Dare to say what nobody dares to say
December 26th, 2009
Dare to say what nobody dares to saySome times I come across a blog post that is so ad rem that I wish I had written it myself. One such blog post is "Thoughts on wikis" which you can find on the iperimeter blog.
From the article:
All wiki platforms I have used appear to make the following assumptions:
1) Formatting, beyond a very basic level, doesn't matter
2) People are prepared to put time and effort into learning and using the platform and/or its WYSIWYG editor
3) All content fits cleanly into a predefined structure
4) Once the information is in the wiki, people don't need to get it out again
5) Users are IT literate and have a conceptual interest in the wiki as a platform
I'd like add:
6) Users are able to figure out where to upload pictures so they can reference it using an Url
Of course, none of that is true. We are genuinly convinced that the true potential of wikis haven't even emerged. Once people can start to add content, move stuff around, do true WYSIWYG, all within the luxury of their familiar word processor, that's when we will start to see true content appearing.
Strangely, that is not the kind of comments you should make. Somehow, wikis still remain up to today a tool for the happy few. The technical thresholds seem to prevent many people from participating. Not a very democratic view. Along that same line, here is an other assumption that everybody seems to be making:
7) Wikis should all be open source and be free
That is true of course for the mother of all wikis: our beloved http://www.wikipedia.com. But even there, the money needs to come from somewhere.
We were even believing that for some time. Numerous people said that WordonWiki should really offer OpenOffice as an alternative editor. While that is certainly a feature on our backlog, interviews and usability sessions with real users have learned us that this is only a marginal request.
Let us know what you think.
Roland.
PS.
I was busy commenting this information on the author's blog, but some strange registration system was used. I had to login with my exisiting google or wordpress account. I did not feel comfortable doing that.
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