Back to Basics: the wiki

Discussion about wiki technologies is dominated by the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia. But there’s more to wikis than Wikipedia, and a host of wiki applications exist to help you create information resources with some powerful tools.

The name “wiki” is derived from the Hawaiian for quick (in Honolulu, what they actually shout is “wiki wiki”). Wiki software enables anyone to edit, create or delete content within a wiki-based information resource and do so without requiring access to complicated tools or hierarchical permission systems. Wikipedia’s critics say that this anyone-can-edit method, dubbed the wisdom of crowds, will all end in tears.

A wiki brings information-gathering alive by throwing data control out into the community. It is the definition of the wisdom of crowds in action: wikis move responsibility for content control and editing away from one selected individual. Typically, such mass scrutiny makes it all but impossible for misinformation to survive.

Please note that the word here is “survive” rather than “exist”. The much publicised misinformation that appears on Wikipedia (such as how the late composer Ronnie Hazlehurst, best known for his TV theme tunes, had penned the S-Club 7 hit Reach for the Stars) does not survive; once exposed to a wider audience, the bad information is weeded out. This can only work with a wiki because the immediacy of the content editing process allows for mistakes to be corrected without would-be editors having to jump through hoops made of administrative-grade red tape.

In the same way, new pages can be added to a wiki-enabled resource if something is missing. The wiki’s community oversees both content creation and content maintenance. If a page is deleted soon after its creation and does not soon get restored or replaced, the crowd and its wisdom would suggest that the information was of little value to its audience in the first place.

Where information does have a value, to the particular audience of a particular wiki, then you will inevitably see the content constantly being tweaked and edited until the community is happy that it is factually correct. Only then does the editing cease.

Think of a wiki as a natural extension to the blogging concept, a classification-centric medium which allows for a freedom of content manipulation across a community of users that can’t be found in any other comparable technology. By engendering enthusiasm and commitment from every user, the wiki can become the perfect tool for the evolution of ideas. Indeed, wherever there is a need to truly cascade knowledge, and then submit that knowledge for further refinement in a bastardised and inverted peer-review kind of a way, then the wiki is fit for purpose.

Content is king
It should come as absolutely no surprise, then, to understand that wikis are at their most powerful within the content-is-king world of the information worker and knowledge facilitator. Within this sphere, wikis can best enable information archives to be built in previously unheard-of timescales, while at the same time the wisdom of crowds concept ensures the authority of that content is not compromised.
For rapid content growth within a collaborative environment, then, the wiki is a prime technology. But does its open-for-all-to-edit aspect rule it out where commercial confidences are concerned? Well, no, not at all. One of the wiki’s big advantages is flexibility. From the business perspective there is no problem with making an implementation as open or controlled as you like ­ on a per wiki basis in fact.

A wiki can be collaborative and dynamic while allowing access on a strictly controlled permissions basis, thus overcoming the confidentiality of content conundrum. Of course, the smaller the crowd that can manipulate the content then, in the wiki world at least, the more dilute the wisdom that can be applied to it.

The danger, therefore, is that if you contain the editing crowd too tightly it can negate one of the most important aspects of wiki working itself. It’s something to bear in mind at the very least, and the mistake is one often made by a corporate mindset venturing into truly collaborative content creation for the first time.

The main point to remember is that a wiki is the ideal tool wherever there is a need to cascade knowledge and dynamically update it over time. The ability to share this updated information with as many people as you wish is an added bonus. Just imagine all your staff providing input to a document review process instead of just one or two taking full responsibility for the proofreading and editing.

Indeed, the wiki should not be thought of purely in terms of a Wikipedia-alike reference source. Any data, any documents, anything at all that can be viewed within a web browser can also be brought into one central hub with that wiki. This means that everything from knowledge archiving to workflow tracking and even project planning can be thought of as within the domain of wiki usage.

The dynamism of the technology makes it equally at home within a large enterprise, where it can aggregate both task and knowledge content (and dispel the problems of disparate location distribution in one fell swoop), as it is within the more sedentary library environment, for example.

Blind to size and sector
Whatever the size or nature of your organisation, what a wiki brings to the table is just that: organisation. A wiki can help apply organisation to content where before there was, relatively speaking, information anarchy. What’s more, most wiki applications are open source-derived and free of charge, which is always something of a bonus.

Is a wiki the right tool for you and your organisation, then? If you work within an environment where there is already a fairly high level of trust, where collaboration is thought of as advantageous and not in a negative light, and where every employee is valued for their input, then the answer is almost certainly yes. For many organisations, though, it can be a huge leap of faith to ask for what might be described as the freeform manipulation of content, rather than restricting this ability to the favoured few.

However, once the hurdle of engendering ideas and enthusiasm, commitment and argument across the workplace has been overcome, you can get down to the business of ideas evolution. This ability to bring full and open collaboration to the party means that your organisation has the potential to discover a new-found agility that is driven by information. Look at wikis in terms of an integrated people network instead of the traditional team-based model, which all too often leads to isolated silos of staff, and isolated silos of thinking.

Commercial or Open Source?
The next decision will probably be whether to choose an open source or commercial wiki implementation. The right choice is not something that can be dictated within the scope of an article such as this. We can provide the outline, but colouring in the decision-making process is the job of the person holding the crayons ­ and that’s not us.

Commercial wikis tend to be stable and proven applications with access to paid-for technical support that is on hand when you need it. They are also far more likely to come as part of a bigger picture as far as web strategy is concerned, meaning easier integration with web content management and portal tools, for example.

Despite the commercial funding, it is the open source environment that enjoys the greater depth of development interest. Because the open source community can concentrate on wikis without having to be concerned by a broader application strategy, it can throw its not inconsiderable weight behind bringing more functionality and the very latest technologies into play.

While commercial applications will invariably be expensive, that doesn’t mean open source has no cost attached just because it is free. There’s a price to be paid in terms of stability, integration with other applications, and, most importantly, a lack of support.

Community support is fine, unless you happen to have a mission-critical problem and the chap who knows about that stuff is on holiday, or ill, or doesn’t want to help…

Danger: Wiki ahead
The wiki working landscape is not all roses and sunshine. Perhaps the most obvious negative is that of the open and collaborative nature of the wiki ­ its greatest asset but also potentially its biggest flaw.

Whether a wiki becomes a thorn in your knowledge archive side is, to be honest, entirely up to you and how you implement the wiki. Allow anyone anywhere to contribute anything to everything and you risk turning the information created into an unwieldy and irrelevant data beast.

It’s far better to get it right from the start and implement some form of wiki best-practice house rules. These will vary from wiki to wiki, and workplace to workplace, but the basics remain the same. Deploy an individual or small team with responsibility for wiki housekeeping to check that company policy is followed (remember, while you are at it, to create a policy) and that those who transgress are warned.

Some people say that the same team should act as a kind of wiki police, keeping the content in order and ensuring relevancy, but if the wiki is properly implemented and contributors properly educated about its usage, then the wisdom of crowds effect should do this policing all by itself with minimal interference.

The key is to ensure that everyone involved with the wiki is properly educated. That includes the people implementing it, commissioning it, and, of course, using it.
From the implementation and commissioning perspective, ensure that the business need has been addressed before buying into any wiki solution. What do you want to achieve from its implementation? What role will it play within your organisation?

From the user perspective, ensure that once the wiki has been implemented there is adequate training not only in the actual nuts and bolts usage of the application itself but also in adjusting the mindset of those employees who have been used to not contributing because their input has not been encouraged before.

A wiki stands or falls by the people who contribute to content creation. If they remain stifled within an environment of hierarchical ideas valuation, then a wiki-based project is doomed to fail…

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