I don't like wikis. Oh, I like Wikipedia well enough, but to make a website, no thanks. It's not like I don't like trying new things (not that wikis could be considered new anymore), but for me it is all around design- it is impossible to get a nice look and feel in a wiki.
Wikis are hard to beat when it comes to collaboration. The way they can track a document, keeping a log of the history so that it is nearly impossible to make a catastrophic mistake is fantastic. And some, like Wikispaces, which I used this week with some classmates, have a discussion feature which is pretty nifty too. Multiple threads can be started and tracked, but only on the page you begin the discussion from.
Sitting at the top of the wiki heap is Wikipedia. For those who have been without electricity for the past ten years, Wikipedia is a vast, user-generated encyclopedia covering every topic imaginable. (And if you can imagine one that isn't in Wikipedia, you should contribute an article on it!) So it is easy to see why one would use this wiki- to find information. But why would someone want to use a wiki s/he created?
Well, there are just too many answers to that question, but they all are centered on the same idea- collaboration. If you have a project requiring collaboration, a wiki can be much more convenient than say, email. All the communication of the project can be held in the wiki. Each member can contribute to the wiki, changing anything s/he thinks needs reworked. All contributors can see what everyone else has done, so the process is transparent. It's a thing of beauty.
Except it's not. Beautiful, that is. My classmates and I used a wiki this week to collaborate on how to use Wikipedia in education. Our wiki worked well. We shared ideas, changed a bunch of stuff, added, deleted, reworked, futzed, and came up with a decent product. So I can't argue with the functionality. It is the form I dislike. The web designer in me cringes when I look at the bland, off balance pages. Simply put, it's not pretty.
So OK, maybe I do like wikis a little. Kinda. I just don't like the way they look!
Ah...so it is the aesthetics that are throwing you off when talking about wikis....now it all makes sense! Incidentally, my husband is very much the same way--if it isn't pretty, he isn't interested. And I'm sure you got a feel for the "free" version to know that there isn't much one can do to make it look less bland. Great post!
ReplyDelete