Wiki-mania

The most intriguing thing I can see about a Wiki, in the words of Ward Cunningham and Bo Leuf, is that it 'seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the web site landscape.'  This, to my mind, is one of the really exciting things about Web 2.0. But, having spent a little time Googling to find some interesting wikis about my personal interests, I came up with a blank. Maybe it's just me.

Wetpaint sounded exciting, but failed to deliver in that most of the pages I could find were about TV programmes that I've never heard of (and admittedly some I had). Why can't I find people creating poetry, or art, or novels, in a collaborative way? The possibilities seem endless, but the most prolific wikis are apparently for soap addicts!

Wikia seemed a little more interesting, but the range of topics was odd, to say the least. See below for a random drop down list entitled 'Lifestyle' containing wikis on Recipes, Genealogy, DIY, and Vintage dress patterns!

Ourproject looked a little less sensationalist, but I couldn't even find an active English language wiki and the website wasn't at all intuitive.

There are an awful lot of different Wikifarms, but the numbers of active Wikis doesn't seem to justify their existence. Maybe, like mini-disks, Wikis are a technology that everyone got a little over-excited about, only to find that they were obsolete before very long.

N.B. Please note that the title of this blog in no way refers to 'Wikimania'.