A WikiWithAuthority is like a Wiki, but it has a trusted administrator, and every page has two versions:
- A read-write version that anybody can edit
- A read-only "authoritative" version
Both versions are visible to users. The users can switch back and forth. This is great for you to host if, say, you want to write a technical document and allow people to suggest corrections, but you don't want to be vulnerable to
WikiGremlins who would just delete your document without reason. This might also be attractive to corporate sites, since there would be an authoritative version which they control, and a non-authoritative version which the users control.
The administrator would have the power to
- Copy the read-write version over the read-only "authoritative" version, thus "blessing" the changes (this should be done periodically)
- Copy the authoritative version over the read-write version, thus erasing the changes people have made (this wouldn't be done except in response to a rude page deletion or something)
- Edit the authoritative version in response to requests made in the read-write version
The users would have the power to "vote" to ask the administrator to do these things.
The system could log all changes, and thus make it possible for the administrator to take a vacation, then come back and see all the non-authoritative versions of a page and therefore "bless" a good change that was made immediately prior to a vandal's deletion.
It would still be possible to create and delete pages, of course. Imagine a "null page" which means the page doesn't exist. It's possible for the authoritative version of a page to be null, or the non-authoritative version, or both. (And there might be reasons for administrators to bless page deletions.)
What do you think?
A simple and good idea. BUT it does depend on the administrator frequently 'blessing' the updates.
-
- Actually not: if the administrator decided to disappear for a while, the non-authoritative part of the system would act exactly like an ordinary Wiki. The authoritative version might begin to appear dated after a while, but people would probably stop looking at it until it popped up on RecentChanges again.
The administrator will also be tempted to 'have the last word' on the reference versions of the pages - a temptation they would be well advised to resist.
-
- "Having the last word" is what the authoritative version is for. Readers can always ignore the authoritative version if they don't like it. The temptation the administrator really has to resist is the temptation to keep undoing the changes he doesn't like on the non-authoritative Wiki. If he's smart, he'll just act like an ordinary citizen there.
A related idea of wiki with authority is giving the administrator, and only the administrator, the authority to classify pages. The essential feature is that this allows the administrator to leave pages that they feel are off-topic or low quality as unclassified pages. This could help to separate signal from noise. It also allows the administrator to steer the wiki and to maintain focus to the topics they are interested in - which if they are also the host is fair dos.
-
- The problem here is that an attacker could always target whatever pages the administrator thought were "high quality." It might be mitigated somewhat if all the old versions of pages were kept in some sort of archives and were user-browsable, sort of an ElephantWiki? (so called because it never forgets). Then the administrator could index the last "good" version of a page, instead of always being tied to the current version. He'd "bless" a page in this system by updating his index to point to the most recent good version.
Whatever variant of wiki with authority one cooks up, important considerations are:
- The administrator's time. Does the extra burden on the admin have sufficient payoff for the admin?
- Perceived fairness. Will contributors feel the admin is doing them a service or that they are taking a 'power position'
- Exploitability. Can the intention of the system be circumvented - e.g. might a miscreant delete the user editable version of ColorBlindness and create a new page, ColourBlindness with the original content modified, that has (initially) no blessed reference copy to compare against.
The first point can be dealt with by having a trusted administrator per page. Some administrators would have the rightss to assign page administrators. Some of those would have the right to nominate which administrators had that right
For a wiki with a small community (as few as one, e.g. a wiki set up for a personal project) it might make sense to do something like this.
The idea I had was to provide two sections on each page: a read-only section at the top that only the administrator could edit, and a freely-editable section at the bottom. I would use the top section as a wiki for myself, while making its content available for others to browse, and providing them a space to comment/deface/whatever at the bottom.
This is not a Wiki. Which is okay.
It is a wiki, it is just not a wiki that is freely editable. To define a wiki as only being wiki if any and everyone can do what they will to any and all parts of it, is to define a violent wiki. To impose a control upon just how much violence one will allow is tenable and prudent. If one creates and sustains a wiki, one should also be able to define a stable and reliable partition over which ownership is exerted. This is what one might call a "moderated" wiki. Moderation can take the form of editorial control, access control, or a control based on community-wide trust. The valuable content of a wiki must be based upon imposition of controls, whether based upon mechanics or upon a reliable interchange of sensible and reasonable dialog and collaboration. --DonaldNoyes
CategoryWiki
Wiki With Authority