Cunningham's Law
and should NOT be used for any reason other than reading enjoyment |
"Ward" Cunningham is a name you may not recognize, but his work is all around you. Mr. Cunningham is the person who created the idea of a WikiPedia.
Howard G. Cunningham (born May 26, 1949) is an American computer programmer who developed the first wiki and was a co-author of the "Manifesto for Agile Software Development". A pioneer in both design patterns and extreme programming, he started coding the WikiWikiWeb in 1994 He installed it on c2.com, the website of his software consultancy, Cunningham & Cunningham.
Cunningham's idea was to make a website with pages quickly editable by its users, so initially thought about calling it "QuickWeb"
He later changed his mind and dubbed it "WikiWikiWeb" because he remembered a Honolulu International Airport counter employee who told him to take the "Wiki Wiki Shuttle", a shuttle bus line that runs between the airport's terminals. "Wiki Wiki" is a reduplication of "wiki", a Hawaiian language word for "quick".
Cunningham's Law"
Cunningham's Law [1] states "the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."
The concept is named after Ward Cunningham, father of the wiki. According to Steven McGeady, the law's author, Wikipedia may be the most well-known demonstration of this law.
Cunningham's Law can be considered the Internet equivalent of the French saying "prêcher le faux pour savoir le vrai" (preach the falsehood to know the truth). Sherlock Holmes has been known to use the principle at times (for example, in "The Sign of the Four").
How To Use Cunningham’s Law
In my best interest, I decided at times to tweak in Cunningham’s Law by asking questions that contained errors to solicit more of a response. Initially, I expected a bad response. Yet, strangely, that didn’t happen. Here’s what did.
I signed up to be a conversational English teacher to several Japanese students. It made my job harder when they were quiet or gave me only one-word answers.
When I showed a quiet kid a picture of an elephant and asked “what is this?” they got bored, moved on, cried, anything but answer my question. But if I said, “this is a giraffe” they would all stand up and scream “no, that’s an elephant!” — and suddenly they’re all engaged.
By being ignorant about a topic they are knowledgeable in, it gives them some authority in the conversation and that builds up their confidence.
It works surprisingly well on adults too.
If I ask a stubborn adult, “tell me about your Engineering job” they will typically respond with, “I design systems”. And then I have to ask an endless stream of follow-up questions with one-sentence answers — which no one likes doing.
Now, if I say something inaccurately along the lines of, “so, you’re an engineer. That means you build engines, right?” They can’t wait to correct my ignorance fast enough. They’ll go into detail explaining what an engineer is, what it isn’t, and what kind they are. All I have to do is chime in with “are you sure?” every few minutes and they’re talking up a storm for the rest of the conversation.
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