Discussion:Wiki
Wikis–Are They Too “Editable”?
Moira Hunter
Annie Wilson
I am working with Wikis in Dafne’s USB class and having a lot of fun. I like being able to create a network of pages that are all my own. But, just as anyone can read or add content to a wiki site, anyone can also take content off a web site. While creating my very own wiki the first week of class, without realizing the editing powers I had at hand, I erased Dafne’s written instructions for the entire class. Dafne, the easy-going person she is, laughed it off as no big deal, but if I had been her (and if I had not saved those instructions) I would have been very frustrated. I checked to see if it was true, if I could just erase and change aspects of my classmates wikis, sure enough, Marianela and Jose’s pages were at my disposal. After reading the article, “Teaching and learning online with wikis” by Naomi Augar, Ruth Raitman and Wanlei Zhou (http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/augar.html), I entered wikipedia to see if I could edit the often-consulted Wikipedia–and I could! While Wikipedia’s page states that the administrators protect pages that “show themselves to be particularly prone to vandalism,” I entered two pages that I felt were controversial and just clicked the “edit this page” tab and added text–amazing! While I think that a collaborative web space is beneficial, I think that too much freedom to edit can be problematic in a learning situation, important alterations to class web pages should require teacher approval. I also think, that while its very empowering to be able to enter in Wikipedia and add or delete text, users need to be well aware that when they are citing Wikipedia, they very well may be citing yours truly.
Note: This was an optional reading for Dafne’s USB course, I don’t think it is on the WebHead reading list.
Moira Hunter
I must admit that I didn’t read anything here at all. I found the site immediately too ‘heavy’ and didn’t even want to enter one page, let alone the whole list.
However, I loved your comments Annie.
I have very limited experience with wikis. I had to use Plone for a project and found it extremely unuser-friendly. Was it because the administrator was not doing his ‘job’ properly? I don’t know. But what I noticed was that nobody edited other postings, eveyrone remained ‘polite’ and never touched /edited anything. As there was no interaction, there was then ‘online death’. Perhaps the wrong tool had been chosen for this particular collaborative project?
In one of my public speaking classes, a student had chosen Wikipedia as the subject. It was an excellent presentation, well illustrated with examples, so I totally agree with your comment “users need to be well aware that when they are citing Wikipedia, they very well may be citing yours truly .
Nina Liakos
I did not read this article, but when I realized that wikis, including Wikipedia, could be altered by anyone who felt like it, I had exactly the same reaction: why should I trust information I find there? How do I know the person who modified the entry to be qualified to do so? Is truth whatever anyone decides it is?
Many people seem to enjoy wreaking havoc with other people’s stuff: vandals, hackers… It seems to give them pleasure to destroy. I don’t know why such people would not be attracted to wikis. It’s like leaving the front door to your house open and your wallet on the hall table. Nina
