Is Enterprise 2.0 Dead or Just Missing?
Thursday, August 17, 2006 at 09:05AM Are the Thought Police loose on Wikipedia? Or is this just community based quality control at work?
The title of this post refers to the Wikipedia article that was begun last week and mentioned by Andrew McAfee in his blog. It was a brief article that repeated a few of McAfee's ideas and began listing some relevant links. I added a few items of my own and looked forward to an evolving article.
I've used Wikipedia before and thought this might be a good way to see views expressed about a still-evolving concept. There has never been consensus about the meaning of "Web 2.0" but I am one who believes that focusing on enterprise applications is actually helping to crystallize the discussion.
Recently, though, someone deleted the Enterprise 2.0 article. Gone. In its place was a statement "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name.." Huh?
I navigated to the "talk" page and left a question about what was going on (a history of discussion related to the article was still available last time I checked.)
An anonymous poster wrote back to say that the article was deleted since it was "...not notable."
Sigh. Here we go again, I thought. If you check out the Web 2.0 entry in Wikipedia you'll see an article reflecting that there has never been agreement about that concept either. But that article reflects a variety of views about Web 2.0 and even promotes the use of the term "participatory web" as an alternate way to describe the same things.
I was looking forward to a similar exchange in the Wikipedia Enterprise 2.0 article. I believe there are many challenges (and opportunities) within organizations related to the adoption -- and adaptation -- of Web 2.0 tools and processes, and I try to address such concepts and issues frequently on this blog.
But apparently there are those in the Wikipedia community who believe that, rather than allow debate and consensus, a better approach is to delete such entries outright.
Is this a form of quality control by a self selected group of thought police? Is it standard operating procedure for those who frequently contribute and manage or monitor Wikipedia? Or is it just good old censorship in action?
I don't know the answer as I have little experience as a contributor to Wikipedia. Perhaps this sort of thing happens all the time.
What do you think?
Dennis D. McDonald
Dennis D. McDonald
Dennis D. McDonald
There has been a wide array of comments throughout the blogosphere related to the definition of "enterprise 2.0." Here is one comment I left at Venture Chronicles that describes how I am approaching the question:
I am taking a somewhat different approach to the "enterprise 2.0" definitional issue by playing off McAfee's discussion related to how difficult it is to estimate "benefits" of IT.
My approach: first you need to understand costs. One relevant question, of course, is, "cost of what in relation to what?"
The following is where I wrestle with some of these issues; what I've tried to do is to adapt some of what I've learned as a management consultant working with IT departments where there is a need to track application, infrastructure, development, and support costs:
http://www.ddmcd.com/integration_costs.html
I suspect that given current trends towards different economic models that some of the "traditional" cost concepts I discuss need to be modified; I'd therefore very much appreciate comments and suggestions.
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Reader Comments (6)
I too was looking forward to see this entry develop - surely you have to give a collaborative platform like a wiki time to attract contributors and balance?
Niall : it is precisely because WP doesn't only include "popular" entries that having a lot of google hits isn't sufficient to make a term or phrase have its own article. Encyclopedic discussions *about* the concepts in Enterprise 2.0 obviously have place in the encyclopedia. Whether that should be the name of the primary article on the subject, or whether it should be a section of a larger article about Web 2.0 and related memes, or an article about enterprise or social software, is another question.
Dennis : comments such as "Is this a form of quality control by a self selected group of thought police? Is it standard operating procedure for those who frequently contribute and manage or monitor Wikipedia? Or is it just good old censorship in action?" are unfriendly enough to make one think twice about answering you at all... assuming bad faith is a quick way to end a discussion before it begins. The answer to all of your questions is "your asumptions are off the mark". There were many reasons not to take the article in question too seriously -- it wasn't very good or interesting [despite its references], and read more like a promotion for one person's definition of a neologism (and writings about it) or like original research than like an encyclopedic entry about the uses of a new term.
If you think an encyclopedic entry can be written, try your hand and eloquence at contributing to one. The effort would certainly be appreciated.
Regards, SJ
You will note from the Wikipedia history that I was participating in the editing of the original article; some of my additions were even deleted. Given my experience with how Wikipedia editorial processes operate, I now must weigh participating in the process with the possibility that what I contribute will be deleted -- along with everyone else's contribution -- by an anonymous editor with little or no explanation. Since I do take this stuff seriously, I need to weigh what to do.
Sorry if you think my comments were not "friendly." This being a blog, I admit my inner sarcastic self sometimes gets the better of me! But I must admit that thoughts of "censorship" did pass through my mind when I read the initial reasons for deletion. Now I have a better understanding of how the Wikipedia editorial review process operates and I agree that "censorship" is too harsh a word to use.
Having not read the deleted article you mention, I did notice that it is described as McAffee writing his thoughts on a subject. That is really what I would imagine was the problem. An encyclopedic article should really not have an agenda(theoretically) or come from a personal perspective.