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“My specific purpose for the first wiki was to create an environment where we might link together each other's experience to discover the pattern language of programming.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Exploring with Wiki
Context: My specific purpose for the first wiki was to create an environment where we might link together each other's experience to discover the pattern language of programming. I had previously worked with a HyperCard stack that was set up to achieve the same kind of goal. I knew people liked to read and author in that HyperCard stack, but it was single user.

“People can and do trust works produced by people they don’t know. The real world is still trying to figure out how Wikipedia works.”

Ward Cunningham

Crucible of Creativity (2005)
Context: People can and do trust works produced by people they don’t know. The real world is still trying to figure out how Wikipedia works. A fantastic resource. Open source is produced by people that you can’t track down, but you can trust it in very deep ways. People can trust works by people they don’t know in this low communication cost environment.

“Traditionally, the cost of change curve said that if we detect the need for a change early, it costs less to make the change than if we detect the need late. I tackled that curve by saying, let's almost intentionally make mistakes so we can practice correcting them. That practice will help reduce the cost of making changes late.
Our feeling was that the limiting factor on any change was not when it was done, but how much thinking was required.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Working the Program

“A wiki is like a party that doesn't have to stop. It's a party that doesn't get crowded because new rooms appear when needed. It's a timeless party where you can try each conversation over and over until you get it right.”

Ward Cunningham

Foreword to Wikis for Dummies

“Top down hierarchies make communication work when it is expensive, I hope that wiki can be a flagship in this move in the industry to produce computer support for this kind of work and evolve organizational forms.”

Ward Cunningham

Crucible of Creativity (2005)

“A wiki works best where you're trying to answer a question that you can't easily pose, where there's not a natural structure that's known in advance to what you need to know.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Exploring with Wiki

“I love computer graphics, but every system I've seen to try to turn programming into pictures has lost that syntactic element. There's something about syntax that makes it very precise for reading. I love photography. A photograph will tell a story. But words tell a story even better. Words are more versatile. You can paint a verbal picture that's much richer than you can photograph.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), To Plan or Not To Plan

“When a manager asks for hard data, that's usually just his way of saying no.”

Ward Cunningham

Geek Noise (2004)

“Wiki is like a leaky bucket of information. It's losing information every day. But more information is coming in, so the net is positive. Even if it can lose things, wiki always has more to say than it did the day before.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Collective Ownership of Code and Text

“There is an art to knowing where things should be checked and making sure that the program fails fast if you make a mistake. That kind of choosing is part of the art of simplification.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), The Simplest Thing that Could Possibly Work

“Computers are famous for difficulties. A difficulty is just a blockage from progress. You have to try a lot of things. When you finally find what works, it doesn't tell you a thing. It won't be the same tomorrow. Getting the computer to work is so often dealing with difficulties.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), The Simplest Thing that Could Possibly Work

“The blogosphere is a community that might produce a work. Whereas a wiki is a work that might produce a community. It’s all just people communicating.”

Ward Cunningham

Crucible of Creativity (2005)

“Accept that you've got a common goal that we're all working towards and that we're working towards the same goal. In other words, align and self-organize.”

Ward Cunningham

Podcast Interview with Ward Cunningham (2006)

“People who understand their collective goals and values are pretty good at self-organizing -- as long as they are allowed to.”

Ward Cunningham

Podcast Interview with Ward Cunningham (2006)

“Wikis work best in environments where you're comfortable delegating control to the users of the system.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Exploring with Wiki

“Wiki helped define the category of social software.”

Ward Cunningham

Podcast Interview with Ward Cunningham (2006)

“Global collaboration is something that Wiki mastered in a small way and here we can master it in a big way.”

Ward Cunningham

Speaking about Eclipse Foundation
Podcast Interview with Ward Cunningham (2006)

“The decisions I made designing wiki were very much inspired by my desire to create a model for the collaborative process I thought should happen in large code bases. I wanted wiki to mimic that.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Collective Ownership of Code and Text

“I don't claim to be a methodologist, but I act like one only because I do methodology to protect myself from crazy methodologists.”

Ward Cunningham

Geek Noise (2004)

“Wiki has a feel of brainstorming, though it's not as interactive. You can do 10 minutes of brainstorming, and 30 minutes of analysis of the product of that brainstorming, and have something in 45 minutes. The pace on wiki is slower. You could write a page about an idea, or maybe a page about a bunch of ideas. Then you could come back in a week and see what's developed on that page.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Exploring with Wiki