Why Dont Others Get Wiki

I'm new here, and while I can't say I've had much experience with wiki, I've become an avid follower. I'm a fan, maybe a fanatic. Witness the signs:

I think I get wiki, or at least, I've seen enough of this and other wikis to see how things flow. I've even stuck my big toe in the water a few times, and actually gotten back wonderful and unexpected responses.

But here's my problem. Others I try to bring to wiki don't seem to get it. I don't think it's my communication skills, because the responses most people have are consistent, regardless of how I present it:

(And indeed, that last response was what turned off some people from wiki at work immediately. A few days ago, I brought up the FrontPage for this wiki and was greeted with something like "Can I really edit this page?" Thankfully, someone replaced the original page a while later. But that demonstration soured some folks from wiki.)

When I discuss the simplicity of the software, and the low "cost of entry" for people to weave a Web site, they think that's nice, but then wonder why I don't just use a more structured "Web board" discussion database. When I showed the insanely obvious "voting" mechanism used here (people edit a page, incrementing a count when they like something), they look at me like I'm nuts, and say there are plenty of good voting CGI applications out there.

So how can I best communicate my excitement for wiki? What have others who have also been bitten by the wiki bug done to infect others with Wikiness? So far, what I'm doing is setting up my own wiki, and populating it with a skeletal framework for a few different things I want to do with a wiki. They are:

My hope is that picking practical (and familiar) applications like this can be used to draw people in, and then I'll start hitting them with non-linear conversations, low-tech voting, and other idioms I've seen form on this and other wikis.

-- JohnPassaniti

One idea that may not go down so well with the bottom-up power to the people faction but has worked well for email and should be even more effective with intranet wikis: get the 'boss' at any level of the organization, but preferably the CEO, to say that the only notification of and minutes of meetings in future will be via the wiki. It's amazing how it snowballs from there. -- RichardDrake

I can't agree more with that... we are using a wiki at work for systems documentation, and every week in the staff meeting the director has the wiki on the big screen projector and types the minutes as the meeting goes along. Every time this happens in a meeting, the activity of the wiki is high for the rest of the day. -- SteveWainstead

We are using a small wiki for keeping Iteration Plans and Tech Notes. The wiki code is so simple it's a cinch to edit. We added an embedded dotgraph gizmo and SQL syntax coloring in an evening.

If your folks are worried about security, why not add page versioning and keep all the old copies. Every so often, run through and dump out the old stuff or save it to an archive file. For more paranoid types, also keep the id of the machine that did the deed and/or add tracking cookies. Regular backups don't hurt either.

If read security is what they want, well, what are you using Web tools for anyway??

-- EricBennett

"Wiki is just a mutant newsgroup format."

Well, judging by the role of RecentChanges to govern ThingsOnWikisMind amongst other things, I'd say, yes, it is a mutant newsgroup. However, it happens to be persistent without history, which makes it different. That is, I can (and have) legitimately reply to and edit pages written five years ago, simultaneously destroying the older version. It's a bit more than just a newsgroup - it's also a sink for information. ThreadMode vs DocumentMode. While both newsgroups and wiki flow in time, only wiki builds forward. -- SunirShah

Some people have no appreciation of CollectiveIntelligence. Such folk don't get wiki. People who like CollectiveIntelligence adore wiki. Wiki tells us a lot about DramaticIdentity. -- PeterMerel

I dislike the idea of a HiveMind, but I adore wiki anyway. What does that mean? -- BrettNeumeier

That means you like to bee yourself! -- EricHerman

"Wiki's (traditional) lack of security is unworkable."

If there is a security concern, it should be fairly trivial to address. There is no reason why your wiki couldn't have changes made through some versioning software a la CvWiki. At work, we back up servers all the time, and the servers themselves keep revision histories of the files. Almost never do we use these tools to recover data, but they are nice to have. You may never use them once, but if their absence is a barrier to people using a Wiki-like technology ... just add it in. -- EricHerman

Um, unworkable for whom?

Wiki appears to be unworkable to many who have seen other online communities dissolve due to spam, flames, or trolls. Sometimes, even a well-behaved group can overwhelm a community - imagine if every hour there was a new page (with a new WikiName each time) asking common questions like "Doesn't XP have to do BigDesignUpFront?", or "Couldn't someone erase all of this? (Yes, see WikiErase)". Most large communities have dealt with these problems by moderating and/or filtering systems.

It is all about control. To give them the sense of security, offer then the TwikiClone and have the TwikiClone run on a machine accessible only from inside the company.

"A few days ago, I brought up the FrontPage for this wiki and was greeted with something like "Can I really edit this page?" Thankfully, someone replaced the original page a while later. But that demonstration soured some folks from wiki."

Waiting for someone else to FixYourWiki seems like a lost opportunity to demonstrate wiki's resilience: "Now here's the wiki's front page - oh, it's been changed. Hang on a sec, let me restore it -" a few mouse clicks "- there." (gasps of awe from onlookers) "As I was saying, ..."

With wiki at work, the security objection should be easy to overcome. Just ask them what procedures they have in place to stop employees from vandalising physical bulletin boards, artwork in the hallways, etc. Act suprised when they don't come up with a good answer. -- MichaelSparks

Only wiki builds forward

This is one of the essential points. (cf. WikiEssence, ElementsOfWikiEssence) In differentiating wiki from newsgroups to someone in my organization, I described it as "permanent and organized". I'm aware that newsgroups can be considered permanent by virtue of DejaNews, but the forward flow in time of information in newsgroups is harder to follow - it's less integrated. But a much more important differentiator in the organization dimension is that wiki is hypertext and newsgroups are not, and therefore wiki's organization of information is arguably much closer to our brains' organization of information than are the newsgroups' (reminds me of the MindMap book).

-- RandyStafford

Where other forum models only accumulate conflicting opinions, wiki facilitates and encourages synthesis.

-- EricScheid

If WikiIsMindMapping?, the packers will not join in. You might need to read about ReciprocalityTheory, at least "Day 1" of "r0, TheProgrammersStone" to see why the packers grokn't the mappers.

Wiki is small (January 11, 2000)

The PortlandPatternRepository is a relatively small community. Only a few thousand people have ever edited a wiki page. A popular topic listed in RecentChanges might be read 200 times in a day. My best guess at C2's wiki traffic (from the top-10 data) is 8,000 to 15,000 wiki pageviews per day. (The FoxForumWiki appears to be almost as active. About five other public wikis are reasonably active, and most are nearly empty.)

The small size of the PPR/Wiki community may be intentional. Ward has avoided some high-profile links to the PPR wiki. (See SlashDot.) PPR has survived a few SlashDot links from people replying to XP stories, but has not been tested with a story focused on Wiki.

RecentChanges is awkward

RecentChanges is the main user interface for the wiki community. Some people find the roadmaps and guides more useful in finding content, but the community gathers around RecentChanges. When I was editing ChangeSummary, I estimated about 30 minutes a day were spent just looking for changes. (Later, custom tools cut this time to about 15 minutes.) Here are some of the bigger problems with RecentChanges:

Not all wikis have these problems/features. The FoxForumWiki divides major topics into namespaces, has a checkbox which allows minor changes to be ignored, and puts the most recent on top. A few wikis have more convenient "diff" features to find what changed on a page. -- CliffordAdams

I'd guess that minor changes are part of the lifeblood of wikis. It brings certain old pages back to RecentChanges and keeps newer pages active because it causes people to reread the content again, which leads to new reactions and edits. cf ThingsOnWikisMind -- ss

Special discussion pages such as Village Pump and WatchLists? such as at WikiPedia solve the problem of overwhelming amount of RecentChanges. In a large organisation you would monitor new sections appearing on that general page (i.e. is that topic interesting to me? Yes/No) and individual pages that you are already interested in. The problems you describe are specific to certain Wiki software. @SIG@ ~~~~

See ChangeSummaryDiscussion

Metaphors for Wiki

May be ThreeRingBinders could be a useful metaphor in describing wiki and perhaps why some some resist wiki.

Seems that ThreeRingBinders were the hard copy version of an intranet for the enterprise, agency or institution that it served. Good ThreeRingBinders permitted forward evolution more so than the typical intranet does today. That is ThreeRingBinders had certain wiki-like qualities.

However, in lieu of page linking, the binder permitted easy addition of pages to the appropriate section and in the appropriate place within the section. What wiki does is replace the sectional organization and the page sequence with an open, three-dimensional hyperlinking page scheme.

One could ink or pencil in comments and cross-references and, more recently, append sticky notes to the pages in the binder. Unlike the binder that may have been assigned to an individual or a work group, wiki permits these comments to be shared with all.

What made the binders special, beyond writing on a page, was that whole pages could be added. Even better, the binders permitted a bit of the wiki anarchy, in that users could add their own pages (memos from above, below and contemporaries as well as oneself within the organization). Perhaps the control freqs that want their intranet to replicate the one way communication, top/down, of the ThreeRingBinders helps us identify some of the resistance to wiki in terms of the negative reaction to ThreeRingBinders.

-- JohnDeBruyn (January 17, 2000)

Ask the people if they ever read a learning book. Let's say TheArtOfComputerProgramming. Like most other books, it will have plenty of errors found. Now, IfThisBookWereaWiki?, the first person finding the error could fix it. That would be wonderful, and save everybody plenty of work. Hours of work or days of work.

-- DreamingWikiWriter?

I think wikis are kinda' like plants. They start out as something small (like a seed) and fairly insignificant in appearance, but with a bit of gardening they can turn into a giant oak tree (or Redwood). Having introduced several wikis at work (for managers and developers), I find myself doing some WikiWatering in the early stages to help it "grow". Once the branches start sprouting, people began to "Get wiki".

-- AntonyWilson?

I just started a wiki at work too and have been met with a similar response. I think the fact is that, right NOW wikis are still too new. People aren't versed in its interface like they are to the messageboard interface or the WorldWideWeb interface. A common thing wiki-users overlook is the need for a better, more intuitive interface. A lot of times, we don't realize that something needs to be changed, but if you watch a new-comer try to navigate the Wiki you'll realize that there REALLY ISN'T ENOUGH HELP to guide the user... They're not used to the non-linear navigation (even though the Web should've trained them by now) enough to navigate... they have no idea where to start! ~ JimmyLo?

That's not a valid point. It is that people aren't USED to a wiki format, but not that it's too new. Good grief - wiki is nearly as old as graphical browsers... -- KyleBrown

I've also set up a wiki where I work and emailed a link to a variety of people I like there and who I thought might take an interest. Nope. Although I have used it to document projects I'm working on and to solicit feedback, my boss has never entered a comment into it. I think it's mostly fear of writing. Some people are not comfortable having their dumb-ass ideas captured for posterity. Let's face it, writing makes us look stupid. I used to be afraid of that, but I GOT OVER IT. Yes, I got over my fear, and now I'm just angry. -- WaldenMathews

Apropos of nothing, I can't help noticing how nice Jimmy's signature looks above, and I think from now on, I'll be WaltzingWithMyTilde, too.

May be a Wiki needs to get a single clearly good use case first (e.g. for a school it can be keeping track of what books staff members need the library to order - a Wiki page is much better than any alternative), and after that people may gradually start creating their own pages and co-operating there in small teams, eventually making this wiki blossom. -- IdontHaveanAccount?

I just can't understand why anyone would want to use the wiki system personally. I wouldn't want people to be able to edit my content directly. An open comments section for each page could be fun, but actually allowing a user to edit and add to an original post is a bit insane. *shrug* To each their own. I guess this system requires a bit of trust in people. Unfortunately, all my dealings with the average internet user have left me with little trust in humanity these days.

Why is letting people edit your content bad? As I see it, the two concerns are vandalism and lack of ownership/responsibility/accountability. The first is addressed by the ease of editing. The second is harder. It's the difference between an individual creator who expects to be recognized and a communal builder for whom the work is its own reward. But communal builders still have to eat, so I can see WikiZens who are also professional content creators drawing a bright line between their communal and individual efforts. -- KatherineDerbyshire

I just created a wiki designed to support a small group of amateur artists/authors/etc... however, since most aren't WikiAddicts like myself, they wouldn't have been comfortable with the idea of their work being editable. So I made it possible to have two parts to a page; one being a static part that can contain text and/or artwork, and another which is a standard wiki. That way people can post their work without worrying that it's going to be altered somehow. -- DanielChurch

As a wiki (and TestFirst) evangelist at a new job, I installed EddiesWiki here, and started to put info in it that my colleagues should read at need, but which would have otherwise fallen thru the cracks:

Two days ago, I gave a presentation on a WikiClone (ChiqChaq), and have found the wiki concept very hard to convey. People just don't get it. Anyway, two useful tips that did work:

-- RoySharon?

I'll also note that sometimes wiki just isn't worthwhile, particularly in many work domains. Wiki is a tool, just like anything else, and while it's fabulous in some cases, there are places where its advantages are dubious at best. I wouldn't want to replace the InternalRevenueService? (as an American example) Web site with a wiki. It would be defaced too often. This isn't a weakness in wiki; wiki's just not appropriate in that sort of situation.

An alternative is to create a Web site that is partially a standard Web site and partially a wiki, and grow the wiki content over time. This allows you to control that content that you want to control, but also encourage wiki pages to build themselves when there's a need to do so.

-- BrentNewhall

Antony (and Ward) - I'm about to start a wiki and would be most grateful for any advice you might give me about StartingaWiki, doing WikiWatering, etc. Thanks in advance. -- RandyStafford

It is very hard for wiki to compete against email. Email is used every day. Adding a new source and sink for information is a big marketing campaign.

Could it be that we don't get the others? I used to have a pet theory that it was only INTP types that took to this kind of stuff but kids seems to be jumping into it (IM, texting etc.) so maybe we've just been ahead of the game all along :)

Rename is a good idea, especially if the links are fixed up too. For a create/delete I would just have a simple form with a data entry box for the page name. On the save take them to the page edit.

BlackHat: While it's an interesting suggestion, note that making adding pages easier could lead to the creation of OrphanPages; making renaming and deleting pages easier could lead to a plethora of BrokenLinks. Discussion of the mechanics and consequences of these features belongs on another page, though.

AnonymousDonor: In my many attempts to get people interested in wiki, I've found that one reason that others don't get wiki is they can't figure out how to do simple things that are obvious in other systems. If the delete cleans up BrokenLink's then there wouldn't be any broken links. If you want to make it hard to contribute then just make it read-only and be done with it. The pain of not having people contribute is far worse than the trivial concern of OrphanPages.

CategoryWiki

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