Wiki "Communities"
Earlier this week I blogged about Ward Cunningham's speach on wikis and community. This idea of "did the community create the wiki, or did the wiki create the community" has been rolling around in my head and bouncing the corners a bit.
My values and past experience usually lead me to conclude that it is always people who form communities, but his statement asked me to check my assumptions. And it helped me reframe the question to "did the community create the wiki, or did the wiki CATALYZE community." This links to all the value AND hype of "web 2.0." Changes in technology have the possibility of influencing and catalyzing changes in people's (and particularly groups') behavior. But the don't create the behavior. We do that.
So anyway, that got me thinking about "wiki communities." As in "blog communities" - as in are there networks of wikis that form either loose networks or tighter, defined communities. Do you know of any?
I have found good examples of people who contribute to a wiki and thus, through the mutual act of contribution, become community. Ross Mayfield recently pointed to some of this in his posts at Many2Many (which seems to be nudging back to activity). He pointed to the StartupExchange and the Broadband Around the Planet Project. These join venerable old timers (funny to say that) Wikipedia and disaster response wikis for the SE Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and Recovery 2.0
So the observation is emerging that tools like wikis and blogs offer us a catalyst to find each other and then move forward to action -- if we get our act together. This is what Rob and Alexandra talk about in their response to my skepticism about Web 2.0 making collaboration "almost efortless." I still say we are miles away from efortless for intentional collaboration. But that ease of getting connected in preparation for the commitment to action is happening. The catalyst to find our shared interes and, hopefully, intention.
Nuff said for a Friday night. Back to work!
web20, recovery2, collaboration, cooperation, online_community, community, wiki
posted by Nancy White at 8:20 PM
3 Comments:
I would love to know a lot more about networks of networks that intentionally move themselves toward social action; as well as being part one one or more!
~Alex
Hi Nancy, you ask
"thinking about "wiki communities." As in "blog communities" - as in are there networks of wikis that form either loose networks or tighter, defined communities."
It strikes me a Wiki is a kind of network for a group or community anyway, so the only networks of wikis which are likely to spring up will be at the meta level - wikis about a particular piece of wiki software (eg meta.mediawiki) or about negotiating boundaries between wikis - interwiki.
In very general terms, wikis are for groups but blogs are for individuals, in addition to the differentiation where blogs are structured around time, and wikis around topics.
As to the 'which came first, the wiki or the community' question, I think it can be either, and increasingly both. I have demonstrated the 'existing community creates a wiki' thing last year, but the other way round is probably harder. Surely wikipedia is a pretty good example of Wiki creates community?
For the most part, like any online communication method, they work best when there already is some sort of pre-existing social organization. In a relatively few cases do social groups form through the introduction of these forums, but even still, they follow the same growth pattern as anything else. A lot of advertising, word of mouth, and the creation of value and/or entertainment.
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