Inquiry Workflow

We suggest a workflow that might allow participants in this Experimental Interview to assert some direction upon the writing of others.

Wiki offers writing and sharing mechanisms but does not insist that users work in any particular way. Instead we describe workflows that collaborators choose to employ to coordinate their work. See Broadcast Workflow

observation

By virtue of being on this Wiki, the conversation has already spidered out in more directions than I can track, and yet this is exactly how my research into any subject goes. I will bury myself in sources, trying to keep notes and some sort of map on where to find things. In the end, however, the pattern of the work will reveal itself to me so long as I am patient and continue to work. The immersion triggers something that begins organizing quietly in the background and lets me in when I'm ready.

Of course, this can infuriate collaborators. Carol Stimmel and I clash over how to approach authors and get this effort moving "per schedule." The schedule, of course, only has a single deadline, so we're arguing over our own internal schedules. She's more experienced at putting together a book from the writings of others, where as I always consider my ultimate safety device the willingness to write the whole damned thing myself, if necessary. But that doesn't give anyone else confidence.

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One starts the workflow by assembling an inquiry. Typically this is expressed as a curiosity for which the inquirer has incomplete knowledge so writing will be necessarily vague.

An inquiry will consist of unanswered questions expressed as internal links. These might progress in an order but that is free to evolve. The inquirer might write a paragraph or two introducing the question so as to make short question titles more meaningful.

A knowledgeable respondent will author the desired page offering first a synopsis of the answer and then further discussion. A response should align loosely with the question of the title but need not be a direct response to the inquirer who is free to reorganize the inquiry and try again.