I don't have a specific reference for you, just
some
comments. :) I think perhaps your original claim is too
strong--on both counts.
Including the word "can" as you did in your reply is
important. Wikis CAN lead to high-quality content. And CAN
lead to active communities.
Yes, I came to the same realization after writing my reply. I have
started quite a few wiki sites that never achieved either quality nor
active communities ;-).
(Clearly there are examples of active communities and
examples of wikis that never get used much.) I am not
convinced that the technology itself leads to high-quality
articles in Wikipedia, and I don't think that the Nature
article supports that claim in any way.
When I talk about "wiki", I am not talking about just the technology. I
am also talking about the wiki way and philosophy (which, btw, I
consider much more significant than the technology that we currently use
to support that wiki way and philosophy).
One could hypothesize about characteristics of wiki
that help
support the goal of producing high-quality articles and try
to empirically verify the claim, but to my knowledge no one
has done so in any systematic fashion.
Well, there are a number of wiki patterns and anti-patterns that have
been written here:
www.wikipatterns.com
But that's not exactly a scientific analysis of what works and doesn't.
Oh welll... Maybe I'll just leave it as a "bold" claim.
Thx Andrea.
Alain