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The concatenation of content; taking related things and pulling it into one topic.

• Comes from the Star Trek – The Next Generation – (1987 show) for the villain race “The Borg“.

See also:

• Flesh

• Merciless refactor

Having no easier way to fully describe this concept, I started using this term (publicly it was around 2001, possibly earlier). In 2003, I even got away with using it in business meetings. =)

Borging is something which will become more common thanks to the increase in the number of open publications. For example, Wikipedia is broadly cached by other knowledgebases.

Examples ∞

• Taking content in the public domain (or another open format), caching and editing it.

  • Including or forking open-source software.
  • Copying articles, as from the Wikipedia.

• Taking inspiration by another project by comparing feature-sets and mimicking select features for one’s own project.

  • See Embrace, extend, and extinguish

• Taking one’s own content and rewriting it (e.g. with a mercyless refactor, such as with a version 1.0 to version 2.0 rewrite.