Better Late than Never

    I got a really interesting e-mail question from Tadge about three weeks ago.  Then the holidays hit and I got distracted.  (Sorry, Tadge.)  He asked a really good question, one that I'd like to think about some more, but I thought I'd share (with his permission, of course):

I am an Instructional Technology Specialist in Upstate NY and we are going to be building a Wiki to help our teachers. With the recent Wikipedia  incident relating to John Seigenthaler and the defaming that occurred I am wondering about disclaimers and such that should be added to our prospective wiki. I am curious if you have thought about this at all. I know I heard a discussion that Bob Sprankle, you, and another gentleman earlier this week. One comment was about students use of blogs and conversation that is had within the classroom.

Unfortunately I work for a Board of Cooperative Educational Services, and we serve over 50,000 students across 10 districts. I am not so worried about students defacing the wiki, but rather preparing for others prospective questions about the concern. I know one thing that I am considering is making the wiki require a password (though I may am some what against it). I noticed that you don't have a disclaimer on your wiki and was wondering if this was purposeful or just not thought about?  

I didn't put one up because I didn't think to do so.  He further elaborated:

My concern with a wiki, that is completely open like Wikipedia, would be someone defacing it without my knowledge, or an anonymous IP doing damage. I know that it comes down to respecting other peoples space and citizenship, but the Internet has no governing body. Personally the disclaimer issue has been bouncing around in my head recently. I am thinking something simple if the wiki has some sort of security attached to it. Such as requiring a password and login to be created. The level of security though can inhibit the exchange of ideas, as well as turn some people away. I am have just been doing some research about it trying to put a process in place before making it public. I know that there are skeptics and I want to be able to intrigue the early adopters and make the fence sitters see the benefits.

At the same time I don't know everything about technology and I want others with more knowledge to be able to share it if they would like. This is why I am thinking of taking some security measures, whether that is requiring passwords or putting a watch on all pages I haven't really figured it out. I appreciate your thoughts and did get another response about a college who is using wikis and they have actually locked them down to prevent hacking and defacing. I will let you know how things are going.

  So -- what do y'all think?  I know that I've been fighting wiki spam lately -- a related issue, but not specifically what Tadge is asking about.  What sorts of disclaimers would you write for a wiki?  Do we need to do so?  Here's a sandbox -- go to work if you'd like.  (Background -- Bob Sprankle's amazing students did a podcast on the John S. story.  It's a great listen!

Comments

[Art Gelwicks]

One suggestion is to apply usernames and passwords at the folder level on the web server hosting your Wiki.  Now this won't prevent the most dedicated hacker from getting access, but it will keep your wiki away from the general world while still giving access to the people who should have it.

[Mr. Tadge O'Brien]

First of all sorry Bud for not signing my signature as Mr. (No offense taken by the way as I have had it happen before). Art I do agree with you about creating logins. I have been planning on doing this since it adds validity to the posts as well as helps eliminate some of the concerns that I have. The only downside that I see is the fact that it creates another login and barrier to the social construction of knowledge. Even with the ability to create a login I am worried about the problems that Wikipedia had with the John Seigenthaler Sr. story. I am thinking that there has to be some means to keep this type of information valid and make it open. Thanks for the suggestion as right now I think I am blabbering. I look forward to sharing the link when it is ready!