7 Components: the Function Pages - Developers

In our case, this means that wiki technology has been taken up once
again, but it has been further developed from different viewpoints.
The examples of MediaWiki and TWiki demonstrate that, in the
process, various and at times contradictory objectives are continually
flowing into the projects. In these many instances, the need for open
communication and flat hierarchies with practical demands collude
in developing a free encyclopedia or a project tool with potential
marketability. The respective work processes influence the participants
as well as the society as a whole.
According to Rauter, the relationship between humans and tools
can be seen as a dialectical learning process: “People exist because
they make tools. The tools that man develops not only decide
whether man lives, but also how he lives. The experiences he has
when he manufactures and uses tools change him. His changes flow
into the tools. The tools affect how people deal with each other.” 12
This also applies to the development of wiki software.
That means that the development of tools is embedded in their
culture and society, with its specific decision-making structures, and
is closely related to the goals, experiences and assumptions of their
“creators.” The form and content of the developmental process,
however, also serve to “structure” society. With them, their power
ratio is also confirmed or altered – for instance, when democratic
negotiation structures are able to prevail in the developmental phase.
When an object is completed, a work and planning process comes to
an end that has taken on material form. 13
During the development of the first wikis, ideas came into play
that were “inherently democratic.” However, a democratizing effect
through wikis, even though the tool opens new opportunities in this
vein, is not necessarily guaranteed. On the contrary, wikis are already
being employed in companies today without having caused
any fundamental changes.
Once again, the same thing that can be said about the ambivalent
social function of science and technology also applies to wikis.
Technical inventions and their use are without doubt of extraordinary
importance to the development of human societies. Tools have
provided people with room to take action, since they have enabled
12 Rauter 1977, 10.
13 This is especially apparent in the development of the atomic bomb. For it,
people were mobilized and means committed to a scientific industrial largescale
project. State and economic institutions are created. The hope of
participating scientists for securing peace certainly play a role, but ultimately,
the democratic counterforces were not strong enough to assert an alternative
peace policy or democratic decision structures – which then would have had
the respective legal and institutional effects.
Combination of
various,
contradictory
objectives
Learning
process
Social
structuring
Dual use
22.2 Wikis as an Engine for Social Change? �
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