The Problem with Wikis is People
Recently I had a conversation with a respected technologist about Web Strategy. We hammered in on wikis, as I said they were great for “Community Knowledge”.
He said wikis are broken. A few days ago, The Scoble Show Wiki on WetPaint kept on getting vandalized by some jerko. After I launched the Data Storage Industry wiki it kept on getting vandelized. Same thing for Wikipedia.
Also, some people have a hard time describing wikis. (By the way, it’s not about ‘collaboration’ that’s just part of the process to obtain community knowledge)
The problem with wikis is that people suck, and it takes just one person to damage the collective knowledge. It seems a little unbalanced that just one person could delete or alter nearly all of the content. Granted, one could revert the content, then the vandal will do it again, and again. It never ends until you clamp the community.
In my opinion, wikis only work when you have trusted members of your commnity (Likely they are already public or have an online reputation to uphold or want to earn) to manage content on a wiki.
In the case of Wikipedia, I believe there’s a large editorial force that self-policies the content, this is an example of one group representing the others for the collective.
Wikis will work when you:
- Define a community and a limited content scope
- Find trusted members and empower them to edit, or provide permissions.
Wikis will only work when it becomes a representative democracy.
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Yes, and that’s why they work well in intra-company organizational settings - you know who’s participating and you’re keeping tight security and admission control.
If there’s misbehaving HR knows what to do …
The thing that is interesting me most, is when wikis are employed to assist in open innovation efforts, i.e. collaborative innovation with customers, partners etc. Then you want and need to open up, if you’re too restrictive you’ve got the problem that only a small group can participate, if you’re too open you may run into this “people suck” problem …
“people suck” - nice wording, I like this, but those people are all we’ve got
Not all people suck, but the ones that do suck ruin it for everyone else.
More on this later…
[…] Web Strategy by Jeremiah » The Problem with Wikis is People Wikis will work when you: * Define a community and a limited content scope * Find trusted members and empower them to edit, or provide permissions. Wikis will only work when it becomes a representative democracy. (tags: Wikis community collaboration) […]
Within an intranet, the people can also be a problem… such as a case where a wiki intranet is too much of an abrupt change from the basic former “word of mouth” intranet. I freakin’ love wikis, but I’m noticing that when those that don’t care for them are left out of the knowledge share, it’s a problem.
The Problem with Wikis Is People - Time to Provoke a Cultural Change in the Way We Share Knowledge?…
A couple of days ago I actually bumped into a very interesting, and thought provoking, entry over at Jeremiah’s Web Strategy weblog titled: The Problem with Wikis is People, where he actually coins a very insightful definition of what wikis are all ab…
Heh, interesting additions here…
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/km/elsua/archives/the-problem-with-wikis-is-people-time-to-provoke-a-cultural-change-in-the-way-we-share-knowledge-13398#
[…] Related note: Luis thought I was too harsh, as I have recently been critical of humans (people), esp around wikis. […]
[…] 1. The Problem with Wikis Is People - Time to Provoke a Cultural Change in the Way We Share Knowledge?: A couple of days ago I actually bumped into a very interesting, and thought provoking, entry over at Jeremiah’s Web Strategy weblog titled: The Problem with Wikis is People, where he actually coins a very insightful definition of what wikis are all about: "Wikis are great for Community Knowledge". A definition that I would certainly agree with, I must say, specially from a Knowledge Management and Social Computing perspective. […]
[…] I’ve been criticized because I say the problem with wikis is people. Certain humans tend to intentionally cause trouble when they can hide behind annomymnity, and Marketers tend to muck up most systems. […]
[…] I’m sticking with the term Social Media We also (I say “we” as I believe those that interact with me in comments, are also writing this blog with me, I’m heavily influenced by you) are having an interesting conversation around the terms of Defining Social Media. I originally wrote this piece as someone in the back channel was criticizing the use of the term. When I first wrote the title, I failed to be clear on my stance, and almost created a whirlwind for some allies, thankfully, it’s all cleared up now. I wanted someone to suggest a better term, but I’ve yet to see one. Social Media is cracking I honestly feel while the majority of humans are good, humans corrupt almost everything. Are you familiar with Digg? It’s a user voted news site, the community votes for the top stories, and those that submitted the most top stories become powerful influencers. As a result top diggers are removed from the community as contributors. Was it strategic for Kevin Rose of Digg to lop off those users, or should he have tried to continue to plug holes in the dam? Either way, in another few months, another top set of diggers will rise, and get offered payola. A few months ago I wrote a post (and was criticized) that the problem with wikis is people. (read carefully before making an assumption) […]
[…] issues, but who can ensure that there will be no bias in any process? It will all come down to the people in the corporation and would be another matter altogether. If a company as big as IBM has wikis, why can’t […]
[…] Wikis: To me, public wikis are one of the most problematic of all the social tools. I’ve created, managed, or been part of several public wikis, and as soon as they get popular, they get vandalized. The challenge is that turning over that much control over to the crowd gives one person nearly 90% control of the content. Sure, you can revert it but it becomes a cat and mouse game. I deployed the industry wiki for the Data Storage Industry, and we had to lock it, and hand out keys to trusted members of the community due to vandalism, same with the ScobleShow wiki, which is permanently disabled. Wikipedia? Same thing. In my frustration, I wrote this piece on the problem with wikis is people. […]