4,497
edits
FamilySearch Wiki:Accuracy and Collaboration: Difference between revisions
FamilySearch Wiki:Accuracy and Collaboration (view source)
Revision as of 16:20, 15 December 2009
, 15 December 2009Rem a line about protecting doctrinal or LDS policy pages (this wiki won't have any)
mNo edit summary |
(Rem a line about protecting doctrinal or LDS policy pages (this wiki won't have any)) |
||
| Line 21: | Line 21: | ||
Wiki pages evolve thousands of times faster than paper publications. As a wiki matures and its number of contributors reaches critical mass, its content quality comes to rival that of paper publications. At that point, the wiki becomes the tool of choice for anyone who wants current, accurate content. Since authors can contribute to a wiki anytime, they find themselves using it as their information repository. Since the community tends to iterate content 24/7, an author can post a new article on Pet Topic X and let the community improve it while he sleeps. Months later, when the author is assigned to write a paper publication on the topic, he finds the content already updated, ready and waiting on the wiki. To an author, the wiki experience is like having a whole team of research assistants. | Wiki pages evolve thousands of times faster than paper publications. As a wiki matures and its number of contributors reaches critical mass, its content quality comes to rival that of paper publications. At that point, the wiki becomes the tool of choice for anyone who wants current, accurate content. Since authors can contribute to a wiki anytime, they find themselves using it as their information repository. Since the community tends to iterate content 24/7, an author can post a new article on Pet Topic X and let the community improve it while he sleeps. Months later, when the author is assigned to write a paper publication on the topic, he finds the content already updated, ready and waiting on the wiki. To an author, the wiki experience is like having a whole team of research assistants. | ||
= Protecting Pages = | = Protecting Pages = | ||
Writers accustomed to a command-and-control publishing paradigm are sometimes challenged in transitioning to a community paradigm. We can learn a lot from Wikipedia. In Wikipedia, the only types of content that are “protected,” or locked against community editing, are those which are highly controversial or those which tend to attract vandals. For instance, articles on the Gaza Strip might be protected due to persistent battles between Palestinian and Israeli authors. On FamilySearch Wiki, we may choose to protect a page on Mormon research if we find anti-Mormon vandalism becomes a persistent issue. We will | |||
Writers accustomed to a command-and-control publishing paradigm are sometimes challenged in transitioning to a community paradigm. We can learn a lot from Wikipedia. In Wikipedia, the only types of content that are “protected,” or locked against community editing, are those which are highly controversial or those which tend to attract vandals. For instance, articles on the Gaza Strip might be protected due to persistent battles between Palestinian and Israeli authors. On FamilySearch Wiki, we may choose to protect a page on Mormon research if we find anti-Mormon vandalism becomes a persistent issue. We will do the same for other topics which may draw major controversy. But 99% of the pages on FamilySearch Wiki won't need this type of protection. | |||
= Policies = | = Policies = | ||