Budget pressure means that individual libraries have less and less staff time to generate content, such as ‘homework help’, to give one example. Collaboration between libraries makes more and more economic sense.

Wikis make a great tool for librarians to collaborate. The fact that the technology allows any patron to contribute as well doesn’t mean that content generated by patrons has the same value as content generated by professional librarians. I’m not claiming that a wiki in a public library should never allow patron contributions, just that there’s a place for each kind.

I suppose as a matter of terminology, something shouldn’t be called a ‘real’ wiki if all the content was generated by a single person, but as soon as more than one person is contributing, it’s a wiki.

I’m a patron, by the way, and not a librarian.

Bowerbird: If none of the pages in a wiki are editable by any users, you may have a point. Otherwise, it’s purely a naming issue–and that’s why my definition of a wiki is a website built using wiki software. In fact, most wikis I know that have heavily restricted editing capabilities don’t stress “wiki” in the name (that certainly includes PALINET Leadership Network, which is indeed editable by all *registered and approved users). Beyond that, I’ll just say I think that the meaning of contemporary methodologies has to be determined by all users, not set by fiat.

i said that before. i still say it…

if you call something a “prom”,
but — when the kids show up –
you have no band and you tell
them that they may not dance,
yeah, you’re doing it “wrong”…

a name must _mean_ something.

-bowerbird

But I (sort of) asked people to not do it and didn’t say there are wrong. They aren’t. Not at all. But they might be something else, depending on their motivations for doing what they do. Could be forgetful, could be busy, could be all about the life bits broadcasting as you said, ….

Anyway, thanks for the reminder (even as I’m hoping it wasn’t necessarily targeted at me).

I’m particularly put off by Twitter, in that I’m adamant I will not play the follower game. What I think is lurking behind The Rule is a scam of “We are going to suck you into this system with the promise that it’s going to help you, but really it’s the same old pyramid scheme where a few BigHeads on the top have very powerful megaphones, and everyone else is down on the bottom squeaking unheard.”

Blog comments are a very interesting case, in that so many A-listers do not have comments – and are clear they don’t want them, or shove the Great Unread into some annex.

If Eduardio PureBlogger refuses to read any blog that doesn’t allow comments or trackbacks, that’s his right. If Susan HTMaven is offended that C&I’s HTML version isn’t up to her standards–and blasts me about it–I’ll politely (or not so politely) tell her she’s not obliged to read it. If I was a Twitter user and regarded its function as entirely conversational, I wouldn’t follow anybody who didn’t follow other people. All choices. It just goes bad when people turn their personal preferences into universal commandments.

An issue which goes way beyond social software, to be sure.

It would be nice if people realized that they were expressing a personal preference in these matters, perhaps even a personal preference backed up by reasoning. For example, I wish everyone made their FriendFeed public so that I could easily link to everyone’s posts in public spaces. I also think that having a “private” FriendFeed account can lull someone into a false sense of security, since their comments on users who have public feeds are, in fact, public. But it’s not “wrong” for people to do that.

Same with Twitter. If you have Twitter followers but don’t follow anybody, you look like you think you are a celebrity or a spambot and lots of people won’t choose to follow you for that reason. But that’s your problem, not mine.