WikiFacilitation Pattern

In order for WikiConversations to approximate the satisfaction and efficacy of face-to-face conversations, WikiFacilitation actively manages the evolving structure and content of a wiki topic to maximize the benefits and minimize the traps of the medium.

Possible Aliases:

Context

WikiWebSites and similar hypertext mediums for discussion and collaboration.

Challenge (or Problem)

How to counteract certain negative side-effects of hypertext and asynchronous aspects of wikis which undermine essential factors for the satisfaction and efficacy of face-to-face interactions.

Examples

• Commonly observable tendency of wiki-based discussions towards divergent threads and the difficulty in achieving convergence around consensus points or commitment to action.
• The significant challenge (with resulting rare occurrence) of the prevailing model of "refactoring" (see Wiki:WikiRefactoring).

Forces

• Dispite the emergance of new communication technologies and interactive mediums, face-to-face conversation is still our standard for satisfactory social inactions.
• Satisfying human interactions have certain inherent structures. Ignoring these structures simply creates dissatisfying interactions.
• The very features that make wikis attractive also tend to undermine the structures of satisfying human interactions.

Design Solution

Consciously plan and manage the evolution of wiki topic structure and content so that it mirrors certain structures of face-to-face interactions that are essential to participants' sense of satisfaction and efficacy in the communication.

Resulting Context

Wiki topics with "soft structures" reflecting TopicPerculation^?

Rational

Examples

References & See Also

• Building Communities with Software by Joel Spolsky. This article insightfully describes how much (or most) social software fails to fulfill basic criteria of satisfying interactions.
• Lynnwood.WikiFacilitation - My working notes for developing this idea of WikiFacilitation.
• Skyloom.WikiFacilitation - A narrative presentation of these core ideas. (Also available at TWiki:Codev.WikiFacilitation where I originally posted it.).

Contributors

Add your name to this list if you contribute to this pattern topic:

• LynnwoodBrown