Another kind of collaborative writing: wiki-ing

Wikis are “special” websites that allow the users themselves to add, revise, delete and modify some content. All the texts available in theses virtual spaces are the “visible fruit” of a collective work: though the contributors “meet” in a virtual space, team collaboration is the most significant aspect that lies behind this kind of social software.

Wandering around some wikis listed in the WikiIndex I found out that this world is just as vast as the “blogosphere”, the “sitesphere” and the “podcastsphere”. In particular, I’d like to draw an analogy with the maze-like world of blogs, casting light on the similarities, as well as on the distinguishing features of these two Web services.

As far as their “common denominator” is concerned, the most striking shared feature is that both blogging and wiki-ing aim at creating an online community as large as possible. Wikis are not something already “given”, but projects in progress, a never-ending process. They may be compared to a sort of “virtual round table” where all the contributors – who, generally, don’t know each other - place a piece of their knowledge about a specific topic at the group’s disposal. It is an active discussion interface that forms the basis for a growing virtual community. What counts is the overall work, made up of all the single contributions. Therefore, wikis are characterised by a multiple, collective dimension, rather than by an individual one. It is a sort of “potentially endless puzzle”. As is the case of blogs, a wiki is a way to share information of interest. Nevertheless, while blogs seem to invite to an intersection of the private and public dimensions, in the world of wikis there is no room for confessional writing.

As regards the audience, most wikis, such as Wikipedia, are open to the general public, but there are also private wiki communities, especially within companies. As anyone can join the wiki community and provide a “brick” to “build” this open content encyclopedia, wikis constitute a further example of “Web democracy”.

Another significant feature of wikis to be accounted for is the language used, which is more formal and accurate than the one used in blogs. The “colloquial tone” typical of blogs is missing: rather than an “online diary”, wikis are a sort of “world database” for searching updated information given by multiple people.

Other central characteristics that make a wiki recognizable and functional, characterising it as a new genre, are:

-its non-linear navigational structure: all the texts you find are interspersed with links. A list of external links is also provided and generally placed at the bottom of the page;

-its “multilingual nature”: most wikis are available in a large number of languages;

-its table of contents: most wikis provide a detailed index that allows you to click on the content of interest.

Last but not least, it has to be pointed out that wikis imply a very delicate procedure, as the contributors come from different countries and backgrounds and, therefore, are used to certain cultural patterns. This is why it is important to respect everyone's views and points of view in order to collaborate effectively. Working toward agreement should be the key principle according to which all the contributors can “build knowledge”. In order to achieve this purpose, it is necessary for all the team members to pay attention to other people’s criticism: if someone disagrees with your edit, you should explain why you’ve decided to give that sort of information, rather than ignoring the comment, or offending the comment’s addresser. Constructive criticism is a key aspect of wikis, as is the case of blogs.

In my opinion, the real pivot of interest with wikis lies in the fact that they imply a sort of “circular project”: you have the great opportunity not only to reflect upon someone else’s contribution, i.e. try to understand why that person has decided to select those pieces of information, but, most importantly, to think about what you have written. It may be a cacophonous expression, but I think that wiki-ing is a very “active activity” for it unceasingly fosters interaction among the users, thus functioning as a very effective tool for peer collaboration.

P.S. Have a look at UniLang, an online community website made up of people interested in languages! It contains a number of resources dealing with language learning and provides many discussion forums aimed at creating a wide virtual community. It may be quite helpful for all of us!