Wiki-failure
posted by Dave Hoffman
In July of 2006, I argued here that the law review submission process would be aided by a Wiki. The purpose of the page: to collect information on submissions, accepted articles, board preferences, and other useful tips.
So I started a place where folks could work together to create a public good: lawreviews.wikispaces.com
A reader who is “a bit of a wiki-cynic” reminded me of the project recently. The page seems to have withered on the vine. What happened folks? Is this project less socially useful than, say, a description of the cell nucleus, today’s featured Wikipedia article?
For what it is worth, Michael Froomkin’s Law Review Copyright Wiki, while significantly better than my page in every way, also has been relatively under-edited.
May 14, 2007 at 10:25 am
Posted in: Wiki
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Responses (1)
James Grimmelmann - May 14, 2007 at 2:21 pm
More than technologies, communities matter. We know from studies of open source that people will contribute when they can affirm their membership in a community of contributors by doing so. Wikpedia caught on, so people contribute to Wikipedia, in a virtuous cycle. I don’t think there was anything wrong with your project other than that it didn’t catch on, which became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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