In all the conversations I have had about wiki technology and wiki implementation, the one item that constantly tops the lists of questions – or is raised as a first concern – is fear around the central concept of a wiki that anyone can edit.
Yes, wikis are designed to be open, and they are designed to encourage participation and collaboration. A wiki is designed to leverage the combined knowledge and experience of a community. But, as I hope we have shown in the preceding chapters, this doesn’t inherently mean a lack of control, an invitation to vandalism, or a devaluing of the content. In fact the opposite is true; a well managed wiki means more control and higher quality information.
However, because the “anyone can edit” concept continues to raise questions, I decided to revisit it here and pull together some of the ideas discussed earlier as quick reference for anyone dealing with this particular issue.
Just because a wiki has the capability to let anyone edit, it doesn’t mean that anyone should edit. All wikis (including the most open and public ones) have some degree of control as to who can edit. Requiring users to log in allows you as the wiki owner to decide what you want people be allowed to do. That could be just read or comment on the text, but not make edits. Or, it might be the ability to overwrite and change existing content. Either way, that’s a decision you can make.
Wikis have very granular controls that allow you to apply different permissions down to the individual page. For instance, on a company wiki an individual might have permission to edit pages that fit into his or her area of expertise, but permission only to comment on pages belonging to associated procedures, and only permission to read pages like HR policies. Some pages may be totally blocked from everyone except executive management.
If you follow the advice of this book and roll your wiki implementation out in a staged manner, you can start off by only giving access to a select few people, work out the structure and navigation issues, seed it with content, and then gradually open it up to more and more people. Again, the way you roll out access control is entirely up to you, but bear in mind that to really add value a wiki needs to be a reflection of the community it is intended to serve, and at some point all the members of that community will need some sort of access.
It is also worth remembering that on average the number of active contributors (i.e., those who will want to make edits on a regular basis) will be a subset of those who access the wiki. Depending on the size and function of the wiki, participation levels will most likely be between 1% and 30%