> I don't have a specific reference for you, just some > comments. :) I think perhaps your original claim is too > strong--on both counts. > Including the word "can" as you did in your reply is > important. Wikis CAN lead to high-quality content. And CAN > lead to active communities.
Yes, I came to the same realization after writing my reply. I have started quite a few wiki sites that never achieved either quality nor active communities ;-). > (Clearly there are examples of active communities and > examples of wikis that never get used much.) I am not > convinced that the technology itself leads to high-quality > articles in Wikipedia, and I don't think that the Nature > article supports that claim in any way. When I talk about "wiki", I am not talking about just the technology. I am also talking about the wiki way and philosophy (which, btw, I consider much more significant than the technology that we currently use to support that wiki way and philosophy). > One could hypothesize about characteristics of wiki that help > support the goal of producing high-quality articles and try > to empirically verify the claim, but to my knowledge no one > has done so in any systematic fashion. Well, there are a number of wiki patterns and anti-patterns that have been written here: www.wikipatterns.com But that's not exactly a scientific analysis of what works and doesn't. Oh welll... Maybe I'll just leave it as a "bold" claim. Thx Andrea. Alain _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
