===== Writing the Wiki: Seed the First ====
This week's WritingTheWikiProject theme: Enabling Creativity on Wiki

A documentary film I saw in high school worked off the idea that creativity is nothing mystical and nothing unique: It is the capability of looking at one thing and seeing another - and every human being has this cabability. We are built to see one thing in terms of another, to see patterns we call constellations, to creatively generalize from specfics. But while creativity might come as first nature for an individual, can groups of people do it? Or, perhaps better, can a group of people be even more creative than the individual?

I stumbled on the idea for this theme accidentally. I stumbled on a page at Meatball Wiki that looked interesting. Then I saw our page on CreativeWriting, which has just begun to dance around the topic. I thought it might be interesting to connect the ideas. So, here's you chance to do so.

=== readings ===
Here are some pages on how wikis (or wiki participants) can enable / encourage / support creativity. Read them over. Follow some of the links to other pages.

at Meatball Wiki
- http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?EnablingCreativity
- http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?BarnRaising

at [[http://communitywiki.org/ | CommunityWiki]]
- http://communitywiki.org/en/MutualInspiration
- http://communitywiki.org/en/SeekCriticism
- http://communitywiki.org/en/NoSuddenMovements
- http://communitywiki.org/en/CommunityFocusing

=== writing the wiki ===
Your task is to create topics and/or add to topics in which you consider some of the following or variations:
- How might wikis enable creativity? How might they help people work together creatively? How might they hinder?
- What do participants have to do to support this kind of group creativity?
- What value is there in group or collective creativity? How does it change things?

The readings themselves raise even more topics and suggest other places to start and contribute. (For instance, I'm thinking of DocumentMode differently having read them.) Take it where you need to.

As I look at various wikis, I'm reminded that they are not used just to present writing. People build wikis for other purposes than personal expression. They are for collective knowledge making. I've started a WhatAreWikisFor topic.

My sense of the matter is that we're going to have to broaden what we mean by "creativity," and that we have to get past the idea that creativity is the sacred realm of The Individual. The pages for this seed all start to do this. (And someone might look into the history of how creativity in writing became attached to the individual. It wasn't always this way.)



some possible topics to develop (just suggestions. feel free to add to the list)
- TheWikiAndCreativeWriting
- TheWikiAndAcademicWriting
- EnablingCreativity
- CollectiveCreativity
- IndividualCreativity
- TheCommunity
- MeldedIdentity
- GroupThink
- DiverseCommunity
- ContestedContent
- WikiConsciousness
- BarnRaising

Draw on the pages I've linked to above to get you started and to move forward whenever you bog down. You might also note how writers develop the pages and borrow some of their techniques. [http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?BarnRaising BarnRaising] is particularly interesting for how it develops.

----
----
You're being asked for 1000 words or so, in ThreadMode or DocumentMode, in one topic, or spread out among topics. Sign your contributions with your WikiName and keep a list of topics you worked in on your WikiName page so I can assign points.

[rev for 2005: use self-assessment as in other assignments: 50, 75, 150, 200]

I'll also accept some substantive refactoring of existing topics.

Deadline: Midnight, Sunday, 17 Oct, 2004 - but you don't have to wait until the last minute. Post a note to the [http://calstaging.bemidjistate.edu/morgan/blogsandwikis/ Daybook] when you're done.

WritingTheWikiAssignment | WritingTheWikiProject

CategoryExercise