This was a topic that came up during the excellent London Wiki Wednesday event I attended this last week. David Terrar provides his take on the event as a whole and the debate:
Some were worried that controlling access and locking pages was counter to wiki thinking, and might stifle the collaboration that a wiki approach would bring. Others argued that there were areas of policy, or procedure where it would be unproductive to allow anyone to change them - for example an HR policy, or a specified cancer treatment. It was suggested that fixed information should be transferred to a CMS with links to the wiki, whilst others argued that wiki tools should allow different publishing workflow approaches for different categories of content. Some pages might be certified, but with a release cycle of controlled versions, others might be published and locked, but allow comments, while other pages are available for all to collaborate and change.
I had other concerns which I raised with Sean McLowry of Bearing Point. There are several risks:
- IT is a fashion business where consultants can readily sell in new concepts that sound cool but which are capable of being hijacked by managements insistent upon hierarchical control. That runs counter to some of the things Sig Rinde is thinking right now. It will be an important battleground.
- The idea of locked pages doesn't sit comfortably with me except in the context of policy documents that might come up for review at specified intervals or in response to changes in circumstances. Even so, wiki can still be used for collaborative content creation.
- As an industry, we've not really worked out the best ways to implement certain technologies and wiki falls within that category. So while it may be appropriate as a tool, I believe we should at least be flexible in the way we tackle specific projects. Unfortunately, traditional consultant thinking implies that you can't change courses too often and that in turn, you can't necessarily allow wiki to be developed in an entirely ad hoc fashion. I only partially agree. I can see how unfettered editing rights can lead to chaos but a sensible editing mechanism overcomes that.
This is an important discussion that exposes the difference between wiki thinking (freedom to edit, freedom to develop) and wiki tools (easier to use as a potential CMS replacement.) Professionals looking at this for things like tax libraries will need to make hard decisions at an early stage in the planning process to ensure they understand and communicate with communities of interest. I can see this being a major pinch point in certain organisations with whom I am working.
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