Posts within the category: Wikis

June 28, 2009

Wikipedia: A Bold Experiment in Community

I’m a big fan of collaborative writing. So no wonder I found Andrew Lih’s book about the world’s largest collaborative writing project fascinating: The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia.

Wikipedia is often my first read when I need a quick explanation or overview of a topic. I knew that Wikipedia was user generated, but I hadn’t given much thought to how it came about or just how many users it took to generate more than 13,000,000 articlesin more than 260 languages.Turns out, what was started by a group of hackers now counts more than 75,000 Wikipedians as active contributors. In his book, Lih tells the story ofWikipedia’s unlikely conception and its phenomenal growth.

I found Wikipedia’s vision even more awesome than its size: “Free access to the sum of all human knowledge.” The concept of free extends far beyond not paying to access the content. Wikipedia embraces the concept of “copyleft.” Anyone is  free to copy, modify and redistribute content.

Wiki technology pre-dates Wikipedia.Jimmy Wales, one of Wikipedia’s founders, thinks that Wikipedia's genius is not technology. Wales sees Wikipedia as a social innovation: a way of creating community. Anyone can become part of the community and create, edit, or verify content.

Surprisingly, the Wikipedia community operates with few rules. (One of the rules is “Wikipedia does not have firm rules.”) Its underlying principle is grounded in the computer hacker culture which embraces sharing and assumes good faith: “Unless there is strong evidence to the contrary, assume that people who work on the project are trying to help it, not hurt it.”

A few core policies reinforce Wikipedia’s purpose:

• Neutral point of view. It's an encyclopedia not an editorial.
• Verifiability. Wikipedia articles are heavy on citations.
  
• No original research. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia’s goal is to summarize existing writing and scholarship.

Does the Wikipedia community work? For the most part it works astonishingly well. While errors occur in content, and there are turf wars, the massive number of contributors and users assure its accuracy. The more popular an article, the more likely it is to be accurate, since the large number of eyeballs policing it ensure that errors are quickly fixed. Because each article contains numerous references, it’s easy for users to check the source of the information to determine credibility and accuracy.

Like me, you might find the idea of contributing to the world’s largest encyclopedia intimidating. What if I screw it up? Since Wikipedia tracks each change, it’s hard to mess up: you can always revert to the previous version. (To see the log of changes for an article, click on the history tab.) Afraid of committing a grammar offense? A battery of volunteer editors corrects usage errors.

If you are still feeling timid about clicking the edit tab, you can start small. The Help Out section of the Community Portal page contains a list of tasks you can do. (For example, expand an article, copy edit, verify sources). Still not ready to become a full-fledged Wikipedian? Play around with the editing functions in the Sandbox.

One warning about getting involved in the Wikipedia community. Lih recounts how many people become addicted or even obsessed. (More productive than frittering away time with online solitaire or poker). Forewarned!

-- Marilynne Rudick (guest blogger)

December 8, 2008

A Wiki for Every Purpose

Are you considering using a wiki to support a project, collect the intelligence of your colleagues, or help far-flung staff members work together?  If so, you may be interested in wiki examples that are smaller than Wikipedia, with its 684 million visitors per year and its 10,000,000 articles in more than 260 languages.  For your review, I've gathered four wiki examples.  Each one has a different purpose. Maybe one of these wikis will serve as a model for yours. 

1. Software documentation and development wiki.  The Scantegrity wiki supports both users and developers of Scantegrity, an "...open source election verification technology for optical scan voting systems." The wiki's appeal and usefulness is evident.  Users in the Scantegrity community can easily find documentation and other types of support while developers can contribute patches or download the latest version of the source code.  And the openness of a wiki makes it a natural information-sharing system for an open source software product.
2. "People's guide" wiki.  RocWiki, the "people's guide to Rochester," features restaurant suggestions, a city wish list, guides to seasonal activities, and links to oddities such as the decommissioned cremation facility within Mt. Hope Cemetery.  Compare RocWiki to the rather staid Visiting/Leisure pages at the City of Rochester web site.  The content is similar in both places, but the City of Rochester site speaks with an "official" voice; it doesn't offer the passion RocWiki's contributors provide.
   
3. Community of practice wiki.  The Adult Literacy Education (ALE) Wiki invites educators to add knowledge "... from your experience teaching adult learners, from research
   or professional wisdom, or from your experience as an adult learner."  This mature, well developed wiki has designated ALE Wiki Topic Leaders  who help maintain and deepen the content in their topic areas.
   
4. Conference wiki. It's never a surprise when librarians, the original information architects, present deep, useful content.  The 2008 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference wiki for conference attendees and exhibitors provides all kinds of information to help people show up for, make their way through, and get the most from the conference.  Wiki article topics range from "Annual Conference on the Cheap" to "Events and Resources for Job Seekers." And because a conference is a collaborative effort that requires and generates a great deal of content, a wiki is just the right publishing option to make the conference outcomes extend beyond the five-day event.  On a lighter note, this annual conference must inspire great fervor amongst librarians.  One of the Ground Rules  for this wiki is "No organizing boycotts"!  
   

Are you contributing to or using a wiki?  Are you interested in launching a wiki but not sure how to begin?  Share your lessons learned or your questions and we'll address them in upcoming posts.

-- Leslie O'Flahavan

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