras and computer graphics. I can see the house from this perspective. I would still say “perspective” or “viewpoint” is better than “lens”.
Could you explain the intended use further?
The central problem of any wiki system is [1]”what edits do you accept to a wiki page?”. The lenses system is trying to provide a better answer to that question.
My default experience on e.g. Wikipedia when I am on pages where I am highly familiar with the domain is “man, I could write a much better page”. But writing a whole better page is a lot of effort, and the default consequence of rewriting the page is that the editor who wrote the previous page advocates for your edits to be reverted, because they are attached to their version of the page.
With lenses, if you want to suggest large changes to a wiki page, your default action is now “write a new lens”. This leaves the work of the previous authors intact, while still giving your now page the potential for substantial readership. Lenses are sorted in order of how many people like them. If you think you can write a better lens, you can make a new lens, and if it’s better, it can replace the original lens after it got traction.
More broadly, wikis suffer a lot from everything feeling like it is written by a committee. Lenses enable more individual authorship, while still trying to have some collective iteration on canonicity and structure of the wiki.
Well, after you have solved the problem of “does anyone care about this wiki?”
Is there perhaps a more descriptive name than “lens”? Maybe “variant” or “alternative”?
I assume the idea of “lens” as a term is that it’s one specific person’s opinionated view of a topic. As in, “here’s the concept seen through EY’s lens”. So terms like “variant” or “alternative” are too imprecise, but e.g. “perspective” might also work.
IIRC you are wrong, lenses are just different ways to see the page of same topic. They’re also used for “version ML programmers”, “version for DT professors”, “version for usual people”. Or for Wikipedia it would be “scientifically precise encyclopedia” and “quickly get useful info about topic for usual person”.
Edit: oh, also, as I know, lenses are from tvtropes (caution: addictive memetic hazard)
The fact that you so naturally used the word “version” here (it was essentially invisible, it didn’t feel like a terminology choice at all) suggests that “version” would be a good term to use instead of “lens”. Downside being that it’s a sufficiently common word that it doesn’t sound like a Term of Art.
I don’t feel a different term is needed/important, but n=1, due to some uses I’ve seen of ‘lens’ as a technical metaphor it strongly makes me think ‘different mechanically-generated view of the same data/artifact’, not ‘different artifact that’s (supposed to be) about the same subject matter’, so I find the usage here a bit disorienting at first.
I think lens and even perspective are metaphors here, where it isn’t immediately obvious what they mean.
What would be less metaphorical than perspective that still captures the ‘one opinionated viewpoint?’ thing?
Good question. Variant or alternative are not metaphorical but also less specific.
I guess I’m just kinda surprised “perspective” feels metaphorical to you – it seems like that’s exactly what it is.
(I think it’s a bit of a long clunky word so not obviously right here, but, still surprised about your take)
Literally it refers to a method of 3D-2D projection used by eyes, painters, cameras and computer graphics. I can see the house from this perspective. I would still say “perspective” or “viewpoint” is better than “lens”.
Interesting idea. Will be interesting to see if this works out.