Week5: Wikis, not so wacky

Wikis show themselves to be a fine example of the democracy of ideas that live on the internet.
The’Net exists in a ruggedly democratic space. This openness flourishes because of the wide range of ideas, interests and agendas held by the netizens of the world. Sure, it is open to abuse. People are self obsessed; people are cowardly; people are prejudiced; people are misguided. No surprise there. It exists in every other area of human behaviour.

What is also true, is that, in areas of human endeavour, quality very rarely appears without quantity. For every 10 second 100m runner, we start with a thousand athletes. For every singing star, we listen to a thousand Idol moppets whose only crime is feeling the joy of singing and having friends and relatives who are tone deaf. Similarly, quality of web sites is in some ways related to the sheer volume available. The good ones (or the ones that give their punters what they want, no matter how low brow) survive and grow.

Wikis are the same. Wikis have very much the flavour of talkback radio. The host or callers set a subject agenda; be it education crisis, taxes or teenagers, and listeners ring in or SMS or email and give their 2c worth. Some are informed on the subject, others not, but through steady contributions, disagreements and corrections and a guiding hand from the host and a ready finger paused over the “kill” button, a picture emerges of the tone or direction of the views on the topic.

Wikis show themselves to be greatly representative of the democracy of ideas;
everyone is invited to contribute to update this ’Wiki, with each input, presumably, of equal value, and with people expected to be on their honour.

The examples provided in the exercise were very interesting. They show that there are a variety of applications for wikis. In a public library such activities as annotating references to books in the catalogues, reviews, local history, kid’s wikis, special interest forums, Friends of the library type groups, suggestions for purchase, are all very feasible.

The increasing level of computer ownership and internet subscription suggest that in the very near future such activities will be as commonly expected of a public library as books and magazines