Week 4: Wikis

It's been a while since my last post -- I had some time off for being sick and I guess I'd lost some traction since. But I think, in all honesty, I was also a bit stumped by the activities for Week 4. Wikis.

I guess, in a lot of ways, it's difficult for me to say what it is I find interesting about wikis and what I think would work well because for me it just seems like wikis (and Wikipedia) have always just been there. It just is. It might be a bit of my own inherent naivety but I actually had no understanding of the concept of Web 2.0 and co-collaboration when I was exposed (and addicted) to wikis from a while back.

I think, going back to the first time I used wikis, what I found quite interesting was the argument that wikis would contribute to a "dumbing down" of online information, particularly the sense of what could you trust and what you couldn't. I can understand this argument, and have certainly come across a wikidoozy or two, but I think my experience of wikis has generally been positive. People who contribute to a topic are, yes, generally passionate (sometimes fanatical) about their subject at hand but maybe it's that passion about their subject that makes contributors most fervent about making sure details are factual and substantiated. There is always a risk that content is biased/subjective but, hey, I think that's a risk that we take when we expose ourselves to any information medium in this day and age. Who can we really trust?

I have no doubt the Library could use wikis for its purposes, and I even think that those who would be most passionate about contributing would possibly be those from outside of the Library. I'm not really certain yet as to exactly what information in the Library we would be wikifying but as an information organisation in this day and age, it is certainly important for the Library to open its information channels as a collaborative means rather than as a pure disseminator of information.