Interesting Idea: Start a Magazine that is a Wiki

I was reading this article in Wired magazine about wikis, where the article itself is a wiki that the readers can contribute to -- and an idea occurred to me. What if you could make an entire magazine that was in a fact a wiki? This magazine would be published online via a Website running a wiki engine. Every issue would be by and for the community of readers. There would be an editorial group among the readers that would decide what to write articles about for the next issue of the magazine, and then the community would work to write the articles. To get into the editorial group, remain there, and have a vote as an editor, a community member would have to make a certain number of (non-spurrious) contributions to articles on an ongoing basis (and/or maintain a certain reputation in the community as measured in some other manner).

I can imagine this idea taking off and a lot of these "wikazines" forming around various subject areas. It makes sense that communities of people who are interested in subjects could help to research and write about them. Of course in such communities there would be some people who put more effort in than others, and some who were more like readers or lurkers. But it would still be much more involving than old "one-way media."

In some ways communities like Digg simulate this -- people essentially vote on what is interesting and this filters up to become the featured content on the site. But that is still one step removed from the creative process itself -- only the readers participate, not the content authors. What's interesting about this proposal is that it blurs the distinction between an author and a reader, and provides a way for a magazine to be truly emergent and community-driven. OK, I'm too busy to start this, but I hope someone out there on the lazyweb takes this idea and runs with it. Please let me know if you find examples of this.

Comments

[amit]

I remember studying the pitch of OhMyNews (http://english.ohmynews.com/) where there are featured writers, but anyone can submit articles, and get paid in some cases.

The site is very popular in South Korea, and flies the banner of "Citizen Journalism"

Amit
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