What is in Kelvin's Head?

Review: Werther – Scottish Opera

20/02/2013

This review appeared first at Opera Britannia

The start of Scottish Operaâ€™s new production of Massenetâ€™s Werther is deceptive. As the curtain goes up we have a pleasant enough scene. A wooden structure is present with what look like rickety stairs. Snow soon starts to fall at the rear of the stage â€“ snow that will continue to fall for much of the production. Pretty soon, a troop of pretty children appear and are being taught to sing a Christmas carol by their father. A finely gift-wrapped box is passed from one character to another and one starts to expect that by the time we meet our hero Jonathan Boyd as Werther, he will be complaining that his tiny hand is frozen and that we will be hearing all about pretty romantic love in a cold garret, whilst pretty urchins churn out one Christmas ditty after another. The whole thing seemed to set us up for a night of Christmas slush derived from the still fast-falling snow.

However, it was not to be. (more…)

review, Scottish Opera, Werther

8 responses to “What is a wiki?”

Chris

31/07/2007

I wanted to comment on your wiki post, but there is a gremlin preventing me – no box to write in, so no writing!
[Comment now moved]

This is what I’d have said:
Great clip! A really clear description – can we get it incorporated into an educational package for the church? See http://scotedublogs.wikispaces.com/ for a good example of a wiki in use for over a year.

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Tim

31/07/2007

Yeah. Wikis have huge potential. When I was setting up my church website I sat down and thought:
a) lots of pages
b) easy editing
c) uniform appearance across pages
d) ability to allow some people to (not) edit certain pages

End result was dokuwiki.

The real trouble is still persuading people that they’re capable of contributing…

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kelvin

31/07/2007

Yes, it is odd getting people to post on a wiki is very much harder than getting them to post a comment on a blog. Something about a fear of being the authorial voice.

I think that it is fear of being contradicted and corrected, which is a shame, as whenever I post to a wiki, I’m hoping that someone can improve on what I’ve written.

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Kimberly

31/07/2007

Fabulous video. Thanks for linking it.

I wonder if this is one of the ways we should be trying to respond to the Draft Anglican Covenant.

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Stewart

31/07/2007

Wikis are great – look forward to seeing the St Mary’s Wiki developing (and adding to it!)

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jimmux

05/08/2007

Thanks for a very clear explanation! Now that I understand how they work, I’ll be raising a discussion on how we might be able to use them on the National Postgraduate Committee of the United Kingdom. They seem a very useful tool for sub-committees which do a lot of work by e-mail.

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Kennedy

08/08/2007

I had a look at Tim’s church website and looked at the bit with the contributions from the congregation and saw this statement:

‘Please note: the content in this section is contributed by members of the congregation and should not be considered official statements by the Church.’

I am a great fan of wikis for collaborative work, but I think this indicates one of the issues with ‘public’ wikis. These problems tend not occur when wikis are being used for internal usage or for a closed group. Open editing is very attractive but you need some form of management to ensure that defacement doesn’t occur or statements which might be damaging are published.

Also, how do I tell the difference between ‘the Church’ and ‘ members of the congregation’? Are they not the same thing?

Kennedy

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Repeat post – wiki video | What’s in Kelvin’s Head

20/02/2009

[…] First posted quite a while ago here. […]

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