Thing 10: Wikis

So now I've worked with both Google Docs and the wiki we're developing here at work. It's a matter of scale, isn't it? If only a few people need to contribute to a document, use Google Docs or a similar service. But if you want input from anywhere from several people to the world, you'd be better served by a wiki.

I don't think I'm enough of a free spirit to truly enjoy a wiki. I like a little uniformity in my documents (note that possessive pronoun). The wiki at work is intended to replace our procedures manual(s) and several people are contributing.This is excellent for many reasons: the person who understands her/his job best is the one writing it up, the work is shared with everyone and not just dumped on the hapless soul who couldn't get away fast enough, and if we remember to keep it up, the wiki will be reasonably current. But no two people have the same writing style, so each entry is organized differently--heck, no two people really agree on layout. And yes, I'm a perfectionist, but that touch of chaos irritates me. Other wikis out there look like they have more uniformity--perhaps someone lightly edits the whole thing, or they have templates to work from?

My obsessive-compulsive tendencies aside, wikis have a lot of potential. Wikipedia has been on my mind recently because of the reference class I'm in. The professor has not wanted us to use Wikipedia, and I haven't been sure if that's simply because it's the easy answer (and in a reference class, understandably, you want students to familiarize themselves with several sources) or because of Wikipedia's slightly unsavory reputation. When I've looked up a subject on Wikipedia that I know enough about to catch errors, the articles have been accurate, so I think of it as a good place to find a "good-enough" answer. Perhaps Wikipedia just needs a little more time to gain acceptance. After all, a co-worker told me that when she went through library school, in the pre-Wikipedia days, the reference professors wouldn't let them use Google to look anything up--it wasn't seen as being as reputable as Yahoo.