After at least a decade of wanting it to exist, I am finally taking a crack at starting a wiki to document all the various ways people engage in organized communication. The format will be similar to TVTropes/AllTheTropes, with pages for different sites and apps and formats, and then pages for the various features and traits.
The "Facebook" page will describe Facebook, and contain links to pages like "Activity feed" "Posts with comments" "Single level comment nesting" "Direct messaging" "Group messaging" "Public posts" "Web site" "Mobile site" "Mobile app" etc. The "IRC" page will describe IRC, and contain links to "Chat rooms" "Direct messaging" "Federated" "Text based" "Open Protocol" etc. There will also be pages for non-digital formats like parliamentary procedure, election caucus, etc. Each of the pages like "Activity feed" "Chat rooms" "Direct messaging" "Queue for attention" "Moderated" "Time limited" will describe that trait/feature, list some of its pros and cons and other features that are alternatives (public vs private posts, open vs closed protocol, free vs paid vs freemium, posts vs comments vs nested comments vs tumblr-reblog, etc), and list some/all of the sites/apps/formats/etc that implement that feature.
Obviously all of this is just a draft concept that could change before it's finished. I am not advertising the site yet, because it is currently empty. If you would like early access to help figure out the structure/nomenclature or to provide content, let me know. Mediawiki experts and people who have used a lot of different and competing IM systems or forums or social media platforms are especially welcome.
You are also encouraged to submit suggestions in comments here, especially regarding nomenclature. What is a one or two word name for the category that includes Facebook and IRC and parliamentary procedure and a forum and a physical bulletin board? My initial idea is "Format" or "Medium" (which is going to make Medium:Medium an excellent page name), but I bet there's a better way to phrase it. What should we call the category that I described above as "trait" or "feature"? What types of content should this wiki have that I haven't even thought of yet?
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