Wikinomics : collaborative editing

Collaborative editing, can be defined as "turn-by-turn edits by multiple individuals who have equal control over the text." It is a form of Peer Production for written material, best used for knowledge creation. On a human level, collaborative editing is a mixture of cooperation and competition. It is competitive because on the level of words, phrases and ideas collaborative editing is a Darwinian test of fitness. The page evolves and only the best, or the truth, survives. It is cooperative because editors need each other to review each others contributions and by editing, reveal the true knowledge. As such, the rules of collaborative editing have these general objectives:

to support the survival of the community (by encouraging and sustaining participation)
promote coherence, structure and stability in the documents.
increase the value of the content.

In most public wiki s some kind of house rules or terms of use statement is made plain to all participants. These rules (which are often editable in themselves) make for a civilized wiki-based community.

Collaborative editing as a negotiation.

Collaborative editing is a powerful tool, but is ultimately a form of negotiation. Those who are new to wiki are rightly skeptical about any magical results from collaboration.

"If wiki is so hot at making truth, what would happen if Jerry Falwell and Osama Bin Laden participated in a wiki page about God. "

If two individuals in isolation are not willing to negotiate at all, then no collaborative process (including wiki) will help them produce together anything worth the effort. Notwithstanding the "battle of opposing fundamentalists" scenario (which would usually be a miserable failure) "battles" between two wiki editors is common and in a two person wiki fight - there is no reason to think that wisdom or truth should prevail. In isolation it would be a simple matter of "he who edits last wins."

If however, there is a willing negotiation between those with highly opposed views, it is not hard to imagine that uniquely valuable wisdom can emerge. In a social situation, this becomes more likely. With more than two participants and bystanders, most editors will not want to appear as a bully, or a vandal, and will tend to self-moderate.

Thought Experiment: Collaborative editing as a turn by turn process.

To best explain the process objectively and show how it adds value to infomation, suppose that:

PROCESS:

there are only two editors (A and B)
turn by turn, each editor can privately view and edit a page.
there is an observer who can see the page at all times.
except for the document itself, no communication exists between the editors.
for the benefit of the observer, every turn the editor classifies all the content in the document

unacceptable content is marked (or highlighted) red.
acceptable content green (acceptable).

*every turn each editor changes some or all of the text marked as red.
*the observer, on the basis of the individual markings will see all content as being either red, (mutually disagreeable) green (mutually agreeable) or yellow (contested).

RESULT:

Given enough turns, an equilibrium will emerge wherein the editors will find complete agreement over the total content of the page.

The Dynamics:

Acceptable: (Green)

These mutually green areas of consensus will remain "stable" and have a long life span.

Unacceptable: (Red)

Statements that are unacceptable (Red) to both players are highly unstable. Since both players edits to make red text green (in their own perspective), mutually unacceptable content has a short life span.

Disputed: (Yellow)

If a section of text is green to one person and red to another this section of overlapping red and green will be edited by whomever sees it as red.

As further rounds are played, the amount of green text should increase - it is in equilibrium as they say. One way to find equilibrium is a fair statement of the "agreement to disagree" - or dissensus

example: A wiki trying to explain God would include both Jerry Falwell's understanding and al-Sadr's in as objective a way as possible, while acknowledging their differing views. It might read something like, "Although Jerry Falwell explains God as _____, another notable viewpoint is that of Muqtada al-Sadr, who holds that God is ________."

If a player creates wanton destruction they can expect a quick revert. Thus, on a wiki, the only way to win is to negotiate until the one side or the other is content enough to leave it all be. If the last editor standing decides to make a (now unsupervised) culling of all their opponents ideas he would (one presumes) eventually be found out, and the content would be [revert]ed by someone else. While in reality this exchange seldom happens between only two editors, the results hold for larger numbers and "minor conflicts" will tend to wash out more quickly.

In general, the more content a wiki has, the better it can represent, in detail, the full ecosystem of issues and ideas that make up a collective social reality. As Chris Anderson explained wikis, with their unlimited capacity for information, can reflect not only the common consensus (at the top of the page) but also an unlimited length of details and perspectives: the Long Tail) lets the reader with the patience to inquire see many diverse views upon God and other topics, and presumably will be better able to form opinions of their own.

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