My objections to WIKIs:
- They're dull. I see one and my eyelids start to droop. I understand the advantages of not having to know how to design web pages, but I would like to see a little creativity in the layout.
- Truthiness. I am still leery of the way content can be changed. The way I look at it, each edit by a new author ought to link to a new page. I do admit that many of our current electronic licensed databases are far from error free. (Compare the different Gale biography articles for a musician and see how many errors you can spot.) However, my feeling is that if WIKIs are the written equivalent of talk radio they are to be taken with a Grain of Salt...
- Why are so many out of date? The advantage to WIKIs is that they are so easy to update, the perfect collegial, collaborative tool. If so, why are so many out of date, orphans of the web? If it's everybody's job, could it turn out that it's really everybody else's job?
I did enjoy WIKIs in Plain English and think that for a collabortive project with a firm deadline and timeline, WIKIs could work well. Maybe a WIKI-Blog hybrid might be an answer for something like our strategic plan.
1 comments:
Well, I can tell you that for one of my MLS classes, we had to make a Wiki. I felt bad giving life to this poor site only to realize that as soon as the assignment was done, I would abandon it. And there were 30 of us in that course so that's 30 more dead Wikis on the web.
Since collaboration can only occur if we are willing to invite people to our Wikis, I think many crash and burn. The one person has a brilliant idea, starts it up, and never bothers to invite anyone to help. Or invite people that are no where near as interested. Or forget to check to see if such a Wiki exists already!
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