Wiki: The Wisdom of the Crowd

The Social Media Bible, Chapter 8: The Wisdom of the Wiki

I was just recently listening to a podcast  by comedian Chris Hardwick, in which he and his panel were talking about Wikipedia, both from the standpoint of it being a useful tool, but also that they get upset when they can’t change stuff on the page about them. (Ironically, the link I just included for Chris is to his Wikipedia page!)

Author Lon Safko begins this chapter by saying “these web sites truly represent the social media foundation of user-generated content and the wisdom of the crowds.”  (p. 159) and ends the chapter with “a great way to collect the wisdom of the crowd.” (P. 172) Of course, that is both the good and the bad about wikis…they are the wisdom of the crowd, and you’re just never sure how much you can trust the crowd. As a teacher at the college level, I am careful to always include in my syllabus that Wikipedia is NOT an appropriate source for a true research paper. But, when we talk about that in class, I am glad to hear that many of the students understand that SOME of the info in Wikipedia (and other wikis, for that matter) is actually correctly cited, meaning you could go to the original source material…if you wanted to.

In my class, we sometimes use a form of a wiki to allow many students to participate in building a common page with information on a topic. If you’ve ever used Google Docs to share info with others, you’ve used a form of a wiki that allows several people to all be working on the same document at the same time. Safko explains it best when he says “a wiki is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead, it seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creating and collaboration that constantly changes the web site landscape.” (p. 161)

I’ve been reading recently about what you might call an extension of the wiki process…crowdsourcing. The most recent example was somewhat controversial, when the New York Times and the Washington Post used a wiki-like method of social media input to have “regular joes”  review thousands of emails that Sarah Palin had released. The Associated Press’  Mike Baker laid out the situation well in his article: Palin emails let old media test new media reporting methods.

Safko gives a great example of a wiki-like site called MyGads.com. If you haven’t yet checked out the video that explains their process, do it now. I’m already trying to figure out how I might use this in some of the classes I teach, to help students find some information they need quickly, without always having to open up their laptops to go to our classroom site (e.g., Blackboard). And if I was still in the business world, I’d be considering ways to develop a wiki to allow employees to share ideas about how to do their jobs better…with everyone contributing and seeing what others have contributed.

Of course, it is still an issue that wikis allow ANYONE to add to or change the information that has been posted there. But as long as you can live with that, it could be a good tactic to help your company.