Whither the wiki.....

Have been moseying around the wikis. The ubiquitous Wikipedia for one.
As an exercise I had another look at the West Wing page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_West_Wing
(Picked something I'd know about!) Loved the way the TV series comes up first with a see also to the actual West Wing.
It's a bronze star winning page - really well put together - and a great example of communal brain power that a wiki can muster (editors hail from Belfast to Tasmania)
But, it's not all smooth sailing, just click the Discussion tab to see some of the erudite argy-bargy going on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_West_Wing

Regarding quality, clicked a few entries elsewhere on Wikipedia and loved the warnings:
This article or section may be slanted towards recent events. Please try to keep recent events in historical perspective. (Good advice!)
See the full list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Disputes
Loved: The quality of this article or section may be compromised by "peacock terms".
And: Discussions on this page may escalate into heated debate. Please try to keep a cool head when commenting here.

For an interesting insight into how it works check out the Wikipedia entry in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
(and yes, they deal with the issue of whether Wikipedia should have an entry on itself!)
Look at the discussion page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikipedia
for some spirited wikipedians locking horns (personally, I like editorial disagreement better with West Wing quotes!)

Wikis bring to mind the HG Wells quote that no human urge is stronger than the urge to change someone else's copy...
How well wikis could work for libraries would turn, I think, on issues of whether a wiki is fit for the intended purpose, the level of control/moderation and whether it's designed for internal (library staff) or external (community) participation. Think it would be a good application for manuals / training / newsletter style communication. But trickier for community participation? The Ben Franklin one looked good - but the visitor comments section didn't seem to be enabled. I liked the Library Success Wiki, but it seemed to have had some vandalism probs.
A recent SMH article
http://www.smh.com.au/news/perspectives/facebook-up-to-it/2008/02/26/1203788290835.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
(thanks to a public library blogger for sharing it) looked at the uptake of web 2.0 tools by industry and government and noted
"Among strongly tied co-workers, a wiki can function as a kind of online whiteboard."
So I guess that's the key - where there's already collaboration and a common purpose - a wiki is going to leverage that - otherwise it's just track changes gone berserk.