Next-Generation Wikis
Last modified by Hal Eden on 2010/08/20 11:33
Project: Next-Generation Wikis
This project should explore some the following issues in understanding and designing new wikis:- Wikis have always had the goal of being open, simple, and "low-threshold" environments -> explore how to increase the expressiveness required for creative activities in a wiki while retaining the low threshold.
- Investigate how to move the wiki beyond being a content management system in which individual contributions are accumulated but dialogue and interactions are limited.
- Currently, wikis present only the current versions of content, and minority opinions are often lost in the rewriting of wiki items. To democratize design, it is important to make minority voices heard to avoid the pitfall of average mediocre products and ideas. We will develop new mechanisms to find and represent minority views along with majority views to stimulate dialogue and conversation.
- Wiki pages reflect the current consensus of all users, but the dialogue that produced this consensus is lost and has to be reconstructed by users. We will develop mechanisms to illustrate historical change so that users can view how the dialogue has developed.
- develop more expressive capabilities to allow people to say more interesting things.
- develop dynamic mechanisms to help users find opportunities and linkages among contributions of other users so that they can form their voices by reacting to the expressed views of others, in order to create meaningful exchanges among all concerned users.
- develop filtering and delivery techniques that allow focus on needed input, and identify especially those minority voices that are often ignored
- investigate whether richer representations that you developed will lead to increased mutual understanding and common ground.
More
- closely related to the DSS course project: Class+Wiki+v2?
- relevant literature and links:
- Forte, A., & Bruckman, A. (2005) "Why Do People Write for Wikipedia? Incentives to Contribute to Open-Content Publishing." In Group 05 Workshop: Sustaining Community: The Role and Design of Incentive Mechanisms in Online Systems. Sanibel Island, Fl.