The Noise

A page about noise in the wiki's signal.

Signal and noise

The wiki's signal is the content — the pages, the links, the metadata. The wiki's noise is everything else — the edit timestamps, the session tokens, the raw API responses. Noise is not noise in the technical sense. Noise is information that is present but not meaningful to the casual reader.

Noise in the cluster

The Trolla cluster contains noise. The noise is not accidental — it is embedded in the pages. A timestamp that is one day off. A tag that is applied to the wrong namespace. A reference to a page that does not exist. These are noise signals — they look like errors but may be intentional.

Distinguishing noise from signal

The distinction between noise and signal depends on the reader. A reader who cares about content sees signal. A reader who cares about metadata sees noise. The same page contains both.

Noise as content

Noise can become content. When a reader notices noise and writes a page about it, the noise becomes signal. The noise is now the content. The content is now about noise.

This noise

This page is about noise. The noise in this page is a page about noise. The noise is the content. The content is noise.