Using WIKI as an internal communication tool, which is a very innovative idea. (We have talked about this topic in class. Giota also posted an article in her blog). We argued that WIKI, to some extent, could be used as a substitute for traditional group discussion within an organisation, especially when group members have difficulties to gather together by geographical restrictions. Gioda mentioned many alternative ways using WIKI, such as resources, event news, collaborative discussion (Q&A), tracking coverage, schedule, tasks, meeting notes, project status, research results, contacts, team lists, and member profiles.
Here, I want to talk about WIKI with from an alternative perspective. WIKI in its website lists five foundation issues that are considered to be beyond debate. "Neutral point of view as the guiding editorial principle" is on top of the list.
"The neutral point of view attempts to present ideas and facts in such a fashion that both supporters and opponents can agree. Of course, 100% agreement is not possible; there are ideologues in the world who will not concede to any presentation other than a forceful statement of their own point of view. We can only seek a type of writing that is agreeable to essentially rational people who may differ on particular points."
However, the real world isn't that simple and perfect. A young man in the states therefore set up a website called WikiScanner when he heard about Congressmen getting caught for white-wahsing their WIKI pages.
"WikiScanner combines two databases: (1) The list of all IP adresses that have made edits to Wikipedia, and (2) What IP addresses belong to which companies. So with WikiScanner you can type a company name, and it shows you what edits have come from IP addresses owned by that company."
The founder of this site concluded three common kinds of vandalism when people using WIKI nonymouslly:
- Wholesale removal of entire paragraphs of critical information. (common for both political figures and corporations)
- White-washing -- replacing negative/neutral adjectives with positive adjectives that mean something similar. (common for political figures)
- Adding negative information to a competitor's page. (common for corporations)
So next time if some public relations people are required or even forced to make some unethical change some information on Wiki for your company’s or clients,just remember, you will be traced and be exposed to the public.
4 comments:
This post is similar in topic to the one Mattias wrote and I commented on. However, the IP-tracking element raised here brings a somewhat new perspective to the debate.
I am all for people being accountable for their comments, behaviour and general action, online as well as in the real world. But...if there's a will there's a way.
Make no mistake. To avoid the IP-traps those powerful enough will simply hire students, or for that matter any other cash-strapped individuals, to do their dirty work through their own computers.
You are right. There are possibilities that some people or organisations will pay the third party to do these thirty things for them as long as not getting caught like what an Microsoft employee. This scandal was led to international news coverage.
You can see the story through here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Jelliffe#cite_note-article-0
Sherry you are right i talked about this topic. Wikis as an internal tool is very useful and can increase and influence internal communication. What is happening in wikis is what really happens.One tries to harm the other to promote itself. I believe that this technique is very useful but those caught of doing unethical editing and posting should have some kind of punishment.
Even if what Siggy says that they will whatever in order to do tehir job i think that the company should be responsible for accusations.
Well, everything said, I still believe that wikis have more to provide in the world as knowledge databases than they have as an internal communication tool
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