A wiki is no different from a blog. It is just a blog that has comments that are inserted into the text of the blog.
While I understand wiki is cool and all, I think it is over hyped and no more useful (useless?) than blogging.
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There's a significant set of differences between wikis and blogs. The one that immediately comes to mind in the context of this article is that a blog brings its focus to the individual, and the individual's thoughts and opinions, whereas a wiki brings the focus more solidly to the information that is conveyed.
Wikis have the potential, as demonstrated by Wikipedia and the other projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, to create an environment that fosters iterative advancement, strong peer-review, and an incremental stripping away of biases inappropriate to the environment. All three of these characteristics are in marked contrast to the social influences experienced with a blog, where only one person controls the main content, and feedback tends to be limited primarily to sources that usually agree with the blog's author; they probably wouldn't be reading his or her blog if they didn't agree, after all.
A blog is a stage, a pulpit, or a soapbox. A wiki is quite the opposite, encouraging humility, a contributory spirit, and community. Both have their places, but anywhere that you're expected to toe the party line as part of your job description will be far more suited to a wiki for general employee use than to blogs. Because of that, I agree with the author of this article that government indicates a wiki over a blog.
I'd rather be in a job that had both, if I was working in a highly structured, corporate or bureaucratic environment. Luckily, then, I don't work in government.
Wikis have the potential, as demonstrated by Wikipedia and the other projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, to create an environment that fosters iterative advancement, strong peer-review, and an incremental stripping away of biases inappropriate to the environment. All three of these characteristics are in marked contrast to the social influences experienced with a blog, where only one person controls the main content, and feedback tends to be limited primarily to sources that usually agree with the blog's author; they probably wouldn't be reading his or her blog if they didn't agree, after all.
A blog is a stage, a pulpit, or a soapbox. A wiki is quite the opposite, encouraging humility, a contributory spirit, and community. Both have their places, but anywhere that you're expected to toe the party line as part of your job description will be far more suited to a wiki for general employee use than to blogs. Because of that, I agree with the author of this article that government indicates a wiki over a blog.
I'd rather be in a job that had both, if I was working in a highly structured, corporate or bureaucratic environment. Luckily, then, I don't work in government.
The blogs that I am familiar with all have the limitation that, at their core, entries are ordered by time. Sometimes you can add categories, such as in Pivot, the blog software that I use, but if you want to provide a structured view of information, you can't do it in a blog.
You can, however, blog in a wiki, and a number of wikis offer this feature.
There's reasons for each. I use my wiki as a well-organized notebook I can reach from anyplace with an internet connection. I use my blog for day-to-day news, much of which is of fleeting interest.
You can, however, blog in a wiki, and a number of wikis offer this feature.
There's reasons for each. I use my wiki as a well-organized notebook I can reach from anyplace with an internet connection. I use my blog for day-to-day news, much of which is of fleeting interest.
Hi Ramon,
At XWiki, we really believe in the power of the Wiki to help people collaborate through enabling micro-content contribution and quick reorganisation of information. However, we also feel that the power of the Wiki is fully unleashed when social software mechanisms such as blogging, RSS, and tagging also come into play. So basically there's probably room for both Wiki's and Blogs and in our view the best solution is most likely an open source Wiki / Blog with advanced programming features, like XWiki. Open source is important because it offers a shared-cost innovation-driven model to cost conscious organizations and doesn't lock their enhancements and contributions to a proprietary platform and codebase.
Sincerely,
Luis Arias
VP Business Development
http://www.xwiki.com
At XWiki, we really believe in the power of the Wiki to help people collaborate through enabling micro-content contribution and quick reorganisation of information. However, we also feel that the power of the Wiki is fully unleashed when social software mechanisms such as blogging, RSS, and tagging also come into play. So basically there's probably room for both Wiki's and Blogs and in our view the best solution is most likely an open source Wiki / Blog with advanced programming features, like XWiki. Open source is important because it offers a shared-cost innovation-driven model to cost conscious organizations and doesn't lock their enhancements and contributions to a proprietary platform and codebase.
Sincerely,
Luis Arias
VP Business Development
http://www.xwiki.com
I agree with Ramon's article that widespread use of external blogs within the gov't may become dangerous.
There is a great article by NPR about closing Los Alamos over a blog. The article supports Ramon's comments, and serves as a good example as to why we should think twice before using blogs for anything other than internal collaboration or information dissemination:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4657337&sourceCode=RSS
There is a great article by NPR about closing Los Alamos over a blog. The article supports Ramon's comments, and serves as a good example as to why we should think twice before using blogs for anything other than internal collaboration or information dissemination:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4657337&sourceCode=RSS
The comparison you made does not properly address the real issues of internal government use. Blogs and Wiki's hardly differ from each other. Features and functionalities are pretty much dependent on who developed what.
I believe the real issues at hand are proper usage and control of these tools, which more often that not, are dependent on the people who use them.
I believe the real issues at hand are proper usage and control of these tools, which more often that not, are dependent on the people who use them.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the lack of understanding that people have for the very different social dynamics encouraged by the differing mechanisms of blogs and wikis, considering that most people have little experience of blogging and even far less of wikis. In that respect, I'm quite out of the ordinary, having a half dozen blogs of my own that I'm mostly neglecting and working for the foundation that runs the biggest wiki in existence.
There really are marked differences between wikis and blogs in terms of what sort of behavior they encourage and discourage. There are some quite striking similarities in the technical implementation of each, but the community effect that arises from each is quite different from that from the other. For more of my thoughts on that, I direct your attention to my post above in this thread, where I responded to jmgarvin, titled "I disagree."
There really are marked differences between wikis and blogs in terms of what sort of behavior they encourage and discourage. There are some quite striking similarities in the technical implementation of each, but the community effect that arises from each is quite different from that from the other. For more of my thoughts on that, I direct your attention to my post above in this thread, where I responded to jmgarvin, titled "I disagree."
Blogs set up by department is a plausable and possible idea. One for the IT department sure, but if the company wants to "speak with one voice" then each department should have it's own blog.
This does not mean that a single disgruntle can blog on the "official blog" but that he can voice himself within his department.
This does not mean that a single disgruntle can blog on the "official blog" but that he can voice himself within his department.
It seems odd that the author of this article would make specific mention of Wikipedia, the biggest wiki project in existence at present, but when discussing wiki software completely fail to mention MediaWiki. MediaWiki is the wiki software in use by Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects. In my meanderings online, it's also the wiki software that I've most commonly stumbled across in other locations.
In other news, I tend to agree with the sentiment of this article. I'm quite of the opinion that, for most purposes, a wiki would be better suited to internal governmental use. Excepting in the case of specific public relation presentations (such as an "official blog of Senator Such-And Such"), I wouldn't recommend either form of expression for any external governmental use.
In other news, I tend to agree with the sentiment of this article. I'm quite of the opinion that, for most purposes, a wiki would be better suited to internal governmental use. Excepting in the case of specific public relation presentations (such as an "official blog of Senator Such-And Such"), I wouldn't recommend either form of expression for any external governmental use.
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