I figured since I kind of dumped on the wiki story that Wired turned into a wiki, I should follow up by looking at what actually came out of the event now that it’s over and the story has run on Wired News. I would have to say that (surprise!) I still think pretty much what I did when I posted that last item on the idea, which is that it was an interesting experiment and produced some things of value, but that the story itself did not really become that much better as a result.
I’m encouraged by the fact that the author Ryan Singel came to much the same conclusion, and it sounds like Rex Hammock did too. Ross Mayfield, who was involved on the part of socialtext, says it was a success but came close to blowing up.
Ross notes that there were some valuable things that occurred, and I would agree, including:
One person took it upon themselves to interview an expert at Harvard after coordinating with Ryan and contributed a quote that persisted. Someone suggested an expert to Ryan on the Comments page, but he didn’t have time to interview her. She got word of the experiment and contributed persistent edits herself.
I’m going to say it again: Those kinds of things, and the vast majority of the links and commentary that were contributed, are incredibly worthwhile, and can add a lot to a story — but they don’t necessarily have to all be in the story. That kind of reader contribution makes perfect sense as an adjunct to a story, a kind of community add-on that enhances and takes off from the story and builds on it. That’s where I see wikis and other social tools coming into play.