In need of a collaborative writing tool
I just set up a private wiki for a little university project for collaborative text editing (i opted for pmwiki). After fiddling around with it for a while, a few things come to mind:
- The wiki writing process is rather product oriented, not process-oriented, e.g. it leaves little room for annotation, interaction or discussion between collaborators.
- Subethaedit seems much more spontaneous and process-oriented (if only it were available for platforms other than mac os x). However i somewhat doubt the final outcome of a document would be as polished as a wiki-product.
- The most important difference between these two forms of collaborative writing is that wikis are highly asynchronous in nature. Many wiki systems lock pages while they’re edited by someone else. Subethaedit on the other hand is rather synchronous in usage. Though i believe it can be used to some degree for asynchronous editing, i think it’s not intended nor tailored towards this kind of editing. For the project i’m using this wiki for, asynchronous collaboration is most likely of greater importance, so a wiki isn’t a bad fit. However synchronous editing might be beneficial at some point nonetheless.
These points might only be true for pmwiki and subethaedit though. Any suggestions for something that gives you the best of both worlds?
Would you like to comment?
Tell me what you think on Twitter: Tweet