A Wiki Quickie

I am a fan of Wikipedia for what Gary Price recently called its "long tail" coverage. That is, Wikipedia is able to have articles on thousands of more obscure or specialized subjects that no print resource would have the money to include. In these cases, the question is not whether Wikipedia is better than print sources, but whether comparable print sources even exist. In general, if an article on a particular subject exists in a standard print source, I'd go with that over Wikipedia any day.

As for radical trust, I don't think that concept is unique to wikis. We already have radical trust in the journalism and print sources which we use all the time. Or rather, we accept that people are fallible, have agendas, and sometimes are dishonest but trust that most of the time safeguards exists to avoid the worst of these abuses and that we need to be alert to what slips through. "Trust but verify" is a good motto for librarians to follow.

I think wikis would be useful for library organizations like FictionL where people regularly collaborate on shared lists such as fiction books on a certain topic. I don't see the advantages of a wiki for library patrons. For any wiki, people need some of way of being told when new material is being added for the wiki to be useful as a communication tool.