Peer Help Groups: Wiki vs. Discussion Board

Monday, September 26, 2005

Wiki vs. Discussion Board

Well, I've been in discussion with the operators of some other discussion boards, or threaded discussions as we're calling them. The reason for this is that I don't anticipate our discussion board to really become something where thousands of youth and young adults go to talk. There are already plenty of places like that for the LDS community and there are also a few that even specialize in addiction recovery. I thought that this would mainly be for the posting and reviewing of past problems and general advice. However, after listening to a lecture today by Phil Windley, a leading blogger, I've been thinking about using a wiki instead. The purpose of the discussion board would be for someone who has a problem to find out what others have said about that issue. That would take a long time and the advice is limited to what people said a long time ago. A wiki can be constantly updated and updated by anyone. We can create a page for each issue and people can constantly be updating the advice given. Right now, you might be questioning this logic. But consider this, in the book The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki gives numerous examples of how the best solutions are almost always made by the masses of average people rather than expert opinions. By hosting a page of advice on how to best overcome any certain addiction or how to handle any given situation, through constant revision, we will slowly weed out the bad ideas and eventually end up with the best possible solution. In theory at least, that's how it will work. As Phil Windley said, it's actually better than a peer review journal. Your comments on this would be appreciated it.

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