What are barriers that stand in the way of "common folks" using wiki?
- Technical Barriers - what to do and how (ex: non-WYSIWYG).
- Cultural barriers - feeling that you can change what someone else is a cultural thing.
- Lack of examplles and templates that would show common folks how to start a wiki community of their own.
- Technical or social/cultural barriers - which is the bigger hurdle to participation?
Some people don't have a sense that wiki is a dynamic, collaborative environment. Can be easier to overcome when ppl can be brought together for BarnRaising, but this isn't always possible when the community is completely virtual and ppl are at great physical distance from each other.
- In-group vs Out-group. When a site has a well established core group of contributors, it can be hard for newcomers to contribute.
How to help remove those barriers?
Need different views and UIs for contributing. For example on OpenGuides, some people want to just add info to a page without directly editing it (almost like post a comment), and leave the info for someone else to possibly remix into the existing content on the page. This is going to require a lot of WikiGardening; otherwise content won't flow well and might be redundant if people aren't checking what's added for redundancy, etc.
People need to see real value in contributing.
- Using technology (Wiki) can't be ancillary, If you use it, at least some content should be exclusive to the wiki so ppl get used to going there.
- The group using it has to agree to use it, and work with anyone who is unsure or reluctant to use it.
Site like WikiPedia and WikiTravel are really cool. But imagine a future where each individual, family, neighbourhood, association, etc... has a wiki? Wikis written by and for small gropus type of thing. Could those add up to somethign as important as WikiPedia?
So... what are examples of "mundane" use of wikis by common folks:
- Use wiki as a shared Personal Information Manager (ex: like a Palm Pilot that your family can access)
- Staying in touch with extended family.
- Wiki in small workplaces.
Clubs, neighbourhood associations (ex: http://www.skinouk.ca/)