This post is part of a series. Please also check out the other posts:
Part 1: What is the Web 2.0
Part 2: The challenge
Part 3: Inverse footnotes
Wikipedia is most probably the most hated web site on the higher levels of most universities. Therefore proposing the use of Wikis in humanities will not make me very popular, I assume. Currently most universities are actively discouraging the use of Wikipedia, but of course students do it anyway. They quote Wikipedia or even worse they just copy texts from Wikipedia without quoting them properly. However I believe that the problem here is more that students are told not to use Wikipedia. Then they find out that it can be helpful and therefore they ignore all other rules about Wikipedia as well. I am convinced that if we are frank about the strengths of Wikipedia students will also be more likely to accept the weaknesses. But now I digress.
Wikis in general are mostly connected with Wikipedia in the public perception. However this is only a result of the massive success of the Wikipedia. The first Wiki ever in use was the WikiWikiWeb developed by Ward Cunningham in 1995. He developed the system as a platform to discuss Pattern Design in Software Development. Pattern Design can easily be called the softest topic in Computer Science. Today there is a number of different Wiki solutions in use for many different things, including encyclopaedias but also things like internal communication platforms in mid-sized companies. The basic idea of a Wiki is that you can have a page for a keyword and each page can be changed by the users. Each page also has a discussion site for any proposals a user does not want to integrate into the page without prior consensus. Secondly each page has a history with which you can access older versions of the article.
According to the general philosophy of Wikis, they should be as open as possible. However this is more a result of their history than being actually a feature of the technology. The Wiki technology has mostly been developed in Open Source circles and the Open Source community usually is advocating openness. However other applications of Wikis have been developed. Of course a Wiki used for internal communication in a company is only open to employees and sometimes different levels of employees have different rights to change articles. When we talk about Wikis in humanities this is central to keep in mind.
Wikis obviously have the disadvantage of being open and decentralised. There is no central board inviting authors and reviewing articles. Such an open approach is rather foreign to any scientific endeavour. Wikis obviously have the advantage of being open and decentralised. This means a massive reduction in cost and allows to distribute the remaining cost regarding time to all of its users. Taking these two statements into account a Wiki will not serve as a quotable source itself. It can not provide a resource for generally accepted knowledge, which can directly be incorporated into research. But a Wiki can fill a gap where the compilation of such a resource is impossible or at least unlikely, due to economic factors. And I believe that such gaps can be found in any field in humanities.
Let me explain my idea with an example I have used before; a Biographic Encyclopaedia for Africa. When a researcher is confronted in a source or a book with a name he does not know it will be very difficult for him to quickly find out who this person is. In sources for both the author and the recipient, the mentioned person will be well known – otherwise the author would have explained who that person is. But a researcher is not part of that author recipient context. And in many cases it will be highly difficult to fill this gap. However if a Biographic Encyclopaedia for Africa would exist, this problem would be solved. But even if the author knows in general who a person is, he might not be immediately aware in which position for example a British in colonial service was in that specific year. Again a Biographic Encyclopaedia for Africa would be very helpful.
Is it probable that a Wiki for such a remote topic could succeed? I believe that this is highly likely if the researchers in the field view it positively. In our research we compile all this information for our own use many times. But of course currently there is no way to make these compilations available to the greater public. However if a Wiki solution is positively accepted within the community we can expect people to be happy to share this information. Secondly universities have a very efficient tool to compile information; writing assignments. Besides giving assignments to compile information on a person not covered in the Wiki yet, it could be interesting to give an assignment to read, criticise and enhance existing articles as students would be able to learn the basic idea of critically reviewing research and sources as part of this process.
However I believe that the model of Wikipedia would have to be amended in two ways to serve for Humanities Wikis. Firstly I believe that it would be necessary to have a log-in system with verified real names. These names should also be accompanied with a short info on who that person is. The reader must have the possibility to treat an article mainly written by a student differently than an article by a senior researcher who had access to original sources in the field. Luckily this is possible as most universities give out email addresses to their students and researchers which can be used for verification. Facebook has used the same system in the old days when it was only open to members of American universities. Secondly a Wiki in Humanities would have to stress quotations and that is precise quotations even more thoroughly than Wikipedia. As mentioned a Wiki can not be a resource in humanities directly or at least only in a very limited way. But if the articles are enriched with all necessary references they can serve as a very helpful tool and starting point to verify the given information.
Below the Wiki-Wiki Bus at Honolulu Airport, which served as the inspiration when naming the technology.
Since I hardly read blogs and don’t use trackbacks I do not feel that qualified to comment here… I’ll ask a question instead: which of the problems you mentioned in “The challenge” are you adressing here? Maybe I did not understand that post either, but it seemed to me you were adressing issues that were not purely economical (e.g. the accessability of knowledge), but here you write. “But a Wiki can fill a gap where the compilation of such a resource is impossible or at least unlikely, due to economic factors.” so I am a little confused.
In the second post I outlined a threefold challenge; that is availability and accessibility of knowledge and probability that knowledge exists or exists in a compiled form. With the inverse footnotes AKA trackbacks I am trying to address issues of accessibility. With Wikis I believe it is possible to address issues of probability. In the challenge I argue that the probability that knowledge exists is limited by the economical structure of the book market and the system of research and project funding, which in this post I summarise as “economic factors”. Obviously if knowledge is published, e.g. through a Wiki, which was hitherto unpublished this also has consequences for availability and accessibility of knowledge. But in this case this is a secondary effect. Therefore this stress on the “economic factors” which are circumvented by a Wiki solution.
Would you agree to replacing the term “knowledge” with “information”?
Simply because I understand knowledge to be something you can gain by synthesising information, merely having someones collected works in your bookshelf does not mean you have “understood”, i.e. have any knowledge of, the authors thoughts.
Trackbacks and Wikis then, would make the access to, and selection of information less dependant on economic factors, if I understand you correctly.
The question then is how, or if this situation will change the issue of relevance.
Yes I tend to agree. However I use the term knowledge because “information” in a Web and humanities context could be misunderstood in the sense of “informing” non specialists about humanities.
Nearly. Trackbacks would make the access to generally easier. Wikis, would make the selection of information less dependant on economic factors.
Possibly the first issue is not as central in philosophy as in history. Probably a good fourty percent of our work is finding information. Therefore making access easier is more central than in philosophy where understanding one single text might be the work of a life time (to be a bit extreme).
Obviously I write all this from the perspective of someone working on African history. Therefore I am dependent on feed back to understand how relevant certain aspects are in other fields.
I might get to the issue of relevance in my next post. But here I have a less clearly formulated concept.
[...] post is part of a series: Part 4: The exculpation of Wikis Part 5: Information Overload Part 6: Hello [...]