Obstacles to wiki adoption: How do we avoid them?
Examples of anti-patterns include:
The Do-it-all
One person gets very enthusiastic about the wiki and tries to do everything. The result is often that other users give up and leave it to this one person. One suggested remedy is to encourage the do-it-all personality to give active support to others rather than doing it all.
The Over-organiser
The over organiser has a tendency to take what people have contributed and rearrange it in a way that makes sense to them, but not necessarily to anyone else. This may invole moving or renaming pages without consulting anyone. These consequences are that people cant find content and start to lose interest in the wiki. Often, OverOrganisers act with the best of motives, and don't actually realise that whjat they are doing is disruptive. One possible solution is to encourage the OverOrganiser to suggest changes through comments and through discussion with all community members, arrive at an agreed plan for changing the arrangement and naming of pages.
WikiTroll
WikiTroll behaviour is where somebody consistently expresses general negative
criticisms with the result that other contributors are discouraged from productive collaboration. Trolling tends to happen less when the identity of the poster is known to other community members. Sometimes those posting negative comments don't actually realise that they come across so negatively. One suggestion for dealing with WikiTrolls is to quietely suggest that they address their criticisms to specific points, and attempt to be positive and constructive in their criticism.
Sandbox
A sandbox is a place where people can practice using a wiki away from the real experiencce. This may seem like a good thing, but it can also be counterproductive as it creates a false impression of the wiki experience or re-inforces te idea that a wiki is somewhat difficult to use.
According to Mader, it is better to let new users practice creating and editing content by creating their own personal space. Collaboration would be introduced at a later stage of involvement. With Digital Cre8tor, we may want users to create content using multimedia tools at the earliest opportunity, in order to develop confidence with using the tools within the context of the wiki. This might start with personal introductions using the media of their choice.
Empty pages
Empty pages discourage people from adding content. Nobody wants to be the first to contribute, so it stays empty. And the longer it lies there empty, the less likely it is that anyone will contribute. It is helpful when creating new pages to add content or scaffolding to suggest what type of contributions from other users are expected, and actively invite other users to contribute. If people create pages with no content, it should be gently suggested to them that they put something there to encourage others to do likewise.
All-wiki-all-the-time
There is a danger of being too enthusiastic to the extent that others feel they are being pressurised and uncomfortable, and are therefore put off from using the wiki - especially if it is a big change from the way they are used to working. It is better to ensure that people are comfortable usung the wiki, before pushing tasks on to them that they may find too challenging at first. What is the best way for us to manage this?
Manager Lockdown
This is when someone in authority decides to exercise hierarchical, top down control over content, rather than peer management. One consequence is that people become reluctant to contribute content for fear of editing the wrong page, and possibly upsetting someone in authority. However, there will be certain pages in the case of the Digital Cre8tor wiki where the content is fixed (eg course content), and where it would be undesirable for people to edit the content. There is a balance to be drawn. Where do we draw the line between what users can change, and what mechanisms do we use to make it work?
Too much structure
There is a danger of anticipating a structure before there is any content to fill the structure, with the consequence that the wiki looks messy, disorganised and with a lot of empty pages. This can also make it difficult to find information and put users off using the wiki.
To start with the structure of the wiki should be simple, with the homepage serving as a simple table of contents. Only introduce a new level of content when the volume of content justifies it.
So for example, in the Digital Cre8tor content pages, we may start off by assigning a single wiki page to each module, but as the content grows, there may come a stage where a single page is required for each lesson in each module. Ideally, a request or suggestion for such a change should be peer driven, rather than imposed unilaterally by administrators.
This is just a short list of examples of common obstacles to effective wikis. Further examples of wiki anti-patterns can be found at:
Feedback and discussion
- Do you recognise any of these anti-patterns?
- In your own personal experience, are there any other anti-patterns that you have identified?
- What steps can we take in the early stages of the development of the DC wiki to try to prevent them?
- How do we prevent ourselves from slipping into anti-patterns?
- Which anti-patterns pose the most serious threats to the effectiveness of the Digital Cre8tor wiki?
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