WikiMorals

A Wiki Etiquette and Morals FAQ

Preamble

Wiki is so fluid that it'd be good to figure out how we want to use it. So far I've used it almost like a message board - I've simply added comments at the bottom of all the comments people have written on a page. How should I use it?

Check out WikiQuestions for more practical advice on Wiki use.

Feel free to alter these answers as you see fit.

FAQ

What is Wiki for?

It's a collaborative way to create a knowledge base. The authors are unimportant - the document is all.

What etiquette exists?

Generally an acceptance of chaos and a willingness to learn. I don't know much about it, but the WikiWikiWeb page should take you to the original Wiki that has a huge culture around it that talks a lot about all this stuff. Check out http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki?WikiDesignPrinciples and the 2 links at the bottom of that page especially.

Is it ok to splice comments into paragraphs someone else has written?

Splicing your comments in is good - the document is all so if something is inaccurate or incomplete it's your duty to alter it. You should feel free to enhance what other people have written but not distort it - better to present an alternative in another section/paragraph.

Is there a means of policing? For instance, if some wicked person deleted an entire page, could we isolate who did it? Could we reprimand them? Could we recover the page?

We could know their IP address so theoretically they could be traced. However, Wiki works on the principle that there's no real point messing it up: it happens very occasionally and the participants experience some collective grief before picking up and carrying on.

Some Wikis keep all previous versions. Some keep none. This one keeps one previous version but no more. This makes what we build here very fragile and hence more precious?

(Note from AndyAtGuiltyExpression - I'll try to remember to take backups every now and then but don't count on it!)

Should we "sign" anything with our name?

• It feels weird to me not to know who is talking... but I guess a really collaborative section is just that - as commented above, "the authors are unimportant".

Feel free to sign but signatures are bound to get trimmed as "chaff" if a volunteer editor gets a grip on a certain page. So don't expect accreditation/accountability to last.

• Does it stifle debate if you can just change something you don't agree with?

Yes - avoid this at all costs. Present an alternative view. The idea is to collect ideas and arrive at a consensus where possible.

• Is it a weird Borg-type collective thing? Is there anything sinister about that? ;) Who or what is "expressing" - is there a devaluation of the individual?

Yep, absolutely. Fun isn't it? Seriously though, there are other places where you can be an individual. Here you're part of a community of anons.

• Do I just need to change my way of thinking...?

Yeah but make sure you have fun with it. Don't do anything just to be etiquettitudinous if you'd rather do it a different way. Quite post-modern really, all this "the text is everything, the author is nothing" stuff. But then, I alwyas say that everything is post-modern - it's so easy to twist everything round to fit the label. But that's post-modernism for you, isn't it?

Add your own questions about the etiquette of Wiki here - if you think that's a moral thing to do ;)