Seeing the differences among position drafts

[David Hilvert]

On Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:19:30 -0400
Michael Allan <mike at zelea.com> wrote:

> 
> Hey Thomas,
> 
> I think I see a crucial problem.  See these two position drafts:
> 
>   http://t.zelea.com/wiki/User:ThomasvonderElbe_GmxDe/p/vohall
>    |
>    v
>   http://t.zelea.com/wiki/User:Mike-ZeleaCom/p/vohall
> 
> What are the differences?  I want to know so I can keep my draft as
> close as possible to yours and retain your vote.  But which bits
> should I transfer?
> 
> Voters too, they want to see the differences.  The whole purpose of
> voting and vote shifting is to push text toward the candidate drafts,
> wherever they differ from the voter's ideal.  So textual differences
> are crucial.
> 
> We have a similar problem with the project plans.  Here it is even
> more difficult to see the differences - disagreement in *substance* -
> because we disagree on the basic *form*.  But that disagreement itself
> would have been more obvious (and a topic for discussion) had the
> textual differences been highlighted:
> 
>   http://t.zelea.com/wiki/User:Mike-ZeleaCom/p/vop
>    |
>    v
>   http://t.zelea.com/wiki/User:ThomasvonderElbe_GmxDe/p/vop
> 
> So now I'm thinking, this is it!  The visualization of textual
> differences is the brass ring to reach for.  Do you feel the same?

This seems like the right approach.

Within MediaWiki, viewing of differences (history) is probably one of the more
frequently used features, but this currently only allows for reviewing changes
to a single page, rather than viewing changes between pages.

One approach might be to adapt the existing history view to present a diff
between arbitrary pages, rather than merely between versions of a single page.
While this might not effectively cover the case where your draft draws from
only some small part of someone else's draft, it might be a reasonable start.

For a more robust approach, it might be worthwhile to look at engines designed
for managing distributed changes (e.g., git).  Relevant references might
include: 

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/121420
http://el-tramo.be/software/wigit

In particular, git very naturally handles sharing of changes.  (On the other
hand, git might be too restrictive for use with Votorola.)