"Back in Nagasaki where the fellas chew tobaccy and the women wicky-wacky woo"
"Nagasaki," Harry Warren, 1928
I have to admit, although the practical aspects of wikis appeal to me, for the most part I find them dead boring. They are generally as exciting as an index at the back of a mechanical engineering textbook (no offense to mechanical engineers). They tend to all look alike, yet each will have a different way of organizing their information which is generally not intuitive & after using some I feel like my eyes have started to cross.
Wikipedia is the obvious exception to the rule, it is simple to use & I often spend a lot of time going deeper into my search & then end up on some completely unrelated tangent an hour later. They are vigilant about keeping their information accurate & repair pages as soon as possible if they have been vandalized. I was especially impressed by the way people all over the world used Wikipedia as their up-to-the-second news center during the London bombing attacks in 2005.
Don't know what I'm talking about? Check out this excellent time lapse video of the Wikipedia entry being updated over the first 24 hours after the bombings:
"Nagasaki," Harry Warren, 1928
I have to admit, although the practical aspects of wikis appeal to me, for the most part I find them dead boring. They are generally as exciting as an index at the back of a mechanical engineering textbook (no offense to mechanical engineers). They tend to all look alike, yet each will have a different way of organizing their information which is generally not intuitive & after using some I feel like my eyes have started to cross.
Wikipedia is the obvious exception to the rule, it is simple to use & I often spend a lot of time going deeper into my search & then end up on some completely unrelated tangent an hour later. They are vigilant about keeping their information accurate & repair pages as soon as possible if they have been vandalized. I was especially impressed by the way people all over the world used Wikipedia as their up-to-the-second news center during the London bombing attacks in 2005.
Don't know what I'm talking about? Check out this excellent time lapse video of the Wikipedia entry being updated over the first 24 hours after the bombings:
That validated wikis for me & made me really excited about the potential of websites with user-generated content. Why does it feel like wikis haven't come very far in 4 years?
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of compiling book reviews or subject guides this way. I also think the Policies & Procedures manual should become more wiki-like. It would be great to put Committee minutes on a wiki, where it would be easy to track follow-up actions & be (gasp) searchable. I've seen a couple co-workers mention wikis that they have created for their specific branch or committee & would be curious to see how they are being used. My mind is still open to wikis in the workplace, but so far I'm not their biggest fan.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of compiling book reviews or subject guides this way. I also think the Policies & Procedures manual should become more wiki-like. It would be great to put Committee minutes on a wiki, where it would be easy to track follow-up actions & be (gasp) searchable. I've seen a couple co-workers mention wikis that they have created for their specific branch or committee & would be curious to see how they are being used. My mind is still open to wikis in the workplace, but so far I'm not their biggest fan.
You can find Russ Meyer on Wikipedia, btw...
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