wikis, blogs and blurred authorship
given that i’m experimenting with wikis in a variety of private contexts, it’s interesting to see the recent flurry of comments related to wikis and blogs. i think kevin marks comes up with one of the most cogent analysis:
“Blogs amplify individual voices. Unlike mailing lists, they don’t get lost in the hubbub. Wikis are different – they blur authorship, and drive towards a consensual style. Blogs’ temporal flow creates an affordance for conversation that is diluted and washed away in Wikis.”
i think this is why blogs and wikis are perfectly complementary, and in most cases can live together in perfect harmony. sometimes a little blurred authorship and consensus building is good and sometimes you need a strong voice with a conversational style. this is a far more important to picking and using the right tool in the right context, as compared to the relatively trivial criticism that wikis are ugly [ which, of course, they sometimes are ]. but i don’t think ugliness is an inherent trait of wikis. the osaf wiki certainly has as much going for it, aesthetically speaking, as your average blog.
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