<Bz53>'Wiki' novel — not a great read but a sign of the times
The ‘wiki’ software lying behind the site keeps track of the changes being made on a daily basis. The project is also being driven with a group of creative writing students.
Over the past six weeks it has become painfully and predictable autobiographical, perhaps capturing the group’s zeitgeist. “Tony was a writer,” the many scribbled. “One of thousands. He was also 46 years old, paunchy with a body like a doomed hillside and a slightly receding hairline. He had acne scars like a moonscape, and a gentle introspective expression that belied his time in youth as a once promising football player.” As one of the editors comments on her blog site, Penguin’s experiment is due to fall flat on its face.
As an experiment, it’s an enormous success, she says pointing to the 453 pages content pages, a total of 268,200 page views, 10,005 page edits and currently 1,453 registered users, since it began on February 1. “As a novel, the wiki project was bound to fail right from the start because, by definition, a novel is linear, whereas the essential nature of a wiki is non-linear (you could almost say anti-linear) — it’s designed to be that way,” she writes.
I mention this “novel” not to poke fun at the efforts, but praise it as a wonderful project pointing to the much larger and more important trend toward collaboration across networks and the Internet.
Businesses are collaborating more and more internally and externally on projects through such networks.
Companies are rushing to provide the collaborative tools online, such as the means to create documents and manage projects.
The consoling security feature lies in the ability of managers to track the changes and revert to previous versions if the project goes awry at some stage.*****Here is an open call to A Limey in Bermuda, web blogger Philip Wells. Limey, please come back. I miss your blog. Yes, you may be “tired of writing about them, and rehashing the same old arguments again and again and again...of the insults and the bickering... of taking crap from people....” Now you know what it feels like to be journalist in Bermuda or anywhere else for that matter. For the “old stories of incompetence, dishonesty and self-importance” are not particular to Bermuda, but is true for every community and country I have worked in.
It’s just more attenuated in a relatively small place where the fish in the pond can act bigger.
For you, your blog has been a three-year journey of discovery. But like the media is discovering, the technology has put a new, powerful tool in the hands of people like yourself.
If used wisely can open up new voices and alternate viewpoints. It is a sea change we in the old and new media are missing because we are too rushed to put out the next day’s news. However many media sites have already created their own “citizen” journalism blogs, or are considering how to run them, so as to give another outlet for such voices.
As you stated, the problem is how to get the comments out but ensure that you do not libel someone. Do not get tired of being aware of that aspect of your work in progress. We in the media are quite aware we have the power to inadvertently damage a person’s life. The Internet has placed that power in your hands as well, so take it up with care. There is always a way to say what you mean.
To misquote Shakespeare: It is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of the outrageous and to take up pen against a sea of troubles, than to die, to sleep.
The one-month break is over man. Get back on your high horse and pontificate to the heavens.
If you have any comments please send them to Ahmed at elamin.ahmed[AT]gmail.com.
