Making the Case for a Wiki

There is an article in the latest issue of Ariadne on Wikis. The author, Emma Tonkin, brings up the concept of the single user wiki, something that I had never thought of before:

“Talking to yourself may well be the first sign of madness, but what about writing to yourself? At first sight, it seems peculiar to imagine a single author making good use of a wiki. Wikis are collaborative environments, after all – or they’re fast flexible multi-user web development platforms. What can one person do with a wiki? Or, rephrased, what on earth is the good of wiki software for a handheld or PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)?

They can map concepts; wikis are extremely useful for brainstorming. Exploring a topic by means of a wikiweb is a curiously comfortable feeling, and often very rewarding. Authoring a wiki on a given topic produces a linked network of web pages roughly analogous to a concept map, a visual technique for representing knowledge and information”

When I think of wikis, my brain immediately turns to collaboration, but I can see how the single-user wiki thoery works when placed in mapping structure. My articles follow a stream of consciousness when I am in preliminary drafts. A wiki might help in putting all of the pieces together by working alongside my thought processes. Interesting…