Walled Garden

Isolated Little Worlds

If you feel you have a lot of content to contribute to a wiki all at once, you may be tempted to write a bunch of different pages, interlinking them all. Don't. We call this is a WalledGarden, and it stands out in stark contrast to the areas of the ThisWiki that are living. The living areas are much trafficked, edited by many and read by even more. They exhibit the selflessness of a living space, belonging to nobody and everybody. If you learn to slowly integrate your own wisdom into this broader space, the process will be far messier and slower, but the feedback you receive from others will be more considered and rewarding.

Identifying characteristics of WalledGardens

Sudden appearance and growth
Single author or small set of authors
Rich interlinkage, but a paucity of links to and from the rest of ThisWiki
Page names that discourage AccidentalLinking (e.g., prefixing each page name with the WalledGarden's topic)

Not all WalledGardens exhibit all of the characteristics.

WikiSquatting is creating pages that are clearly off-topic for a wiki.

By contrast, a WalledGarden (at least as the originator originally imagined it) is a large set of pages that are suitable for a wiki, but bring in their own organizational or conceptual baggage, and hence integrate poorly with the rest of that wiki. The content is appropriate, but the form prevents integration.

Walled Garden example: Samir has developed a neat new programming language. He uploads ten pages to this wiki, all of which explain the language, but link to no other pages in this wiki. They may link to each other, and indeed contain a "navigation bar" at the bottom of each page that link to all the other pages in the same set. This is a WalledGarden. It is OnTopic, but not integrated.

Please direct discussion about WalledGardens to WalledGardenDiscussion.

For examples on this wiki, see WalledGardens.

Contrast with: PiecemealGrowth, CulDeSac

Another view: VirtualCollaboration

CategoryWiki CategoryGardeningMetaphor