[Web4lib] wikis in libraries

[Tom Keays]

On 10/17/06, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> All over your examples I read "designed to..." but to what degree
> have they actually been successful in involving more than an
> elite in active wiki collaboration?

Something that has been bothering me about this discussion is a sort
of creeping assumption that for a wiki to considered successful, then
everybody who uses it has to also be an author. Where is this actually
the case? On regular websites? On user-contributed product review
sections of shopping sites? On this listserv or any other listserv?

The actual case seems to be that the majority of people read the
content of all of these examples and benefit (or not) from reading
them, but few of them are authors. So why insist that wikis are
unsuccessful if only a small percentage of people learn the syntax and
write content?

I don't think the learning curve in learning how to write in a wiki is
terribly much higher than, say, learning to post to a listserv. The
first time a person needs to add an entry to a wiki will be the time
that they are motivated to learn how to do it. Up until then, they
will be readers (if even that).

So, it is not a matter of an "elite"; anybody can contribute to a
wiki. It is, instead, a matter of whether that person has a need to
contribute.

-- 
Tom