Is there an end to a wiki ?

Theoretically a wiki never comes to an end unless the designer decides to stop the modifications. But in that case it raises a fundamental question. Who and on what criteria do you decide that a wiki is mature enough to be frozen on a particular stage ?

In fact you chose to go for a wiki in web design when you’re not able or simply don’t want to write the content. So you ask the Internet community to help you achieve that painful task.

Let’s imagine the wiki concept in art. Imagine some artist start a painting, then another one continues it and changes some parts of the painting, some colors, some patterns, then another artist could add something and so on. At then end, do you think the final painting would look good ? I can’t help but thinking that somehow the final contributor is the one that decides it all. Because he would be the only one that saw and draw the painting as a whole before the painting was finished. And would the painting ever be finished ? In that case the first painters will surely loose their work though time.

For Wikipedia for instance, the work is so big that the wiki concept is perfect.

The concept of wiki is an incredible phenomena. There is absolutely no equivalent of this outside the Internet ecosystem. In fact that’s not true. A wiki is a collaborative way of organizing and writing information and this already exists in private areas like within companies or in big organizations like standard organizations.

I personally distinguish three different main profiles of wiki contributors:

1- The one that is simply criticizing

This one is just just here to agree or not (usually not) to the already achieved work. It’s the easiest part and that represents the majority of people that contributes to wiki. These are usually like moderators that main task is to reject modifications and to tell newbies the rules.

2- The one that cares about the form

This one usually make sure the article is organized correctly and that the grammar and the orthography is correct. He also checks and corrects the writing style.

3- The one that brings new ideas and concepts

This is the one that actually brings new content and knowledge to the article. It’s the expert that know what he’s talking about.

Unfortunately everyone is considered the same in all the wikis over the web whereas there are clearly different kind of contributors even if some of them combines the different profiles.

A wiki is an infinite debate. In politics, a debate is endless. So if you were to let everyone write the politic laws of a country you’d nether reach any consensus. Truth is an unreachable target. One day or the other, someone has to choose where to stop when the information is far enough on the path towards truth.