Wiki wondering

I was enthused by the promise and supposed ease of wikis when I first heard of them. Some of the promise is born out in the examples given in this exercise. The book lover's one is great and visually appealing too and the SCLA one is attractive, well organized and very functional. What quickly became apparent to me in looking at these as well as trying to start for the Web 2.0 committee, is that design counts a lot. If you don't know what end you have in mind you end up with a static page and a page that is difficult to navigate and use. I supposed that's OK, as it's part of a learning curve with technology, but a badly designed wiki sort of sours its users on wikis in general. I think I've been guilty of that, but I at least I tried.

All that being said, I think there's a place for wikis. They aren't the magic bullet to get around the pitfalls of web pages, but they do allow quick and easy creation, giving almost everyone a chance to get their hands in. And the ability to work on group projects is great. I'm not sure I trust enough to the masses to have an all out open wiki, but the idea is intriguing as long as everyone knows that the content may have pitfalls.