2.2 Wikis

Vannevar Bush
 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/3881/

Reading;
His paper as we may think.

'Selection by association'

Intuitive thinking in wiki's - the HTML links which go to other pages.  ‘The idea of intuitive linking is embedded in the software of most wikis’.

Excerp: This direct association is implemented in the way that new pages are created in a typical wiki. Instead of creating a page and then linking to it (the way things are done when creating a regular website), pages are created on the fly as new links are added to the wiki. To create a new page, the user highlights a word whilst in editing mode and creates a link for that word. In the background the wiki software creates a new page with this title. This page can then be edited by other wiki users.

To write and mark up on wiki it isn't limited to HTML, wikis are aimed to be kept simple.  Thus they have wiki text;

Wikitext is intentionally designed to be as intuitive and easy to use as a text editor. Generally you will find it no harder to write text to a wiki than you would to post a message in Blackboard.

Making the links, so far I understand this to be that we have to find something already existing online that we can link to.



Activity;
Although this activity might seem somewhat trivial, it is important that you experiment with wikitext in order to prepare yourself for Activity Two.
Open this page in a new window - It contains the first page of the wikipedia editing tutorial (Don't worry, there are only 3 pages of it!)
Read through the page, then continue to the next page (formatting) and the next (linking)
Then, use the sandbox link at the bottom of the page to experiment with what you have learned.
See if you can create a link in the sandbox to an article that already exists on wikipedia.
Now contemplate the fact that you could, should you wish to, edit any page on the world's largest encyclopedia!
Since wikitext is designed to be used by someone with no technical skills, most wikis do not allow the use of non-HTML elements such as Javscript, although increasingly wikis are allowing the embedding of Flash and other more dynamic elements.
Reflection;
I did the formatting change but got a little lost on the linking.  Will play a bit more with this, but don’t think I will be making any changes to Wiki pages any time soon, even the body types page intimidated me and I have studied that..
Logging changes are noted on Wiki pages so people can see what changes have been made and when, this is all visible through its history page.  You can make changes as anonymous or register and become a regular contributor, does registering increase your validity?  There is a small amount of people who regularly edit Wiki pages, they are all very intellectual, hence my hesitation to contribute to this weeks task.
After all, the nature of wikis is that they are designed to be a tool for people working together. Consequently, most wikis typically have a discussion page that is also 'hidden' behind the each and every page where users can discuss the possible implementation of changes before committing to an edit.

In most Uni’s Wikipedia the main page can not be used as a reference for assignments, there is Wiki Academic that could be used.  It has been used as a news source.  There was a youtube.com video to watch that observed the changes over the month, of and after the bombing.

Activity 2; knowledge sharing.
I skipped this one, sorry felt inadequate that it would just disappear after I annoyed someone for contributing.  Brain was all mushy from new info and couldn’t organise anything in my brain to be coherent.


The Quality of Open Source Production; Zealots and Good Samaritans in the case of Wikipedia.

This reading was an interesting insight as to who is behind wikipedia, registered or anonymous.  I did read this but did not write down my notes as I went along so I am frustrated that I have to note what I can remember struck a chord for me.
Wikipedia has this culture around the academics that contribute to it, but the people who use it are wary of whether the source is reliable as it is constantly being updated and changed, even though there is a select few, as little as 1000, avid adjusters who go through and correct any wrong tampering with Wiki.
‘open source production essentially involves creating a public good, and therefore entails the same social dilemma that confronts the production and maintenance of other public goods.

They are questioning that if a casual person contributes to Wiki does it bring down the quality of Wiki, seeing as though they don’t have a reputation to uphold.  But is this going against what has been discussed by Clay Shirky, The wisdom of Crowds.  Specialists can and should be able to contribute to their subject of knowledge on Wiki.

Readings:
Denise Anthony, Sean W. Smith, and Tim Williamson, "The Quality of Open Source Production: Zealots and Good Samaritans in the Case of Wikipedia." Dartmouth Computer Science Technical Report TR2007-606, September 2007.