The Adjunct

The Adjunct is a new wiki, located at:

http://grault.net/adjunct/

Its aim is to provide a home for material that is flagged here as being OffTopic; all topics are welcome. If someone marks your page as being OffTopic, or deletes it for being OffTopic, feel free to give it a new home there. If you are unsure as to whether a page should be here or on the Adjunct, see MovingPagesToTheAdjunct.

WardCunningham has graciously added it as a SisterSite to this wiki. (It already has this wiki, and others, as its SisterSites.)

It is a UseMod wiki run by EarleMartin and some friends.

What is the purpose of censoring "off topic" content? This Wiki has an exquisite and comprehensive feeling and character, dripping with programmerdom on every page, and its influential discussions of Principles Practices and Patterns are only supported by its occasional discussion of FrankZappa or DoctorWho.

I've got no problem with side discussions. I just don't think they merit the permanence that on-topic discussions do. This was once a great place to research patterns and programming issues. Now, you can barely find that stuff. There's still good information here, but you have to go elsewhere to find the pointer to the right pages.

There have always been disagreements as to what is OffTopic and what is not, and what should stay or go regardless. The fact that the Adjunct has appeared has done nothing to change that, it merely offers another place to host pages.

The point is that if someone wants a page, but there's consensus that it should go away, they now have the alternative to move it to the Adjunct rather than be sad that it is continually deleted.

That is a very different thing than assuming that, anytime one person thinks a page can be deleted, it therefore will be, so long as a copy is made to the Adjunct. That's getting the point of it backwards.

There was never any reason to assume so, that's simply confusion.

Please help both TheAdjunct and this Wiki to improve its coherence by incrementally refactoring marginal content towards topicality, and by making TheAdjunct a place topical and coherent in its own best way.

Ask Earle

Q: What is the policy on banning users?
A: Only one person is definitively banned from the Adjunct - a known long-term abuser of this site. Everyone else is welcome. On the other hand, if anyone decides to start behaving like an ass (being abusive is the simplest example), I will kick them out without warning. I don't care if they are "right" or "wrong"; I won't tolerate bad behavior.
Q: Is there a commitment to pluralism on the Adjunct?
A: As the administrator of the site I am committed to pluralism as long as people behave themselves. See above. -- EarleMartin

For a commitment to pluralism to bear fruits one of the following conditions have to be met:

all participants are committed to pluralism
there's a GodKing (or a political power of some sort) at work that is totally committed to pluralism
commitment to pluralism is enforced by technology

I wouldn't have any problem contributing to any on-line forum where RK is also present, provided that pluralism is achieved in some way. RK has an inalienable right to air his points of view as forcibly and as powerfully as he sees fit, on the sole condition that he doesn't try to aquire unfair advantages in the marketplace of ideas or otherwise undermine pluralism. Heck, even RA should be granted "air space". Obviously the most principled approach would be (3) and I'm working on it. (2) has been known to work, for example at WikiPedia. -- Costin

I agree that one or more of 1 through 3 would be necessary; at this point in history, that's common sense. (1) is not apparently enforceable, short of hand-picking allowed participants, (2) is obviously possible, but most GodKings are not committed to pluralism, and (3) isn't currently implemented yet. -- Doug

"This was once a great place to research patterns and programming issues. Now, you can barely find that stuff. There's still good information here, but you have to go elsewhere to find the pointer to the right pages."

I'm not clear how MovingPagesToTheAdjunct solves the root problem of not finding stuff. Wouldn't the effort of deleting OffTopic material be better spent on the usual WikiGnome activities of categorization, interlinking pages and cleaning up content? In my experience, the pages not of interest simply aren't visited because you don't click on their links. -- IanOsgood

I agree with your logic. MovingPagesToTheAdjunct solves a different problem. And up until Google stopped indexing c2 (GoogleHatesWiki) and destroyed most of its old index on c2, I hardly ever had trouble finding things here, so I don't really understand/sympathize with the complaint to start with.

Other people have complained that new material of interest to them isn't being created, but hey, as (someone) on the old SaturdayNightLive? said, "if you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own". :-) Seriously, when I note something missing from c2 (and if I care, naturally), I create it or ask about it. Seems straightforward to me. -- DougMerritt

Hello Earle et al. Two BIG thumbs up to the Adjunct. Excellent work and definitely a very valuable contribution to this wiki and the larger wiki community -- StevenNewton

The adjunct appears set to read only of late. What's up with that? The "Edit" link has been replaced by a read-only notice. Is it an IP-address-related block-out?

TheAdjunct was getting hammered with spam, so it appears EarleMartin implemented a general "read only" status while he works on improved anti-spam measures. -- DaveVoorhis

So let me get this strait: TheAdjunct has been Ad Junked. I see.

Oops! Sorry folks, mea culpa. Edit lock's off now. If there are problems with the site, please email me for a faster result! -- EarleMartin

Earle, may I suggest you appoint a second volunteer steward to keep an eye on it for the times you are busy with life. Thanks. --top

It's mainly been server-side issues rather than wiki-side ones of late, but I'll have a think about the possibility of such a setup. Cheers. -- EarleMartin

The adjunct is still broken %22 problem, server sucks, and Wiki is nearly dead. The whole project was a ruse, and it kills c2 Wiki.

Down/dead/gone, the whole domain, since 3-15-2010. (Horseshit deleted - EM)

The domain hasn't expired and grault.net resolves to an IP address. The IP address doesn't respond. Looks like a technical problem like a failed hard drive or network adapter. I'm sure it'll be back.

It grinded to a grault, eh?

Is there any knowledge as to whether TheAdjunct is now deleted, as indicated above, or just temporarily broken?

Contact EarleMartin and see, but I think that the Wiki is a bust, not being what he had hoped. But, also he made conscious (or perhaps unawares subconscious) decisions along the way that pretty much ensured it would fail (mainly, he chased away the people that would have made it the huge success he promoted it as (RK, RA, etc...) and also set some impossible rules like "because it is my Wiki") He appeared to be more concerned with revenge and dominance, then anything else...
Last I heard, Earle was working on his OpenUniversity degree, so it's more likely he's simply too busy to do anything about TheAdjunct right now. We're almost into exam time and well into assignment hand-in time. RK certainly wasn't chased away. He voluntarily ceased participating on Wikis except this one; he was HardBanned from WardsWiki after explicitly stating his intent was to work against the community. Now he posts (on occasion) to his 'blog. RA has been barred from almost every Wiki he's ever participated on -- not surprising given that his main goals seemed to be disruption and focusing all attention on himself rather than collaboration. I've never seen the slightest hint of evidence that Earle was "concerned with revenge and dominance", and having known him for over fifteen years, I know "revenge and dominance" are as diametrically opposite to his personality as things can get.
- Of course, I can only report on my experiences over the last 11 years, and they are as I stated. One thing that he never understood about this Wiki or the Adjunct, was that you need users and readership/participation, and that does not come without something to read and look forward to. The idea of the Adjunct was touted to be, "to draw away those individuals and content deemed not to be appropriate for this Wiki". But, it was a ruse, because right away he set about deleting everything about those individuals from "both" Wikis, and engaging in discussion with them to trap them into saying things that he could use to HardBan them. But... they were a big part of the draw, especially for the Adjunct. Craziness brings something to read, something to talk about, you know the outrageousness of it all... Media needs a hook, and the Adjunct banned it's best hooks... He got a little carried away with this Wiki too, and we still suffer from that... "My opinion", of course...
  - This is complete crap. -- EM, in an airport
- Its aim is to provide a home for material that is flagged here as being OffTopic; all topics are welcome. I am quoting from the start of this page, which seems straightforward to me. So I took it at face value and started pages on TheAdjunct which reflected my interests but didn't fit in on this wiki. On the whole there was no response or discussion of these pages. The only lively discussion I recall recently was when this wiki was broken. The recent level of participation seemed to be very low - only a few edits each week. I was not around this wiki when TheAdjunct was set up, so I don't know what went on then. -- JohnFletcher
  - "I was not around this wiki when TheAdjunct was set up, so I don't know what went on then." Exactly...
  - On the other hand I do sign my comments other than with ... (DotDotDot?) If there is evidence for assertions of bad faith, I cannot see it here. The whole project was a ruse, and it kills c2 Wiki. That has been on this page for months. SinceWhenDoesSayingSomethingMakeItSo. I see only the assertion for the fact of a ruse. The second part has clearly not happened, or you and I would not be typing here. Maybe that is OverstatementToMakeaPoint?. AssumeGoodFaith please. My preference is to work here within the declared objectives of this wiki. I was putting other things on TheAdjunct and will again if it returns. -- JohnFletcher
- [I was around when TheAdjunct was set up, and it was never touted as a way to "to draw away those individuals and content deemed not to be appropriate for this Wiki". It was not a "ruse". It was intended as a SisterSite for OffTopic content, so that it could be freely posted and discussed without restriction whilst allowing Ward's disk space and bandwidth to be dedicated to PeopleProjectsAndPatterns in SoftwareDevelopment. SisterSites provide a means to include, incorporate, share and inter-link content whilst dividing bandwidth and disk load amongst multiple hosts. The notion that participants would be drawn into discussion "to trap them into saying things he could use to HardBan them" is pure paranoia at best and an outright lie at worst. I participated actively and enjoyably on TheAdjunct, and will again if it returns. The only bad thing about it was that more people didn't believe in it -- or maybe just weren't aware of it -- which would have helped to make it more active.]
  - There is not point in continuing this, as it is all opinion. I was there in a personal way, and was paying "close" attention when others were not. [Untrue crap deleted. -- EM]

One way or another, the prophecy "move 'off topic' verbiage to TheAdjunct, then close the entire site and delete it all" came true. Ward should never have sister-sited TheAdjunct, no matter how well-meaning the intent! --PhlIp

Where was the prophecy made? Possibly on DisregardTheAdjunct, last edited in 2006

You may have had the opposite view if WikiWiki bellied up, and only Grault worked.

Folks, I am currently in a small village in Croatia with extremely limited access to the Internet, so I can't spend time working on the problem for a few days. But I can tell you what's going on. Shortly before I was due to come here, the server I was hosting the Adjunct, and all my other sites on, suffered a catastrophic data loss. It turned out that the person who was administering the server was incredibly incompetent. The backup system which I thought was in place was not functioning properly either. Because I had to go abroad I didn't have time to address the issue, and indeed have been receiving emails from people regarding other online resources which have been affected. When I'm back home (in less than a week) I will restore the Adjunct from the last backup I have personally. Unfortunately that may be a year old or so. I suppose it's better than nothing.

I apologize to anyone affected by this. Someone was nice enough to send me an email, which is why I'm here now writing this. May I suggest to whoever it was above making the unkind and paranoid comments that perhaps getting off your ass and finding out what's going on is more useful than rumor-mongering? (Of course, that actually requires making some effort.)

Sincerely, -- EarleMartin

Thanks for the update. I've also learned the hard way: NeverTrustIspToBackup?.

7 May 2010: the Adjunct is back up. Please read the message on its front page. Thank you. -- EarleMartin

Not quite. One currently gets the message "Editing not allowed: the Adjunct is read-only."

Ugh! Sorry, so it was. Not sure why it got restored in that state. Should be open now. -- EM

Since the new start, the image for TheAdjunct does not show up on the page of the same name on C2 to provide a link. It was turned off during the shutdown of TheAdjunct. The reverse direction works. This is also called TwinPages.

It has not been up again for long, but already it is experiencing WikiSpam from what seems to be an automatic system which edits one page every few minutes. This is difficult to counter unless the access can somehow be blocked.

Definitely See MovingPagesToTheAdjunct

CategoryWikiForum CategorySisterSite