On Wikis

When I first heard that we were going to talk about wikis, I was really confused. I had never heard of wikis before (just like I had never heard of leet speak). Thankfully, we have to read about the topic we are writing about...hehe. Anyway, the whole concept of wikis is really quite interesting. A friend of mine showed introduced me to Wikipedia, and I was amazed at how much information it contained. Plus, it's free!! At the time I didn't quite grasp the fact that random people wrote the articles on Wikipedia (as opposed to random, but hired people). After reading the article "What is a Wiki?", I finally discovered what this "wiki" was.

The other three articles brought up some key issues I was thinking about when I found out what a wiki entailed. It's neat that anyone can edit the site, but that definitely brings up vandalism and trust issues. I would think that saving copies of the pages before editing would be wise, especially if someone was trying to ruin the wiki. I would think that the content and purpose of a wiki becomes its best protection from vandalism. If the purpose for making a wiki is to inform, like Wikipedia, I would definitely think only those who enjoy sharing knowledge would write. Perhaps my thinking that mostly professors and experts on the subject contribute to wikis is from exploring only Wikipedia. I can see where wikis could be helpful in the business world, though. Instead of having to tell someone to update a website, any employee could add to it after a meeting or make suggestions. I suppose the "ugliness" of wikis could cause them to lose their appeal since they'd have poor e-rhetoric in the visual sense. I think, however, that the overall conecpt seems pretty exciting in terms of new online communication where even the viewer becomes an author. My only concern is over copyright. I wonder if there would ever be a copyright issue within a wiki? Or do they already take care of that when you agree to contribute to one?