Thingy 8: Wikis and Radical Trust

Being a theologically-scarred individual, the notion of "radical trust" in anything is problematic for me. However, I think this phrase is a misnomer, as the trust one bequeaths to a Wiki need not be "radical." If someone changes what I wrote on the SPL Wiki, for instance, I think I will still be able to sleep at night. And this dovetails with another question we are to answer: I do use Wikipedia sometimes, but only to get an initial orientation to a subject. I would never count on it as authoritative. I followed a link from a link on the "How Things Work" article on Wikis in which the co-founder of Wikipedia argues that Wikis should not be anti-elitist to the point where there is no deference to the input of experts and the pooled knowledge drips down to the lowest common denominator (click here for the article). Thus, "trust" is required, but not "radical trust," unless you are citing nothing but Wikis in your dissertation.

Given that modification, I am good with the idea of "measured trust" in the other people who may collaborate on projects such as Wikipedia. Most of the time, the "better angels of our nature" prevail (to steal Lincoln's phrase, I believe).

I think that Wikis could be used by library patrons as a common pool to share knowledge on shared interests, such as parenting, book recommendations, etc. Wikis would be helpful in the security department, except for the fact that they are not, well, secure. Thus, we already have a shared log that multiple users in our department can add to or modify but is located on a secured access drive; now that I think about it, this essentially functions as a Wiki.

But that example of using a Wiki to plan a camping trip has stimulated the wanderlust in me...