| | used to refer to an attitude or practice existing within academic institutions, whereby researchers are under pressure to publish material in order to retain their positions or to be deemed successful. |
Well, I am also finding modern connotations for this phrase.
Blogging Publish or Perish: If one does not Publish a post regularly, the blog may Perish.
This could well be true. I was discussing ways of keeping my Google Reader from overwhelming me with Richard. He showed me the trends tab which shows how often a RSS feed publishes and what percentage of the articles you actually look at.
Richard recommended deleting feeds that don't publish regularly. Makes sense, but am I not labeling any person's blog which doesn't publish regularly as dead? Perish the thought.
Wikis Publish or Perish: If you don't Publish, will not the idea Perish?
When I first started working on editing an entry in Wikipedia, I looked up Opus Teutonicum. It is a form of medieval whitework. Amazingly enough (okay, maybe not to you), it wasn't listed. The whitework listing didn't even mention it as a style. *gasp*
So I considered writing my own entry. But, then I thought about the time I would have to spend to do it right. So, instead, I put in a few punctuation marks in another entry to meet the criteria of my assignment.
Later, I thought about what I just did. The information I could add would eventually perish if I don't share it. Publish or Perish. Sigh. I can't have that happen. Yep, I'm working on adding a new entry.
Why?
Well, Publish or Perish can also refer to your creativity. If you don't actually follow through with your thoughts and ideas, won't they, too, perish?
So, I'm challenging myself to keep publishing. I will be entering that wikipedia entry. I will also re-write it for the local SCA group newsletter. Finally, I will be attempting 4 blogs a week in order to keep my Addiction blog from fading into obscurity (or simply being weeded from your Reader).
Posts
6 comments:
Interesting thoughts. I find your take on blogs and wikis fascinating. I agree with you about the blogs - the most interesting ones are the ones updated more frequently. However, I'm not sure about the wikis. I think for some types of wikis the updates need to be in line with the speed of the changing information. Some information changes faster than other. I think the wiki publish or perish is more subjective in terms of which topic the wiki is covering.
In a way, you are right. I was thinking of less dynamic topics when I wrote the blog, but dynamic subjects can just as easily slip through the cracks if not discussed in an open forum such as Wikipedia.
That's the beauty of Wikis. They can evolve as the subject matter evolves. You can edit and add to an entry once it is created. It's all about sharing information instead of stifling it.
Of course, if it is dynamic and no one updates, then I guess that wiki will die. No one will visit it because it is out of date.
Either way, I still think it fits. But that's just me. :-)
i think there's a discipline to blogging and contributing to wikis and i admire people who have it. i don't think i can write 1 thoughtful blog per week let alone 4! i like your take on things. i'm sure if you keep blogging you'll have a loyal readership :)
Wow. That's pretty deep!
...I'd comment more, but someone just decided to be hungry. grr.
Yay for sharing information. I really like your take on blogs and wikis. It is interesting, and thought provoking. And I never thought about the evolving nature of wikis.
I think that can be good because then the information is up to date. However, it can also be bad because citing something that is always changing can be difficult.
Citing is an issue for those tracing your research. MLA style has you list the date it was used for that reason.
If it was an online news article, your could use the Google Archive to retrieve it. Here's the web address.
http://news.google.com/archivesearch
If it is old web data from an public domain site, you could use the wayback machine. Here's the url for an article about it.
http://www.onlinemag.net/mar02/OnTheNet.htm
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