Psst! Wikis Can Be Edited. Yes, By Anyone.
from the how-it-all-works dept
It seems like wikis are becoming the new "blogs" this year. Remember a few years back when just about every company or organization felt the need to launch a blog because that's what companies did? This was even if they didn't have a reason to blog, or people who were interested in blogging. It seems like the same thing is happening with wikis nowadays. As the British government continues its often misguided attempts at embracing new technologies, apparently the secretary of state for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs decided it would be a good idea to set up a wiki about "environmental contracts," naively assuming it would lead to a high level of debate and discussion about the topic. Instead, as most of you would probably expect, it was defaced. Not just that, but being a political topic, people used the wiki to simply complain about such contracts, rather than "debate" them. With all that happening, the British gov't minister who put up the wiki has shut it down. It's not entirely clear what people are thinking about when they put up such sites. Wikis are good for certain things -- mainly collaborative efforts toward a certain goal. They are not about debate and discussion for the most part -- especially in the political arena. Having the government embrace new technology is a good thing, but they should at least learn what the technology is about before they embrace it.
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wikis
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(I did get one of those nifty sidekicks she carried around though)
(until it was hacked)
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It's all about...
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figures,....
it's called,.....
Common Sense....
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Wikis
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Bandwagon Fever
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Anyway, I do think there's a time and a place for wikis but I believe that because of the popularity, they're being used in places they shouldn't be. I also think they need to be monitored from time to time to keep things from getting too far out of hand.
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Wiki's are stupid
Just a dumb idea. They're not needed.
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Re: Wiki's are stupid
We could wiki The Constitution or even the Ten Commandments! Lol
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trendy?
No you're behind the times, all the real cool kids have deleted their MySpace accounts. MySpace is so 2005...
Me? I never had one, cuz I saw this comming, I was just ahead of my time.
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Excellent Political Wiki
Information, like debate, should be an evaluative process, not a static one. And just because there are some immature people who can not handle the responsibility of having a voice and venue, does NOT mean it should be ruined for the rest of us.
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About Defra
In one Defra office, there's an investigation into office hijinks including naked vaulting over filing cabinets, drinking during working hours, and leaving cups of vomit to putrify. This has been going on for years.
So, the fact that farmers and other people feel angry enough to deface this latest PR excersise isn't surprising.
The British Government does have a few excellent IT projects, and amazingly they're the ones that distribute information to the public (unfortunately, not the ones that actually do much). Hansard is one good example: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmhansrd.htm
That said, thankfully, the Biometric Identity Card scheme appears to be failing on technical and managerial grounds, so maybe it isn't all bad news.
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Wikkin Religion
Run! Run for your lives! The Wiki's are coming!
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Wikipedia is evil
Wikipedia is a disservice to humanity in that people assume that popular is accurate, when really, as soon as a site become popular it is manipulated by those with hidden agendas.
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