@dredmorbius On the subject of "versioned documents" (as in, Wiki or source-control type systems that publish all previous editions of a document or a set of files, annotated with discussion)
1. I'm still not sure that this is a completely new thing in history. Religious and legal communities (in ancient times, the same groups) have had extensive traditions of "texts, anf commentaries on the texts" for millennia. Eg Judaism's Midrash https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midrash
2. To the extent that electronic publishing is new, the newness resides in a matter of scale, as you say.
But a particular complication that the "versioned document" (or as I'd rather describe it, document *archive*) presents is that it's NOT in fact a document ( a fixed thing) - it's a PUBLISHER. Or a broadcaster.
The point being that you can take Wikipedia-the-publisher offline and lose a large part of what makes it different from ordinary documents.
@natecull Scale *MATTERS*.
A jet airplane is an oxcart. At scale.
A hydrogen bomb is Greek Fire. At scale.
Amazon is the corner hardware store. At scale.
Yes, Wikipedia is, in one sense of the word, a publisher. But it's a publisher like none other in the history of the world, in terms of:
* Who can participate.
* Who can access.
* How much it's written.
* On what topics.
* With what update frequency.
Earlier encyclopedias might be updated every few _decades_.
Nate Cull (.social)
Dr. Edward Morbius ❌