📖 Source→⚡ Observation·Where the pattern works/Where the pattern breaks·Interpretation ≠ Conclusion

Peeragogy in Practice

Reduce, reuse, recycle

⏱ 4 minPAT

Motivation

This pattern can guide project participants in identifying and managing available resources.

Context

In a peer production context, you are simultaneously “making stuff” and building on the work of others.

Forces

Derivative: you don’t have to do everything yourself!

Sensemaking: resources are useful only when you can make sense of them.

Sharing: your understanding gains robustness when you share with others.

Problem

Many projects die because the cost of Reinventing the Wheel [c2] is too high. However, this is just one possible symptom of overfocus on a few priorities. Concerns may also arise if the project’s output is not actually used by anyone.

Solution

“Steal like an artist,” and make it possible for other people to build on your work too. In the Peeragogy project, we have used off-the-shelf and hosted software suited to the task at hand (including: Drupal, Google+, Google Hangouts, Google Docs, Wordpress, pandoc, Github, ShareLaTeX). Early on we agreed to release our Peeragogy Handbook under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0), the legal instrument that grants the greatest possible leeway to downstream users.[fn:1] This has allowed us and others to repurpose and improve its contents in other settings, including the current paper. Follow the steps indicated by the keywords in the pattern’s title:

  • Reduce the panoply of interesting interrelated ideas and methods to a functional core (e.g. writing a book).
  • Reuse resources relevant to this aim, factoring in “things I was going to have to do anyway” from everyone involved.
  • Recycle what you’ve created in new connections and relationships.

\ /A paradigmatic example of found-art. “Fountain by R. Mutt, Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz, THE EXHIBIT REFUSED BY THE INDEPENDENTS”./

Rationale

Clearly we are not the first people to notice the problems with wheel-reinvention, including “missing opportunities, repeating common mistakes, and working harder than we need to.”[fn:2] As a guest in one of our hangouts, Willow Brugh, of Geeks without Bounds and the MIT Media Lab, remarked that /people often think that they need to build a community, and so fail to recognize that they are already part of a community.*[fn:3] converted our old pattern catalog from the *Peeragogy Handbook/ into this paper, sharing it with a new community and gaining new perspectives; could we do something similar again?

Resolution

Reweaving old material into derivative designs and new material into existing frameworks, we build deeper understanding, and carry out collective sensemaking. The project’s Roadmap develops by making sense of existing resources – including our worries and concerns. Often we only know what these are when we attempt to share them. Drawing on a wide range of resources boosts our collective Carrying capacity.

Example 1

Contributors are encouraged to recycle existing works that are compatible with the Wikimedia-wide Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-By-SA) license.[fn:4] Some sub-projects have been created purely to help repurpose other existing works in this way.[fn:5] On the downstream side, DBPedia is an important resource for the semantic web, built by collating data from Wikipedia’s “infoboxes.”[fn:6] themselves increasingly being populated automatically using information from WikiData.[fn:7] able to develop tools that reuse Wikipedia content in other ways [1,2], However, these research projects do not always result in a tool that is accessible to day-to-day users.

Example 2

The knowledge resources and collaboration tools currently available online are what make a low-cost, high-quality, formally-accredited future university conceivable. However, the available resources are not always as organized as they would need to be for educative purposes, so peeragogues can usefully put effort into Reduce, reuse, recycle’ing available resources into a functioning university Library.

What’s Next in the Peeragogy Project

Are there other educational resources and peeragogical case studies that we could fold into our work? Can we recycle material from the /Peeragogy Handbook/ into a format that is easier to understand and apply?

BACK Any miscellaneous follow up from paper for Special Issue of Futures Journal for Anticipation :paper:

BACK Do a CLA using collected peeragogy PARs as data :paper:

References

  1. Silvan Reinhold. 2006. WikiTrails: Augmenting wiki structure for collaborative, interdisciplinary learning. /Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Wikis/, ACM, 47–58.

  2. Nathalie Henry Riche, Bongshin Lee, and Fanny Chevalier. 2010. IChase: Supporting exploration and awareness of editing activities on Wikipedia. /Proceedings of the International Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces/, ACM, 59–66.

[fn:1] https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

[fn:2] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/11/19/learning-patterns-new-way-share-important-lessons/

[fn:3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpyQfYVKfBI

[fn:4] https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/15411/

[fn:5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/PlanetMath_Exchange

[fn:6] http://wiki.dbpedia.org/

[fn:7] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page

⚡ Unpeeragogy · Friction · Observation

Reduce Is the Last Thing You'll Do

⏱ 4 minaudit-v2reducesimplifywaste

The Assumption

Groups should eliminate waste by identifying and removing unnecessary complexity, redundant processes, and accumulated mistakes. Simplification is inherently beneficial and groups can recognize and act on opportunities to streamline their operations.

Perturbatore: “What if telling people to ‘just simplify’ is like telling them to ‘just be happy’ — the advice assumes the problem is motivation, not structure — and one person’s waste is another person’s essential infrastructure?”

One person’s waste is another person’s essential infrastructure. Reduction is not housekeeping. It is politics.

Operational Reality

Telling people to “just simplify” is like telling them to “just be happy” — the advice assumes the problem is motivation, not structure.

Every group accumulates complexity. The question is not whether to reduce — it is who has the authority to decide what counts as waste. GitLab’s stewardship handbook documents explicit boundaries that enable reduction without contestation. Wikipedia’s Good Article process uses transparent criteria that make reduction decisions reviewable and legitimate. But Drupal’s governance transition and Apache’s meritocracy show that reduction without clear decision-making authority produces contestation, not simplification.

The pattern assumes waste is objectively identifiable. It is not. One person’s waste is another person’s essential infrastructure. Reduction is a political act disguised as housekeeping.

Empirical Evidence

Resilience Cases (Confirming):

  • GitLab Stewardship Handbook — Explicit documentation of governance boundaries between corporate sponsor and community reduces friction in open-core projects. Explicit boundaries enable reduction decisions without contestation.
  • Wikipedia Good Article Process — Peer assessment with transparent criteria and independent reviewers creates sustainable quality tiers. Transparent criteria make reduction decisions reviewable and legitimate.

Fracture Cases (Complicating):

  • Drupal Governance — Intentional governance transition from BDFL to community model required years of structural work. Reduction without clear authority produces contestation, not simplification.
  • Apache Foundation How It Works — Meritocracy-based systems make reduction decisions without broad consensus, creating tension between efficiency and inclusion.

Operational Heuristics

Positive Boundary: Reduction works when transparent criteria and independent review processes are established before waste identification begins — explicit boundaries and transparent criteria make reduction reviewable and legitimate.

Negative Boundary: Do not apply this pattern without explicit governance frameworks for decision-making authority — reduction attempts without clear authority produce contestation, not simplification.

Epistemic Synthesis

Every group accumulates complexity. The question is not whether to reduce — it is who has the authority to decide what counts as waste. GitLab documents boundaries that enable reduction without contestation. Wikipedia uses transparent criteria that make reduction decisions reviewable. But Drupal and Apache show that reduction without clear decision-making authority produces contestation. The pattern assumes waste is objectively identifiable. It is not. Reduction is a political act disguised as housekeeping.

Evidence Status

Status Count
Confirmed cases 2
Cases under study 0
Unverified cases 0
Ambiguous cases 0

Traceability

Run: audit-v2 · Delta: 1.5 → 1.6594 (±0.1594) · Diversity D: 2

References

💬 Field Report: Reduce Is the Last Thing You'll Do

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