I have been enjoying reading your blog, and I am definitely interested in the XML-based authoring tool that has Web 2.0 features including comments and feedback. Do you use it to author online help or user assistance?

Dee Elling said that she thinks comments are a great start to generating online community response in an interview I had with her earlier this year (see http://justwriteclick.com/2007/07/26/interview-about-wikis-for-tech-doc-with-dee-elling-of-codegear/) so for many companies a built-in comment system would be a great leaping off-point for social media while not having all the initial concerns about a full-on wiki. And it appears that the MSDN wiki stepped towards comments rather than towards full edits of content. So that is an interesting trend to note.

I’ve added your RSS feed to my feedreader and look forward to reading more. Thanks!

Amanda / Anne – I’m supposed to be reviewing an XML-based authoring tool this month which has Web 2.0 features including comments and feedback. My post above details a bit more about it, and if you happen to have any questions or desires about how this wiki interfacing XML tool would function, please let me know so I can include them in my interview with the development team.

It might be closer than any of us realize, particularly if the content can be easily repurposed with a custom schema!

My stipulation in my wiki corporate usage post is that internal rivalry remains the top killer of corporate thought. A successful corporate wiki could really depend on the corporate environment being open enough in the first place to support free thinking, because providing a wiki in a dysfunctional corporate environment would be devastating.

Giving thought to what you have said in your article, you have points that directly point to some sort of crossover knowledge resource / technical communicator who would be able to handle the wiki and shape the knowledge on a regular basis. I would wonder if that would fall into the Tech Writer position, the Tech Support position, the Project Manager, or Marketing. Of course in a perfect world all would work equally to help support, but someone has to steer the ship.

The part of your post I still need to give thought to is exactly what you postulate in your comment regarding closing the single-source loop. It’s more of a question about how to format that content and properly credit the customer while still editing the content for readability and technical accuracy.

I’ve been concentrating on discussion and workflow for content behind the firewall, but I will be providing a Wikipedia part 2 quoting your article because you completely cover ‘beyond the firewall’ – an area I did not cover because of the general resistance I’d seen.

In particular, you optimistically cover the number one objection I’ve heard, which is the skepticism by marketing about how customers may flame the product on their own site.

I’m writing a post on Web 2.0 Tech Support this week which follows the concept of enabling technical support engineers to post online and in blogs to counter the flames before they become out of control.

Sincerely,

Charles

danortega – Great idea of using content from field personel where time is essential yet you want to filter the content before posting. A former manager of mine noted that there are certainly examples when an early product or service design is not quite cooked and you wouldn’t necessarily want to air your company’s dirty laundry if there was an embarrassing workaround due to a design flaw. But in a really open culture your customers would prefer that you just admit there’s an issue and you’re working beside them to make it right.

Stewart – Yep, Wikipedia gets some emotional responses out of people, doesn’t it? How about a humorous one – off of Darren Barefoot’s Google Reader feed: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Size_of_English_Wikipedia_broken_down.png. Ha. I hope in the next year or two we find other better wiki examples to draw experience from, because Wikipedia comes with some political and pop culture baggage that most technical publications don’t or won’t carry.

Steve – I had a great conversation offline as a result of this post, describing a flame war in a gaming online community resulting from the lack of moderation and lack of arbitration and general hands-off attitude of the wiki owners, and resulting in a lack of trust in the wiki and forum content itself with one contibutor walking away and never looking back. So there are certainly near-apocalyptic (to the person experiencing it at the time anyway) scenarios that occur and have happened for years – this particular conversation was with someone who had been editing and contributing to wikis for literally years. I’m going to keep an eye on the people with the wiki stories from “two years ago” – my guess so far is that their stories are that moderation and arbitration are essential for the community to trust the content.

Amanda – wow, I have a blog post waiting in the wings on this very topic – using blogs to respond to other blogs’ criticism of your product or company.

I, too, am very interested in how DITA or XML-based documentation can be used to create wikis. Closing the single-source loop is the question – how will you incorporate others’ contributions? Instead of being writers we could be editors much like the magazines and newspaper old media model, where we choose what content has the right voice and message and therefore stays as (or becomes) XML source. Or, make certain contributor’s view of the wiki XML editor the most limited (like the MSDN wiki did, it only allowed three types of content/elements from contributors) but give your power contributors the most XML- or DITA-like interface for inputting content. A three-field web form for casual contributors, and the DITA Storm editor for company contributors perhaps? An Intel writer proposed that to me via email a few weeks back, and it’s a great concept.

The more I write about the topic of wikis for technical publications, the more I learn and mold my thoughts and ideas. Thanks you all for contributing to this post with your excellent commentary and feedback.

The fact that there are already limitless online venues for customers to complain about the product hadn’t occurred to him. Better to be part of the conversation, I argued, to remove wanton bashing, respond to criticism, and maybe even correct the problems the customers have problems with (imagine!).

The marketing director put the work back on me, and I ended up leaving the company for unrelated reasons, so it will go nowhere. In my new company, I’ve heard rumors of a starting up a wiki, and I’m hoping to get in the development. I wonder what capabilities are out there for incorporating XML-based documentation with wiki software. Anyone done a thing like that?

There have always been mechanisms on the internet for communication and collaboration, from usenet news to listservs to wikis.  Where there are moderators, whether corporate or volunteer, you have a much greater chance of having effective communication.  Without, you get flame wars and arguments and a whole lotta useless noise. 

Dan’s comment, I think, says it best:  “As long as the proper controls are in place, there is no need to fear the wiki …”

Regarding the Harvard prof and his struggle to keep an article from being deleted from Wikipedia, that’s not an example I would have used as JoAnn did because what happens on Wikipedia is quite different from what happens on an organization’s wiki. Deletion on Wikipedia sometimes comes across as a personal affront to people, and I think it’s because their motivation for being on Wikipedia is ego-driven. Deletion of content in an organization’s wiki might just need to happen sometimes, and if a wiki is being used in a truly collaborative way, deciding the delete or change content should be a mutual decision largely free of personal motivation.

Great point on customers and the Us. vs. Them mentality too – that mentality shouldn’t exist anymore, in my opinion. With social media and the focus on building communities around products, projects, services, etc. I think that there shouldn’t be “sides” anymore – in fact, there really can’t be in a healthy community. Disagreement and debate, yes, but sides, no. They’re just not needed to hide behind when people are working together.