June 14, 2005
Innovation for Its Own Sake
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
While I’ve expressed fascination for the wiki concept and wondered how it may best be applied in associations (and haven’t yet figured it out), yesterday’s NYT article on Michael Kinsley’s editorial shake-ups at the LAT left me scratching my head:
This week, the newspaper, will introduce an online feature called "wikitorials," as a way for readers to engage in an online dialogue with the paper. The model is based on "Wikipedia," the Web’s free-content encyclopedia that is edited by online contributors. "We’ll have some editorials where you can go online and edit an editorial to your satisfaction," Mr. Martinez said. "We are going to do that with selected editorials initially. We don’t know how this is going to turn out. It’s all about finding new ways to allow readers to interact with us in the age of the Web." Mr. Kinsley said that he was just trying something new with the wikitorials. "It may be a complete mess but it’s going to be interesting to try," he said. "Wikitorials may be one of those things that within six months will be standard. It’s the ultimate in reader participation."
I look forward to seeing what they come up with, but I can’t for the life of me figure out the point. (Hey, it may be kind of a dumb idea, but not nearly as dumb as NYT’s plan to start charging for access to its op-ed page online.)
UPDATE: Well, it was a nice try, anyway.
Kevin, I actually think that Kinsley’s idea is a quite imaginative application of the wiki. As a regular reader of two different newspaper editorial pages (Washington Post and New York Times), I often wish I could find a way to react to/respond to/comment on the views of editorial writers. The letter to the editor is a hit or miss proposition and typically unsatisfying in this regard. The LA Times is providing a powerful mechanism for their readers to interact with them in a very direct and substantive way. (BTW, I think that’s the point of this experiment, besides simply learning alot about how people will behave.) I’m intrigued to see how it turns out. Kinsley is right when he says that it could be a complete mess, but then real life often is. It increases the likelihood we’ll learn something, not to mention have some fun!
The skepticism embedded in the title of your post, “Innovation for Its Own Sake” is understandable. I imagine it isn’t dissimilar from the skepticism that Jimmy Wales faced when he started Wikipedia. But given how Wikipedia has turned out, I’m prepared to suspend disbelief and see how it unfolds. Thanks for posting on it.
Wikipedia works because it is intended as an encyclopedia of fact, with content rules and guidelines. The thousands of people regularly monitoring and posting do, for the most part, a pretty good job of ensuring that the articles contained are balanced, flagging and deleting unsupported opinions, etc.
Editorials are opinions. By giving anyone and everyone the ability to edit the “wikitorials”, I’m not sure what purpose the end result will serve. It’s like a comment flame war writ large — instead of offering comments on the editorial, people will be rewriting it. And their opponents rewriting it. And rewriting it again. Etc.
Like I said, I look forward to seeing what they come up with. It’s an interesting concept. They’re trying new things to generate a sense of community and interactivity around their product, much like associations should be doing, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Kevin, I understand your point and its well taken. What I was trying to say is that when Wikipedia got started, I doubt most people would have ever thought that a free web-based encyclopedia created by volunteers ultimately would be regarded by many people as a more authoritative resource than, say, Encyclopedia Britannica. And yet that is exactly has happened.
Who knows what wikitorials will produce. But on the idea itself, I’m inclined to echo the words of Albert Einstein, who said, “If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” Thanks for the conversation.
I have signed up for a free Wiki to play with it - I’m not sure if my idea will work (or be more useful than current structure, I suppose is what I mean), but I think Wikis could be useful to keep track of member information. For example, we have over 100 hospitals (that employ over 60,000 people). When members visit hospitals or I read tidbits of information in the paper, etc., we could add the information to the Wiki which would be accessible online. (We use an iMIS database but you have to be at work to add information - you can view it from the road but not change anything.) The problem with my idea - as with all social technology - is that if fellow employees don’t find it useful and don’t add information, it won’t work.
Well, the wikitorials are live at LAT, and so far I continue to fail to see the point….but I’m sure the people editing back and forth and talking on the talk page must be having fun, so there’s nothing wrong with that.
In the end, there really isn’t much difference between it and, say, the NYT’s editorial discussion forum. The people who participate sure seem to relish the opportunity but even thinking about trying to read it gives me a headache.