The word “wow!” is often overused in the English language, next to “cool!”, “yo!”, “dat s**t”, et al.
However, I feel like using it now, as it was my initial reaction to an article written by Mike Hinman at SyFy Portal. Simply put, I had neither expected it nor thought it was a subject worthy of discussion. Alas, I was wrong. 
The article in question, “SyFriday: Living Life Out in the Open” , was written in reaction to my detailed blog entry regarding the buy-out offer from Wikia. (The links open in new windows, so have at them then tell us what you think either via the blog or on the Fourm.)
In the article, Mike reveals his initial reaction to reading the blog entry: “Sheesh, that’s an awful lot of information to be sharing … maybe it’s too much?” He briefly goes into a story about how he asked his webmaster friend whether or not I had revealed too much. Of course, as that webmaster told him, Mike does much the same thing himself on his site, SyFy Portal. I can attest to this, having known Mike for nearly eight years now (if not more, time flies!) , and have visited the website rather regularly since it was a seedling on GeoCities!
As Mike points out in the article, openness is a good thing. (At this point, I’m going to assume that you’ve read Mike’s article… and if not, please do so. It’s a quick read.) Now that you’ve read the article, you’re probably asking why transparency is of importance to me.
You see, transparency is important — actually, quintessential — because, as Mike very correctly points out in his article, it builds trust. It builds trust within the community, as well as between viewers and contributors to the Wiki. Without it, we would hardly be the resource we are today, for trust is an extremely difficult commodity to come by. All you need to do is look at the various problems with Wikipedia, both past and present, which stem from the lack of important transparency. Their present issues are gremlins that we have never faced because of our true openness, and the fact that we’re not struggling under our own weight.
Now, I’ll grant you that there’s no such thing as “full transparency”, because there have been people who’ve confided with me their issues regarding the Wiki. I hold their communications in the strictest confidence and, as a matter of both honor and of trust, I don’t spill my guts on those kind of things, for personal information is typically revealed in such communications.
Aside from that exception, in the case of Wikia and all the other issues we face together as a community, I’ll definitely always comment on them openly, even if it appears to put me at a disadvantage. This is because these are issues that affect the community and, in talking about such things, I hope to give you an inside view into the workings of how and why we do the things we do. The reason your fellow contributors and I go to the trouble to do this? It’s so very simple, but apparently so hard to accomplish.
To earn your trust.
And if we’ve done that, then I’m happy, for we’ve done the (seemingly) impossible and that’s made us mighty.
Thank you! 
So say we all!
