I picked up on the apparent editorial row that is going on regarding the editing of Wikipedia over on the BBC website and thought I’d chuck my two pence in.
My initial reaction was “OH NO!” and now my reaction now isn’t much different.
Whilst I don’t think it’ll be a big deal if they opt for flagged revisions I do think it’ll have some subtle effects. That immediate fix you get when you see your changes implemented instantly will be gone. Also, some people will get sloppier whilst others will feel they need to be stricter with themselves over their entries. To be honest though I’m not too concerned about these or the other smaller things and it’ll be a good test case to see what happens.
The thing that makes me worry a little more is the precedent that will be set. Inside the Enterprise I imagine most people struggle with access control as much as we do. Most command and control style organisations still want to have the command and control atmosphere. It’s one reason why we’ve now got a wiki moderators group. This move looks like an admission that a completely open environment, one completely reliant on soft security, may not be the best way to go. I fear it may be fuel for the naysayers inside the Enterprise. At a time when it’s still very difficult to push for more open access it’s something we could do without.
That said, there is a balance that need to be acheived in everything so it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Tags: access control, concerns, hierachy, security, wiki, wikipedia