Marilyn's blog post today has brought up some interesting questions on the worth of a knitting wiki, and I felt a need to write a reply. Actually, it's not a response exactly, but my views on the subject as well as explaining the way I see my particular knitting wiki as working.

Mar, I'm going to quote you throughout. Readers, if I have shortened a quotation please see the original post for what I have removed. Please note that Marilyn was talking about knitting wikis and wikis in general, although I can only reply as the owner of one particular knitting wiki. I think this is an interesting discussion and invite other knitting wiki owners to leave a comment (and anyone else who wants to, of course).

Marilyn writes:
"Here's my opinion on wikis. >snip< They are potentially spurious repositories of information, since the general rule is that anyone can add information. And if they are in fact screened for veracity, who's doing the screening? The wiki owner? And who might that person be?"

I have to agree with Marilyn's opinion that, since anyone can add to a wiki they are open to a great deal of misinformation. Huge wikis like wikipedia are particularly prone to this problem. I feel that the same is true of any website though. Anyone can set up a website these days for free, or add their opinion to an email list discussion. Even books on the same subject can have totally different ways of achieving the same outcome. No matter what your source of information is, critical analysis is an important part of any research.

The thing I really like about wikis is that if, for example, someone disagreed with my way of working a yarn over, they can put their additional info, or different opinion right there on the page (or on the talk page) so that everyone can immediately see both points of view.

Are the new articles in my wiki checked for accuracy? You betcha. I work on all of the knitting-and.com website on a full time basis, 8 - 15 hours a day. However, I'm not going to change someone else's information in the wiki just because they do things differently to me. There wouldn't be any point in running a wiki if I did. I may not like working SSK, but I'm not going to go through people's patterns and change them all to Slip 1, k1, psso just because I prefer to knit a left slanting decrease (when worked on a right side row) that way.

What are my credentials as a knitting wiki owner? Well, I've been running knitting-and.com for 11 years now & the 6,000 to 11,000 individuals that visit every day seem to like what I have to say. I've been a knitter for 32 of my (almost) 37 years and investigating the mathematics and techniques that make knitting work is the reason I like it so much.

To quote some more of what Marilyn says:
"And as a dear friend of mine, who shall remain nameless because she also blogs, says, what's the point of having all information in one place?"

I don't know what other knitting wiki owners think, but that definitely isn't my intention in starting a knitting wiki. As Marylin says, I don't even think it's possible.

So what was my intention in starting the wiki? I think of it more in terms of a community blog or a knitting guild. Wiki visitors are a bunch of people brought together by a common interest. They might want to share what they know about knitting. They might want to find out more about knitting. They might want to share stories about what knitting means to them. In the case of a wiki, they may only be interested in correcting other people's grammar! It's all good. Whether someone visits the wiki to find information, write a 20,000 word essay on the techniques of Scandinavian knitting, correct someone's spelling or add a single photograph to an article there is value in that. Sure some of that can be done by having your own website, writing a book or adding to a conversation in an email list. A wiki is just one more way of sharing information.

When it comes right down to it, a wiki is just a piece of software for formatting a website, with the option of letting other people add stuff too.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth. What do you think?