A few days ago, @wandster Tweeted a link to a very interesting blog from Richard Monson-Haefal. It basically told a little history of why the term NUI on Wikipedia, was never going to mean ‘Natural User Interface’ without at least there being a bit of a scrap about it.
Now, never one to accept the Status Quo, or the inevitability of defeat, I thought I’d (re)start the Wikipedia article on the topic of “Natural User Interface”. I’m no real Wikipedia expert, I was terrible at writing essays at University that had correct citations and references, so this was never going to be much more than a first stab at it; but I wanted to get it going.
Why?
Well, since we started talking about “web 2”, cultures of participation, openness and all that jazz, the poster child was Wikipedia. Whilst the 'establishment’ of reference books were lagging in the stone age, people like you and me were creating articles on anything we thought was important or topical.
Then, the bad press started. The likes of the Daily Express started showing horror stories of how Wikipedia was so hopelessly inaccurate, and just full of anything anyone thought was correct. We all knew that ultimately the community would be self-levelling and that people would weed out these inaccuracies; because after all, the entire web user universe, between them all, know pretty much everything. A truism… nothing more.
So then the pendulum started swinging back the other way. The Wikipedia community became focused on quality, standards, references, citations, and that kind of jazz.
I thought that this had swung a bit too far though. A few years ago I was deeply involved in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer project, where Steve Fossett flew several world record flights around the world. During this, I met the aircraft designer, Burt Rutan several times, and interviewed him for the website. I worked with Steve Fossett also and heard first hand from him why he was doing it, what it felt like. Similar story with Steve’s engineering team, Virgin Atlantic, the guy who ran mission control, and so on.
So naturally, I started to become a contributor to the Wikipedia article on the same topic. I thought it would be a great opportunity to use the knowledge I had accumulated first hand to be part of the public record of the event. But eventually, my bubbling enthusiasm was dampened significantly. Why? Because when I told certain stories, I was asked if I could back them up with citable references. When I uploaded images that had been made available for general use by the photographer, who gave them to me personally and said it was ok, they were taken down because of concerns over rights.
So the article you see there today is short on a lot of colour and imagery that would have in short made it a heck of a lot of a better read.
Wikipedia is unique in that people actively involved in the field concerned can just dive right in and add something. You don’t get that at Britannica.
So, when I read Richard Monson-Haefel’s blog, my blood boiled slightly I hate to say. Here was a term, in common parlance amongst my peers and industry, that was emerging for sure, but it was still there – yet, an unqualified team of self-appointed arbiters of quality (not a judgment, a statement) were able to delete it.
Wikipedia’s opportunity is to be the place where emerging terms and areas of interest grow and develop. They have the opportunity to be the FIRST place people here about them, rather than waiting until the ‘establishment’ pick up on it and there become citable references and so on to back it up.
On the GlobalFlyer article, I even found myself in the ridiculous position of creating a page of content on the official GlobalFlyer website, which I ran and administered, in order to back up a statement I had made in the Wikipedia article. Something I was advised was absolutely fine! I ended up not doing it, because it seemed just so ridiculous. I spent a short time debating the lack of ability for idea and content originators to participate in their own content areas, but didn’t push it.
If the ‘crowd’ or community feel something warrants a mention in a universal reference source, then who’s to argue? If I work in a specific field, and can tell you that the word ‘dolly’ has some specific meaning amongst the 100 or so people in the world who are at the top of that field, then that should be allowed to go in there – because if it doesn’t go there on Wikipedia, how else will people discover that?
Anyway – if you have an interest in natural user interaction, natural user interfaces, or NUI, then please go to Wikipedia and read the article for starters here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_User_Interface
And of course, feel free to jump in and add something. I’ve spent about 20 minutes on it so far and as I said, I’m not good at Wiki mark-up!!
Then please add to the debate on the Talk Page citing why you think this is a term we need to be informed about, or testifying to its emerging status as a common parlance term.
Wikipedia is nothing unless we the ‘crowd’ can feel free to dip in and out to make corrections, add insight, etc. so this is an important point that we need to be free to do so when we are the ones in the position of knowledge in a topic area. If we are continually punished for doing so, we’re just going to stop forever; and that will be the end of the insightful, colourful Wikipedia we knew and loved. It will be factual, roughly up to date, but dull. It’s the crowd who need to set the agenda, not the few. Wow, that sounds familiar… who would have thought I’d be saying that the ‘few’ was Wikipedia itself?!