Is Enterprise 2.0 Dead or Just Missing?

By Dennis D. McDonald

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?

• One of the practical steps I'm taking to find out more about the reality of "Enterprise 2.0" is described here.
• An index to all this blog's entries tagged with "enterprise 2.0" is here. 

Update on Monday, August 21, 2006 at 03:53PM by Dennis D. McDonald

Dion Hinchcliffe has a follow up to this general topic where he candidly discusses some of the issues surrounding corporate free speech and "censorship."

Update on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 at 09:20AM by Dennis D. McDonald

Here is Mike Stopforth's succinct recap of the sequence of events related to the "enterprise 2.0" deletion by Wikipedia: Snowball 2.0. (Mike is the person who originally drafted the Wikipedia article in question.)

Update on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 at 03:42PM by 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.

Comments

[Niall Cook]

I think it sucks. I thought one of the benefits of Wikipedia was how - unlike professionally edited dictionaries - it didn't just include the popular (or "notable"?) entries. So much for the Long Tail!

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?

[Susan]

Persistence pays... create a new article! ;-)

[sj]

Susan : has it exactly right. Wikis, and other truly public fora, reward persistence (and disagreement or removal of work on wikis shouldn't be seen as "censorship" or a slap on the wrist -- it is one of the socially acceptable forms of discourse. Don't take offense on someone else's behalf if you want to change what is written on the site; take action and write.)

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

[Dennis McDonald]

SJ - thanks for the comment. I don't agree that "disagreement" or "removal of work" are equivalent actions. I may not agree with your comments, but I won't remove them. But let's grant that Wikipedia is not the same as a blog.

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.

[Kevin Kennedy-Spaien]

I've had articles I've written put up for removal, and when the reasons were explained to me, I had to agree that while I liked the content I created, it really wasn't encyclopedic.

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.

[Dennis D. McDonald]

Kevin, you make good points. In this case, though (1) McAfee didn't write the article, someone else used and acknowledged a McAfee article as the source for a seed of the Wikipedia article, and (2) you should check out what one of the Wikipedia editors has to say (in the Wikipedia history file) about the process followed by other editors in deleting the original that was in the process of being upgraded by various contributors. I concluded after my own research that the removal was not censorship (see my response to SJ's comment above), rather, it was probably just an example of sloppy editing by people without familiarity with the topic under consideration. The experience doesn't give me a lot of confidence that I want to participate in contributing to areas that are new or emerging, even though I readily admit that the Wikipedia is a fantastic resource. Plus, given how difficult it is to organize and manage armies of volunteers, I understand how lapses and quality variations are bound to occur.