Wiki post

I am rather late with this post....but here it is anyway.



I am intrigued by this subject. Part of me wants to love the idea and part of me wants to dislike it. There is something that makes me feel quite nervous about anyone being able to edit text as and when they please. But this feeling only applies to subjects that I consider to be "serious". In the areas of personal interests, discussion and debate and knowledge sharing between like-minded communities, I have no reservations about it being a good thing. I was pleased to learn that wikis can be protected or private however, as I can see a wiki being a useful tool in this way for more serious work-related or professional issues.



I have visited two health related wikis;



Health Wikia: http://health.wikia.com/index.php?title=Main_Page



This wiki appealed to me visually. It was very easy to navigate around and I found reading contributors comments on subjects such as "Mental Health Care reform" informative. I liked the display of votes for each entry. However, although there was a lot of information on the site, I find it offputting that it is difficult to know anything about the authors of the content if it was to be used in any serious way.



Autism Wiki: http://autism.wikia.com/wiki/Autism_Wiki



This wiki contained some good information on autism and I liked the fact that each article had references attached which gave me confidence regarding the authority of the information. I would consider using this in sessions with learning disabilities practitioners when introducing the subject of wikis. I think the space for people for autism to write their stories could be a feature that some practitioners would like to share with clients.