International Symposium on Wikis 2005

www.WikiSym.org

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

2005 International Symposium on Wikis
Oct 17-18, 2005, San Diego, California, U.S.A.
Co-located with ACM OOPSLA 2005
http://www.wikisym.org/

OVERVIEW

The 2005 International Symposium on Wikis brings together wiki researchers, implementers, and users for the first time. The goal of the symposium is to find a voice for the community. The symposium has a rigorously reviewed research paper track as well as plenty of space for practitioner reports, demonstrations, and discussions. We are honored to announce that Ward Cunningham, the inventor and host of the original WikiWikiWeb, will present the opening keynote talk at WikiSym 2005. Anyone who is involved in using, researching, or developing wikis is invited to WikiSym 2005!

We are seeking submissions for

• research papers
• practitioner reports
• demonstrations
• workshops
• panels

Research paper and practitioner report submissions are due

• April 29, 2005

Workshop, and panel submissions are due

• April 8, 2005

Demonstration submissions are due

• July 1, 2005

Topics of interest to the symposium include, but are not limited to:

• wikis as social software
• wiki user behavior, user dynamics
• wiki user experiences, usability
• wiki implementation experiences and technology
• wiki administration, processes, dealing with abuse
• wiki scalability, social and technical
• domain-specific/special-purpose wikis

We are particularly interested in papers that discuss the relationship between software engineering processes and wikis. How do wikis most effectively support software engineering processes, from ad-hoc over agile to highly formalized processes? The versatility of wikis makes them a flexible tool but how do you customize them to make them a sharp tool as well? What have software engineering organizations learned in terms of user adoption, user behavior and scaling up the wiki? As the wiki is growing, what processes need to be in place to maintain the ease of use and general usefulness that led to the wiki introduction in the first place?

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Research papers will be reviewed by the committee to meet rigorous academic standards of publication. Research papers are expected to advance the state of the art by describing substantiated new research or novel technical results or by reporting on significant experience or experimentation. They are reviewed both with respect to conceptual quality and clarity of presentation.

Accepted research papers will be provided as part of the conference proceedings. They will be put into the ACM Digital Library and can be referenced as papers that appeared in the Proceedings of the 2005 International Symposium on Wikis. At the symposium, the presenter will be given a 25min + 5min Q&A presentation slot. Research papers should not be longer than 10000 words and should meet the ACM SIG Proceedings Format, see http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html.

Practitioner reports will be reviewed for suitability of presentation to the community. The primary evaluation criterion is the interest to the community. Practitioner reports will be provided as part of the companion to the conference proceedings handed out at the symposium and can be referenced as papers that appeared in the Companion to the Proceedings of the 2005 International Symposium on Wikis. Practitioner reports should not be longer than 6000 words and should meet the ACM SIG Proceedings Format.

Demonstration, workshop, and panel submissions will be reviewed for their interest to the community. Submit two pages of description of what you intend to do and how you meet this criterion. Please include a 100-word abstract and one-paragraph bios of all people relevant to the submission. Demonstrations will get 45min slots in a booth of their own, workshops will get a half-day and a room of their own, and panels will get a 90min slot at the symposium.

Please submit your papers or proposals in PDF format (or postscript, if you must) by the respective deadline to submissions@wikisymPLEASENOSPAM.org.

SYMPOSIUM LOGISTICS

The 2005 International Symposium on Wikis will be held at the Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California, on Oct 17 and 18, 2005. WikiSym 2005 will be co-located with the ACM OOPSLA 2005 conference, and participants may register for the symposium alone, or may jointly register for OOPSLA 2005.

If you have any questions, please contact Dirk Riehle through chair@wikisymPLEASENOSPAM.org.

SYMPOSIUM COMMITTEE

• Dirk Riehle, Independent (chair)

• Ward Cunningham, Microsoft
• Mark Guzdial, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Matthias Jugel, Fraunhofer FIRST
• Helmut Leitner, HLS Software
• James Noble, Victoria University of Wellington
• David Ornstein, Microsoft
• Sebastien Paquet, National Research Council of Canada
• Stephan Schmidt, Fraunhofer FIRST
• Sunir Shah, University of Toronto

-- AurelioAHeckert - 03 Mar 2005
-- PeterThoeny - 08 Mar 2005

Comments

So, what sort of workshops are people thinking about for the WikiSym conference? This friday is the due date for submitting workshop proposals.

Here are three of my ideas. If you would be interested in hosting or attending any of these, please let me know at :

* InterWiki workshop: discuss how to make wikis interoperate with each other and with other software; also topics like WikiMarkupStandard (although if there is a lot of interest in WikiMarkupStandard, that could be its own workshop)

* PICA workshop: PICA is an idea for an organization like IETF but for rapid, non-intimidating, semiformal proto-standards development (that is, probably like what IETF used to be). See http://communitywiki.org/PICA

* Wiki moderation/filtering workshop: to discuss potential technologies for conserving the attention/time of wiki users in a busy world. Examples: SubscribedPages, PageCluster, RecentChanges digests in various forms, WebOfTrustModeration, ViewPoint, RatingGroups.

thanks, -- BayleShanks

-- BayleShanks - 07 Apr 2005

Argh, I am late for this. I would be interested in a "Wikis for the enterprise" panel discussion with some experts in the field like SocialText and TWiki.org. May be next time...

Is there an interest in a workshop for "Open source software development with a Wiki"? The process in Codev is now in the second generation (thanks to SamHasler and others), it would be a good base to discuss with others. If there is interest we have to act fast, we need to fly, not run to compile the material by Friday evening PDT. The good thing is that we are very familiar with the subject.

"Workshop submissions will be reviewed for their interest to the community. Submit two [PDF] pages of description of what you intend to do and how you meet this criterion. Please include a 100-word abstract and one-paragraph bios of all people relevant to the submission."

So, below is a copy of the OnlineDeliberationConference2005 . If interested, help modeling it to the required content and format. And yes, please refactor the draft mercilessly

If you would like to participate as a host/cosponsor/moderator please add a short bio to the Participants section below.

Another focus of the workshop could be "Agile software development with a Wiki for the enterprise", focusing more on the target market of TWiki. We should go for this if there is more interest in this subject.

Hey, I am looking forward meeting you in sunny San Diego!

-- PeterThoeny - 08 Apr 2005

Peter: I for one am looking forward to meeting you in Palo Alto in May

• Likewise, looking forward seeing you at the OnlineDeliberationConference2005 -- PTh

Others: You may also be interested in the interwiki workshop proposal; see http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?InterWikiWorkshopProposal

-- BayleShanks - 08 Apr 2005

I will present the use of TWiki in the ILOG intranet. For the workshop submission, here is my bio:

Colas Nahaboo has led a research team in User Interfaces technology at Bull in France, was involved in the X and W3C consortium, and is now the Architect of ILOG intranet, which has been designed around web technologies, and mainly TWiki . His current interests is in how enterprise intranets can take advantages of the usages and technologies developed on the internet, among which wiki play a central role.

-- ColasNahaboo - 08 Apr 2005

Good news, I submitted two proposals:

• Workshop: Open Source Software Development with a Wiki
  • Colas: Thanks for participating . I massaged the OSS dev proposal a bit to include the software dev and intranet aspect. Nowhere perfect, but "good enough" to go I hope. Please update the proposal if you wish, I can send an update (if acceptable).

• Panel: Wikis in the "Consumer Enterprise"
  • On very short notice I got the OK and support from Joe Kraus, co-founder and CEO of JotSpot. We need one more participant and a moderator. Please let me know by e-mail if know someone suitable. I need to send an updated version of the proposal (if acceptable).

-- PeterThoeny - 09 Apr 2005

BTW, I don't like one part in my bio and was struggling to find the right words. Founder and author sounds too much one person centric; I would like to convey also the message that TWiki and TWiki.org is a team effort. Suggestions to change the wording are welcome.

-- PeterThoeny - 09 Apr 2005

Why not use 'Father of TWiki'?

-- FranzJosefSilli - 09 Apr 2005

"Founding Father"?

I'd love to be there, but I just can't raise the money (it's peak season for flights).

-- CrawfordCurrie - 09 Apr 2005

How about 'creator and key co-developer of TWiki'?

-- RichardDonkin - 16 Apr 2005

DRAFT: Wikis in the "Consumer Enterprise"

See WikiSym2005ConsumerEnterprise

DRAFT: Open Source Software Development with a Wiki

See WikiSym2005OssDevWithWiki

WikiSym Speed geek

What is it?

The WikiSym Speed Geek, organized by Meatball, is a great way to get to know your fellow conference attendees, and more importantly, for them to get to know you. Have you done something cool? Does your project need more attention? Do you have a great new idea that you just need to bounce off people? The Speed Geek is the most important event at WikiSym to get your message out. The Speed Geek offers an informal venue to showcase your work, one-on-one with the audience.

You don't need much to prepare. All you need is a laptop and something to say for five minutes. Five minutes?! Don't worry, you'll just be saying it over and over again. To give you the maximum exposure and feedback, you will present to only a handful of audience members at a time in an intimate setting. Every five minutes, you'll meet a fresh new audience.

It's simple. It's fast. It's fun.

Who should participate?

Anyone who is attending WikiSym that has something they want to show to the world should participate. Don't be coy. A Speed Geek is a lot of fun for both the audience and presenters. And best of all, it's easy. All you need is a laptop and a five minute message.

How does it work?

• Each presenter is given their own station. All you need to bring is a laptop and a message. Please bring your own laptop, or sign up at the laptop exchange below. Note, Internet may not be available. Please be prepared to present off-line.

• The audience is split into groups. The master of ceremonies will evenly divide audience members across each station.

• The Speed Geek begins. Start your pitch! You better be fast. Five minutes goes by faster than you think.

• A bell rings. Sooner than you think, the master of ceremonies will ring a bell. Stop your pitch.

• The audience rotates stations. The packs of roving audience members have one minute to move to the next station. The next Speed Geek begins right away!

It's that simple.

When & where?

At WikiSym, October 17-18, San Diego, CA.

Sign up

Sign-up at MeatBall:WikiSymSpeedGeek! It'll be fun.

Known Attendees

• CrawfordCurrie - just WikiSym
• LynnwoodBrown - just WikiSym
• MartinCleaver - WikiSym
• PeterThoeny - just WikiSym
• WillNorris - WikiSym
• ColasNahaboo

Planned Get-Together for TWiki Community

I'd like to propose a casual get-together for TWiki folks on Sunday afternoon/evening. Looking at the conference site, the most promising locale is "Charlies" grill. They have usual grill-fare and over 20 beers (including local microbrews). I checked with them and there is outside seating so we can get away from the big-screen TV. If someone knows another near-by location that might be nicer, that'd be fine.

I could see meeting around 4 or 5 and go until when-ever.

-- LynnwoodBrown - 30 Sep 2005

Meal on Sunday sounds a great idea. I'm arriving in San Diego Saturday at 2pm, leaving 10pm on Wednesday back to YYZ, so I'd be happy to meet up with whoever whenever. Staying at the Vagabond Inn.

-- MartinCleaver - 01 Oct 2005

Interesting Technologies Mentioned at WikiSym

• Feedster - Search engine for RSS feeds, also indexing wikis
• SynchroEdit - browser-based simultaneous multiuser editor
• SparrowWeb - writable web developed by Xerox PARC where a paragraph can be edited at a time

Feedback

The first WikiSym was a success. It was great to mingle with many wiki folks for the first time. I was especially thrilled to finally meet CrawfordCurrie, LynnwoodBrown, MartinCleaver, WillNorris and ColasNahaboo in person after such a long time working together in a virtual world.

I especially enjoyed the talk by Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia and the Free Culture Revolution.

• The talk is blogged at http://wiki.cs.uiuc.edu/OOPSLA05/Wikipedia+in+the+Free+Culture+Revolution -- PTh - 04 Nov 2005

In his blog, Ross Mayfield transcribed Ward Cunningham's keynote on the Crucible of Creativity.

Our panel on Wikis in the "Consumer Enterprise" was well attended. Moderator EugeneKim asked everyone to form a circle, including panelists. That resulted in a very interactive session that got the participants really involved. Shashi Seth, product manager at Google said that Google is built on wikis. They don't have a conventional intranet, wikis are the intranet. He said that 5000 employees use two wikis, TWiki and SparrowWeb. (Although there are some common elements, I do not consider Sparrow a wiki.)

(I did not realize, but my face and eyes turned very red during the panel. After the panel, Joe Kraus of JotSpot asked me if I am OK. I turned around and was shocked when I saw my own face in the mirror wall. That afternoon I ended up in ER where I was diagnosed with a severe allergy. Hmm, OOSLA is a lot about closed source software, may be I am allergic to that?)

Our workshop on Open Source Software Development with a Wiki was not well attended, it was just Colas, Lynnwood and me. That gave us the opportunity to concentrate on TWiki. We identified pluses and minuses of the TWiki dev models we had/have. Next step is to refine our dev model.

Lynnwood mentioned that it was very productive meeting in person compared to working online. I agree. Wondering how we can improve the communication / increase the productivity of the TWiki.org development community.

-- PeterThoeny - 22 Oct 2005

On 07 Nov 2005 there's the first Austrian WikiPosium at the Tech Gate in Vienna where WolfgangSlany will present his use of the XpTrackerPlugin for coordinating large software projects (german title: Koordination großer Softwareprojekte mit TWiki). Hopefully this will be well attended.

-- FranzJosefSilli - 22 Oct 2005

Photos

PeterThoeny, CrawfordCurrie, ColasNahaboo:

LynnwoodBrown, Samuel Klein, Ward Cunningham:

MartinCleaver, WillNorris:

Wiki future panel: Ward Cunningham, Jimmy Wales, Ross Mayfield, SunirShah:

PeterThoeny, EugeneKim:

-- PeterThoeny - 22 Oct 2005