Blog v. Wiki (2012)

Wiki’s and Blogs are not really comparable. they serve separate purposes. Even though the wiki video on the dynamic course outline  show it being used to plan a camping trip, this is not a common use (to my knowledge). When most people think of “wiki”’s they think of Wikipedia, but there are many wiki’s that are not as proud but, based just on a single Subject, Item, Event, Etc. that have a wide base of interested people; like a television show. Besides being for a large group of people, they are meant to be long term. going back to the camping trip wiki, what happens to that wiki once the trip is over? some might say it can be expanded to document the trip. but does this need to be collaborative, and if it doesn’t “need” to be, does it make sense to make it collaborative? And if it is not used for this purpose will it just lie there unused? seems like a waste.

A better way to handle the second part of this mythical camping trip wiki may be to have each person write a blog write about it. If person A does not recall an event from the trip the same way as person B, they can just write there own blog account of what transpired, instead of rewriting the original. This is because blogs are individual expressions. The author expresses there own thoughts, observations, experiences, etc., and is no (or little) need for others to edit it. If there is a spelling error or a factual error, a user can leave a comment (if comments are allowed) or contact the author directly. like in The New York Times article “Pentagon Keeps Wary Watch as Troops Blog” by James Dao (8SEPT2009) when talking about censorship: “the reservist does not want his superiors censoring it.” This blog is his personal writings and stories and he does not want others to change them.

For the most part i feel blogs are static and wiki’s are dynamic. what do i mean by this? With few exceptions once a blog is written, it is not changed so, it is static. a wiki on the other hand is designed to be changed, either to correct errors, add additional information, remove false information, etc., so it is dynamic.  In another The New York Times article “An Internal Wiki That’s Not Classified” by Noam Cohen (4AUG2008) says “...Diplopedia has had impressive growth. There are 1,000 registered users, he said, 650,000 total page views...”  This an example of a wiki that is widely used (for an internal wiki) and serves a purpose in being collaborative.

It all boils down to the purpose and scope of the project. If it is a one person (or small group) project then maybe a blog(s) (or an independent website) would be best. If it is a large group of people that want to convey the information with “one voice” then maybe a wiki(or again an independent website)  would be best.

so in conclusion: Learn HTML, PHP, Python, C++, Perl, Java, etc and make your own website and don’t care what people call it, it will be yours...




"Wikis in Plain English" Youtube Video