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[edit] To wiki or not to wiki

Wiki Uses: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_bases

From the very beginning, NoBlood.org has encouraged participation among its members to create and improve its online knowledgebase.

Forum software, which we use currently, has been very effective in some ways. However, it has fallen woefully short in the ability to make quick convenient refinements.

For example, let's say a member feels the definition of a glossary item needs improvement.

Using our current forum software to make or suggest a change a person must:

  • Decide whether to copy the whole or portion of text in question
  • Create a reply message with the suggested change inserted and highlighted
  • Someone else then reads this post and has to make the decision whether the suggested adjustment is valid
  • If they think it is a valid revision, they or someone else has to update the glossary item in question
  • Individuals who were involved in this glossary item would then have to be alerted to insure approval of changes

If a wiki-like tool is used the person would:

  • Click edit on the item and make adjustments on the spot (important to note that this can be restricted to authorized people AND information can be flagged as being in draft mode)
  • Everyone working on this item or anyone who has chosen to watch this page for changes is automatically notified
  • A simple comparison of the latest versions are reviewed by each visitor
  • If they like the change life goes on – the change simply stays put
  • If the revision is questioned, it is easy to correct or comment on
  • If the revision is unacceptable, the document is easily reverted back to a previous stored edition

[edit] A NoBlood Wiki: Pros and Cons

PROS an argument in favor of a proposal or position.

  • Dynamic Knowledge Base - Creates a dynamic and vital knowledge base
  • Supports Mission - An ever growing knowledge base will support the mission of bloodless/blood conservation


CONS an argument against doing something, or evidence or an opinion stating that something should not be done

  • More Work! - Requires the users to learn wiki syntax in order to participate - People resist transition
  • Vandalism - Wiki sites are subject to vandalism. People and groups with their own agenda as well as eccentric individuals can detract from the creative evolution of an article. See Dealing with Vandalism

[edit] Fodder

The term wiki means "quick" in Hawaiian and therein lies the value of wikis—to facilitate a speedy work flow and reduce the impedances so common in shared authoring environments.

A wiki is an online workspace that allows members to collaboratively create and edit Web pages without requiring HTML knowledge, using no more complicated technology than a Web browser.

Virtual or distributed work groups, virtual teams

Editing privileges may be extended to all visitors to the wiki site or restricted to a select team. Wiki software has finally made the Web available in a read-write form for all who are willing to learn a bit of wiki syntax.

Wikis may be used for a variety of purposes. A simple wiki may be used as a “scratchpad” for brainstorming on a text or as a place to archive shared content and link to resources such as a group calendar or external Web sites.

More sophisticated wikis with additional technical features can be used in a more dynamic and ambitious fashion, such as in support of a corporate intranet or a massive documentation project. An example of the latter is the Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page/), an online encyclopedia that is written, reviewed, and edited by volunteers worldwide. These technically sophisticated wikis have features that support meta-conversation about the writing and editing of a page and allow users to easily compare past revisions of a page. Wikis that allow users to hold a stake in the community and develop a reputation ultimately can foster close, productive group work. Wikis also commonly feature preliminary security controls. All content may be editable by a select group or by the world, depending on how the wiki pages are configured. Pages may be locked to disallow further changes by any user, or the engine may be configured to disallow anonymous edits by unauthenticated users. Many packages also implement revision control, allowing users to track and compare edits of a page and follow the evolution of a document. This provides a minimum protection against vandalism or unintentional loss of content. More sophisticated systems accommodate uncoordinated edits by multiple users by automatically detecting and resolving revision conflicts. Most implementations include search functionality that performs a live full-text search on the most recent version of all pages within a wiki installation.

[edit] ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

[edit] ADVANTAGES OF WIKIS

Because wikis give groups a shared online space to store documents, exchange information, and work collaboratively as many technical communicators would do with co-authored works, wikis can be a great boon to virtual teams. Other tools are available to support distributed information sharing and exchange (such as email, shared server space, and content management systems), but they can be clumsy in certain situations. In large multi-author documentation projects, e-mailing files back and forth can quickly take up account space as well as create mass confusion regarding the currency of a draft. Shared server space alleviates many exchange problems, but version control is still an issue when multiple authors are attempting to edit a file. Access to a secure file server can also be problematic for workers who are off-site. Content management systems typically provide different levels of editorial privileges and contributors who do not have publishing privileges must submit materials for review by a site's editors. A wiki, on the other hand, has the advantage of being a live, shared space, where all team members can have writing and editing privileges. Its availability and ease of use from any location can make all team members into productive participants. A wiki is a technologically simple way to give editorial access to a Web site to many people without requiring team members to funnel editorial requests through a Webmaster and without concerns that novice Web authors will destroy the site by accidentally deleting files. Turnaround time to update the wiki is reduced, and it is more likely to become a useful and regularly used space. The ease of collaboration in a wiki can make it a powerful tool for project management and collaborative writing.

The technology that supports user experience for a wiki is lightweight in that the user needs access only to a Web browser. The centralization of a wiki can be useful for team members who are traveling and may not have access to specific word processing programs. Further, a wiki eliminates the hassle of redistributing documents: there is one document to work from rather than multiple copies circulating around the team. The simplicity of a wiki also makes it less burdensome to make small, spontaneous edits and may encourage team members to contribute more ideas or improve prose quality without the social appearance of quibbling or nitpicking that might result if they were to recirculate a Word document with only a minor change. Contributing authors can percolate their ideas longer and include more ideas in the draft as a result of more frequent editing sessions.

Public wikis that provide information to larger audiences have the advantage of attracting any contributor who is willing to add or edit content. Many public wikis allow visitors to edit anonymously without the burden of creating a user account. Although one might assume that this lack of accountability would result in rampant vandalism and poor quality content, large public wiki projects such as Wikipedia and Wikibooks (http://www.wikibooks.org/) have grown into mature projects with thousands of complete, well-written articles and more than 100,000 (NOW OVER 600,000 06/20/05) articles in development—all by volunteer authors. Besides the productivity advantages, wikis can be useful as shared social spaces for team members who work remotely. Members of virtual work groups that do not meet in real space may seem like disembodied voices or text. With an easy-to-edit wiki, it is simple for team members to create their own home page with a photo of themselves. The user home pages afford added awareness of the other members of the team and increase social presence, a valuable tool in building community. But more importantly, users are able to update the page as desired to make their Web presence feel alive and dynamic rather than static and out-of-date.



[edit] DISADVANTAGES OF WIKIS

Despite their benefits, wikis also have some disadvantages. Chiefly, they require the users to learn wiki syntax in order to maximize use of the formatting capabilities of the wiki. Adding plain text on a page is simple, but formatting headings, lists, or tables requires the use of a somewhat arcane system of special punctuation. Some of this syntax is easily learned though by novice users who can copy the syntax used by other wiki authors. Editing pages through a Web browser usually does not allow users to spell-check or have the same sophisticated editing functionality of a word processing program. Wiki editing can also intimidate users new to the collaborative environment. If collaborative writers and editors are accustomed to the visual cues offered by Microsoft Word as they edit documents using tracking and comment boxes, the opaque nature of these activities in wiki editing may be unsettling. It may take demonstrations to reassure the novice editor that edits are recorded, if not denoted visually, and can be compared in the revision history.

In contrast to novice, intimidated wiki users, very large wiki projects may have pages that become the battleground of editing wars between two or more writers holding strongly opposing views. When this occurs, the version history logs become less useful because of the flood of repetitive changes. Wikipedia addresses this problem by disallowing any person to revert a page more than three times within a 24-hour period. The 24-hour rule can be very helpful with a public site such as Wikipedia but it could cause problems with a small group that is actively editing a time-sensitive document. They may very well need to enter multiple edits in a short time frame. Of course, users can request that highly contested pages be protected so that they can be edited only by the site administrators. Another disadvantage of wikis is that their basic design can be primitive looking, without graphics or exciting colors, unless the team upgrades the basic template. The basic template often looks like a relic of the early days of the World Wide Web without site-wide navigation menus. If left uncustomized, a wiki may not inspire some users and it may actually demotivate others. Furthermore, navigation systems are not automatically built into wiki packages. Team members must be diligent about creating and updating their own navigational links and menus to match the growth of the site. If the navigation system is not carefully nurtured, the site can easily sprawl out of control, with the initial purpose of the site lost to view.

The wiki can be also become resource intensive, consuming storage space for revision history and hogging processor time to calculate differences between edits. In addition, a wiki requires computing resources to dynamically regenerate pages on each visit rather than delivering static content. Intensive editing, or even viewing, can quickly overload an underpowered server. Finally, the collaborative nature of the wiki, like other interactive software, requires group buy-in and collective adoption in order to be successful.7 A lone devotee cannot take advantage of the many features of the wiki; the group as a whole must be committed to using the site. In a small wiki supporting a cooperative group, a hierarchy may develop and one or two users may become the invisible autocrats of the wiki. With skill, these dedicated users may enhance usability of the overall wiki for the entire group, but they are also at risk of overpowering the rest of the team, or worse, making the wiki useful only for themselves.


[edit] INTERESTING LINKS

What wikipedia thinks it is

  • New PR Wiki Resources. Various Corporate Wiki Policies from varioius companies like yahoo [1]
  • SpeakerService: PRWeek Blogging Webcast. Looking for a corporate wiki (blog) strategy [2]
  • How WikiNews handles articles under development: [3]
  • IBM analysis of wiki usage. The images shown here are screen shots of history flow visualizing different pages on Wikipedia. [4]
  • VERY interesting interview with co-founder of WikiPedia? Can Internet volunteers improve journalism? Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales is out to find out. [5]
  • After Chaos, 'L.A. Times' Ends 'Wiki' Experiment, For Now [6]
  • Wiki-mania "The latest'Big Bang' in information-sharing is free, and its flagship already gets more traffic than the New York Times and USA Today combined: Meet the 'wiki.'"

Article by Rory O'Connor, AlterNet:

"I've seen things like this happen once or twice before," observed Mitch Kapor, software pioneer and head of the Open Source Foundation. "We're at the Big Bang of the next information revolution."

Ground Zero, at least last week, was Frankfurt, Germany, site of Wikimania, the first global gathering of the self-styled 'wikipedians' who collectively are well on their way to the goal of providing free online encyclopedias in every language on earth.

Created at virtually no cost by citizen-volunteers working collectively and using an innovative new tool called a wiki, which enables anyone to write and edit on a web page, the wikipedia site has experienced explosive growth in the past two years and now ranks among the top 50 most-visited websites in the world, according to alexa.com.

To read the entire article go to: Wiki-mania By Rory O'Connor, AlterNet. August 9, 2005.

  • Write the news yourself! [7]
  • Wiki Targets How-To Buffs [8]

[edit] Interesting ‘wiki’ sites

[edit] Wikipedia Site Statistics

[edit] Wiki Tools

Wiki Tools - our internal collection of interesting software used alongside the wiki.

[edit] Interesting ‘wiki’ articles

[edit] Wiki Software

[edit] Interesting Wiki usage example

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