Make photo.net a wiki?

[ted_kostek]

The short version: Does it make sense to transition photo.net to a

wiki format?

 

If you are not familiar with the wiki concept, check out

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

 

for an example. This link takes you to an on-line encyclopedia. The

encyclopedia is created, edited, and updated by netizens who log in

and write stuff. People fact check each other, etc.

 

It looks like this might be a pretty good balance between static

content, keeping current, and Q&A. There is some sort of overall

organization and structure, and it probably evolves slowly over

time. The actual information on the pages is able to evolve very

quickly.

 

If we transition to a wiki format, this would help solve

the "recurring question" problem, which often start with the

disclaimer, "I searched the archives, but couldn't find what I

needed" Very often the answer does exist, but not in an easy to

access format. You have to be willing to sift through large amounts

of back and forth conversation (sometimes including, "Do you live

near SF? We should meet for lunch.")

 

Another issue that might be addressed by this format is keeping the

information current. New film emulsions could be added to the static

page, printer information, etc. We have something sort of similar

with the ability to add comments to the bottom of a page, but, like

many threads, those could often use some judicious editing.

 

I'm probably talking about a mamoth project to actually do it, but

right now I think we should talk about whether it's a worthy idea.

We can worry about whether it's feasible to implement if we decide

it's a good idea.

[peggy_jones]

<i>"...right now I think we should talk about whether it's a worthy idea. We can worry about whether it's feasible to implement if we decide it's a good idea."</i>

<p>so Brian, what do you think about this "we decide" biz?

 

<p>seriously Ted, my considered response to WIKI (interesting site, now bookmarked) is GIGO (thanks, Carl!)

[mottershead]

I am enthusiastic about wikis, and I think it is a worthwhile idea to make more extensive use of them on photo.net. I've been thinking of introducing a wiki on photo.net for about a year.

 

If it was just my decision, and I had time, it probably would already have happened. However, some of the other people involved in making decisions at photo.net have Peggy's "GIGO" reaction. Specifically, they are concerned about "quality". When I asked Philip Greenspun what he thought about this and pointed him at wikipedia.org, his response was to read the article on "Opera" there, and to conclude that it "sucked". That was the end of convincing him on the subject of wikis.

 

Quality might be an issue, but I couldn't say that the quality of forum contributions is particularly high on the average, either, and in a wiki, there is a mechanism to correct quality problems. In a forum, you would have people screaming "censorship" if a moderator deleted or edited someone's opinionated, untruthful, nonsense.

 

That is not the culture in a good wiki, and people think twice before writing drivel, since they know that it will be edited out fairly quickly.

[ted_kostek]

Well, ok, I admit the "we" is not warranted, especially since I'm not even a paying member at this point. It seems more like a decision for the board of directors or whatever photo.net has. I just wanted to raise the question and see some back-and-forth on the subject.

 

Re: GIGO

 

Maybe there could be a three-tier system? Static stuff: well written, authoritative, accurate, easy to search; wiki stuff: evolving with less accuracy but pretty easy to search; Q&A forms: changing hourly with no quality control and tough to search.

[rich815]

In regards to GIGO it could not be any worse than the current G in the forums, but we would have the benefits inherent of a Wiki. I think it's a good idea. Not to replace but to enhance. Then later virtue of use will dictate that.

[bobatkins]

My vote would be to float a Wiki for a single topic and see how it went. Let's say "Leica Rangefinders"....er, on second thoughts, let's not. Lets pick something with a less fanatical following like "Color Management".

 

Turning the whole of photo.net into a Wiki would probably be a disaster, but it would be interesting to see how a very narrow topic Wiki worked out.

 

For those who don't know what a Wiki is, it's s system whereby anyone can contribute an article to a topic, but anyone else can edit that article. The principle is that if you have enough people writing and editing, the crap gets deleted and the good stuff floats to the top. Obviously there are safeguards (backups etc.) to stop some idiot erasing everything and replacing it with SPAM, but if the "good guys" far outnumber the "bad guys", it's supposed to work. I've seen Wikis that are OK and I've seen some that are useless, there are no guarantees of quality.

 

On second thoughts maybe "Leica Rangefinders" or "Nikon vs. Canon" - or even better "Film vs. Digital" - isn't a bad idea. If they worked, almost anything could...

 

Another idea might be to combine a wiki with static content. By that I mean if there was a topic we wanted to add to the static content but didn't have an author for, launch a wiki on that topic for 2 weeks. Then freeze it and have an editor go over it, check it out, polish it up if need be, delete the wiki and put it in the static content as an article.

[mottershead]

Actually, I was thinking at one point of making "member reviews" of equipment into wikis. People would strive for a balanced, consensus presentation on each item of equipment.

 

In some ways, wikis are at their most interesting when the topic is controversial. It is sometimes surprising just how good people can be at formulating a consensus statement of facts and a neutral presentation of the spectrum of opinion on a topic.

 

The thing about a wiki is that for it to work, people have to be pretty self-effacing and non-egotistical since anything they write can be rewritten by someone else, and striving for a neutral point of view and consensus is very important. This is good when encyclopedic, authoritative coverage of a topic is required, but it depends on people willing to participate who together have encyclopedic, authoritiative knowledge.

 

In many of the photo.net forums what people seem to be looking for is entertainment, which means that "attitude" and "controversy" are prized, perhaps with some miminal constraints established by the moderators, and even those are unwelcome to many. I haven't seen too many wikis with "attitude".

[bobatkins]

I guess the only way will will ever know is to try it.

 

However I can see problem with some users who have what amounts to an almost religious conviction that they are right, whether that conviction is that "Kodachome is the one and only film to use", that "Leica Lenses are superior to all others" or that "photography is not, and can never be, an art form".

 

It shouldn't be too hard to setup a simple Wiki in some little used corner of photo.net as an experiment and use the "robots.txt" file to keep search engines away from it. If it doesn't work it can just be erased and forgotten!

 

Get two people with opposite opinions (and a deep conviction that THEY are right) editing each others words and you'll end up with an analog of that Star Trek episode where the white/black and black/white aliens ended up locked in mortal combat until the end of time...

[ted_kostek]

There's some more interesting discussion of wiki's at

 

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyWikiWorksNot.

 

They list out a bunch of potential problems and weaknesses of the wiki model, as well as some strengths.

[mottershead]

Well, it is very interesting to read the Wikipedia, and actually to work on some of the articles.

 

I worked on articles on several controversial subjects, on which many people, including those working on the articles, hold strong and conflicting views. Working on the articles was an interesting experience because the only way to avoid arid editing wars is for everybody to make a good faith attempt to state the controversy as neutrally as possible, striving to present the various points of view and to present the facts which support the various views. What opinions exist about a subject is not itself a matter of opinion. It is a matter of fact, and what arguments and facts are used in support of those opinions is also a matter of fact. One does not have to agree with the logic or the opinions to be able to state the opinions accurately and document the arguments used by their adherents. If you are opinionated yourself, then there is a strong temptation to make your statement of the opposing opinions into straw men. But you can't get away with that if the other guys can edit the article too.

 

Accordingly, the wikipedia places great emphasis on a "neutral point of view". When you think about it, this is what you would expect and want from an encyclopedia. In general, people who try to use their power of editing the articles to turn them into propaganda for one particular point of view are drummed off the site pretty quickly. Such people won't get much support even from people who might actually agree with them, but who have bought into the "neutral point of view" philosophy of the site.

 

The Wikipedia is an extremely interesting site, especially if you actually try your hand at editing some of the articles. I don't know if wikis and forums can coexist on the same site, since the mind-set is often completely different.

[samuel_dilworth]

So what would prevent the entire site morphing into a homogenised, if disruptively

sparsed, grey goo of the type so famously feared by Prince Charles?

[ted_kostek]

Unfortunately, I don't understand the previous comment, so I can't respond on the issue of "gray goo."

 

I like the idea of a limited test of the wiki, I just don't quite know what would be a valid test, scope-wise. One article for a week? 10 for a week? 10 for 10 weeks? Bob suggested "Leica" as a topic; driving home I thought of "USM". It would be a major benefit to the whole photo world if there was a (somewhat) definitive description of USM. At least, I've never read one.

 

Wiki dynamics are pretty interesting. I have bunch of ideas rolling around in my head, but they aren't complete enough to pull out.

 

All I know is that right now we have some static content that needs updating and the Q&A forums update almost too fast (fun but wild and chaotic). The site contains vast amounts of useful information hidden in even more vast amounts of junk. Seems like some kind of modified wiki could harness the natural resource photo.net has (lots of people willing to write a little text at a time) to help address those problems.

 

I hope photo.net can figure out a way to use the idea.

[bobatkins]

I think the "grey goo" comment probably is a suggestion that all articles may tend towards a bland consensus viewpoint. The sort of thing you get when you design a car by committee instead of employing one designer. You get a Ford, not a Ferrarri. Dull, boring, "just the facts, M'am" sort of stuff.

 

I don't know if it's true, but I think that's what the remark was suggesting.

[melissa_eiselein]

<i>"The thing about a wiki is that for it to work, people have to be pretty self-effacing and non-egotistical . . ."</i>

 

<p>Somehow, I have a hard time keeping a straight face when I think of the majority of PN members as "self-effacing and non-egotistical." Still, it would be fun to set up one area of PN just to give it a whirl.

[digitmstr]

The fact is that a Forum and a WIKIPEDIA are two different things, duh! But, seriously the dynamics are so different that to change the entire site into that format would not be a good idea IMO, for a few reasons.

 

Perhaps there could be a WIKI area where people could ask questions and everyone answer, without having "a set topic" necessarily (i.e. somebody could be asking about lighting, someone else about lenses, etc...). A search would return the proper heading anyway.

 

BTW, speaking of searches, right now I think the MAIN issue that drives people NOT to use the search function as much is that when they do the resulting LINK does NOT take you to the post with the relevant topic but, to a page. Then, one has to use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+F (on a PC) to do a page search for the actual post.

[basscheffers]

One thing that would worry me is that many of the reviews and photographic techniques are often quite personal. Sure, if you specify a camera being 6MP and it's actualy 6.3, let someone correct it. But what if I write "the smaller sensor in the E-1 makes a great trade-off in quality for having more convenient, cheaper lenses"? Now I know for a fact many will dissagree; even without haven ever handled the camera themselves. Heck, people even dissagree with scientific facts like "exposing to the right" will alway create a better image than under exposing, somehow thinking under exposing a CCD or CMOS sensor (or any linear A/D converter for that matter) can have more pleasing results than going as "loud" as possible without going over.

 

Like someone's sig on Slashdot I saw the other day: "Just because you don't agree, doesn't make it off-topic, trolling or a flamebait". And I think with the "fanatical followings" (as Bob describes some groups here) on photo.net, that may well become a problem.

 

Wikis are great for things that only contain facts. And have you seen some of the Wikis out there that people write comments underneath? I much prefer comments being properly formatted and readable!

[mottershead]

<p>Well, as I said above when talking about the Wikipedia, a wiki does not have to deal only with uncontroversial "just the facts" type topics.

 

<p>However, a sufficient number of people with editing rights to a wiki article must be committed to the concept of that article. Editing wars have to be resolved through some meta-agreement amongst a critical mass of the people with editing priveleges, such as Wikipedia's "neutral point of view". A sufficiently large group of people in meta-agreement will defeat vandals just because the vandals won't have the energy or time to persist. But without such a critical mass, the vandals and clueless people will win, and the signal to noise ratio will be worse than the worst USENET board you can imagine.

 

<p>If the wiki is one, like the Wikipedia, that anyone on the Internet can edit, in the category of vandals are not only 14-year kids who will delete everything just because they can, but also people who will try to appropriate the wiki for their own agenda. Repelling vandals takes a lot of work, especially on a controversial topic, and there have to be enough people willing to do it.

 

<p>For example, take a look at the Wikipedia article on <a href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion">Abortion</a> . Especially, look at the "Editing History", which will show literally hundreds of edits in a relatively short article, as people struggle to reach consensus and undo the work of vandals.

 

<p>I think this is in fact one of the main criticisms of wikis -- that a lot of energy has to be spent on establishing consensus and building meta-agreement amongst a large enough group of people to repel vandals and clueless people. And constant surveillance and vigilance is needed of the results. Typically, there is no final state which can be declared finished and beyond the reach of vandals.

 

<p>Wikis are not efficient. A lot of time can be spent only to have it edited to nothing by someone who does not agree, even though that person may not have the expertise or writing skill of the original author, and who may be perceived as a vandal. You can argue that people willing to spend so much time would have spent that time more constructively writing a book and getting it published, or creating their own web site. However, while theoretically a group of people (even including people who disagree with one another) could plan an article and write it colletively more efficiently, with less frustration, and with less time spent repelling vandals and in editing wars, than is typical in wikis, in reality such groups don't often assemble themselves spontaneously. While wikis have lots of irritatiing aspects, they do at least have the potential for drawing in groups of people interested in creating good content. And often being compelled to establish sufficient meta-agreement to repel vandals and avoid editing wars produces a result that is more "fair and balanced" and comprehensive than any one person would have been able to produce alone.

 

<p>And forums, which are the other main form of collaboration on the Web, aren't very efficient either, with plenty of time spent in endless debates. But unlike wikis, forums don't even compel people to arrive at the agreement required for a text to stand for any length of time.

[mottershead]

Bas, more on your example. You want to write in a hypothetical E-1 review that "the smaller sensor in the E-1 makes a great trade-off in quality for having more convenient, cheaper lenses".

 

This might not be very controversial. If the majority of people working on the E-1 review agreed with it, they might simply keep undoing the edits of the dissenters until the dissenters gave up.

 

However, if the energy levels for and against the statement are roughly equal, then the final result is likely to be something that everyone can live with, such as: "The E-1 trades off sensor-size and lens quality. People who prefer convenient, cheaper lenses will not object to the absence of a larger sensor, which the inexpensive lenses cannot take advantage of anyway. But many people will miss the quality of a large sensor, even though it would require more expensive lenses to benefit from it." Perhaps you don't get to say which side of this balancing act you are on (since you aren't the sole author) but to quote a certain prominent public official, who cares what you think?

[ian_griffiths]

It sounds lovely, and for an encyclopedia with a definate factual, concensus agenda it works - wikipedia.org proves that.

 

Photo.net? Is that not too full of people with their own personal experiences to talk about? Many people saying YMMV, IMHO and the like?

 

I like the contributory aspect. In fact I'm a very large fan of that, and I was pleased to read somewhere that there were little 'hero' icons being given out for contributing material. However, I can't help thinking leaving that open to the community as a whole is just a little dangerous.

 

Is there no middle ground which makes it easier to contribute (for eg. a list of topics requiring updating, expanding to introduce new techniques etc.; suggestions how this may be accomplised and what a good guide should comprise of to help authors on their way) but which doesn't open the flood gates!?

[bobatkins]

One problem with a Wiki is that everyone has equal say, even if they have unequal skills and knowledge.

 

Personally I'd rather read a camera review by one single person that I trust and who has sat down with the camera and really tested it than a review which is agreed on by a committee of 100 people I don't know and who may never have laid hands on the camera. With a Wiki you've no idea who said what and if you have a question, you don't know who to ask.

 

A well known photographer once commented about a thread on photo.net to the effect that 10 people have given their opinions on a lens - but not one of them had ever actually used it! That was one reason he chose not to participate. This is pretty common, with many people giving the "conventional wisdom" on subjects they actually know little about first hand.

 

Not that I'm against a Wiki experiment, just that I don't think it's a replacement for single author articles written by authors with some knowledge of the subject that they are writing about.

 

There have been attempts at collaborative novels written by internet groups. Usually they suck.

[ted_kostek]

I'm glad to see that we did get a decent debate on the subject. For a while I was afraid it was going nowhere. It seems that everyone has some concerns about it, but many people are still interested enough to say "It's worth an experiment." I don't know where that leaves us exactly, other than getting the subject out in the open.

 

I doubt the elves have enough time to spare to implement a test zone. It can go on the "It would be nice if..." list.

[michael_dimarzio]

Sounds interesting, I'd REALLY like to see an experimental Wiki photo critique.

 

In the meantime, can anyone help me get a Sunfire 380R running? grrr.

[ian_griffiths]

If anything I'd keep critique well away. By definition, this is where the most subjective opinion exists and therefore where there would be least concensus.

 

If we're going to give it a go, one of the thinnest 'Learn' topics would be my suggestion as candidate, whichever that may be.

[basscheffers]

Brian, good point. But I also agree with Bob when he says he'd rather see a review by someone he trusts, rather than one created be comittee, many of whom may never have use the equipment.

 

In any case, I don't see it happening, everyone is just too busy! Just installing Wikit, for instance, and giving it a go may be nice for a single-server site, but probably more problematic for PN. Sure, install it on one server and use the load balancer to direct all traffic there, but what to do when it is a success and you'd want to roll it out everywhere? AFAIK, Wikit is the only solution that plays nice with AOLserver, and to install a whole second architecture to run one that does have a central RDBMS (Apache/PHP/MySQL) or even write your own? Frankly, I think you are way too busy already! :)