IP Democracy: Wired News Tests a Wiki for Collaborative Journalism

Wired News is taking the Wiki phenomenon in an interesting direction. The site is inviting readers to edit a 1,059-word article by reporter Ryan Singel in a wiki set up at SocialText. The edited story will be released under a Creative Commons license and “if the whole thing doesn’t turn into a disaster,” will run on Wired News on September 7.

Readers will be able to do pretty much anything, except change quotes, including asking Singel to “get on the phone and investigate.” An intriguing experiment, but one that’s doomed for a simple reason: editing rights seem to be open to anyone, including jokesters, deranged individuals and teenage boys.

Even Wikipedia, the bastion of collective wisdom, says it’s “not a democracy,” and has pages and pages of complex policies and governance that even Wikipedia itself says is “inconsistent.” Still, hats off to Wired News for trying something different. Let’s hope the resulting product is 1. readable, and 2. not grounds for a lawsuit.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on August 29, 2006 7:45 AM to IP Democracy