Am I wrong to be skeptical that Wikis are the right answer to “loose” forms of collaboration such as those found at conferences or within non-corporate interest groups with many different types of folks?

Yet Wikipedia works fanastically?  Is this because it’s a big, long term project?

I’m noticing challenges with the Wiki here at MashupCamp. I cleared spam last night only to find the *same spam* had been returned this morning. Hardins “Tragedy of the Commons” comes to mind in the sense that it’s hard to manage public spaces due to incentive issues.

But more important than spam is the challenge of updating. In a world where so many conference participants have blogs and websites isn’t there a way to collaborate where people update their blogs (high incentive to update, clear spam, etc) and then this content flows into the collective space?

A blicki system? Barriers to participation in Wikis must be reduced and it seems fundamental that successful collaborative systems don’t ask people to do things they won’t naturally “just do”.

Wikis certainly work very well as envisioned by my fellow Oregonian Ward Cunningham who coined the term “Wiki” from, I think, a Hawaiian Bus stop sign. I wonder if his original notion was for more structured and incentified forms of collaboration such as in a company?