In my last post, I suggested that groups of people could effectively collaborate on details if they had the mindset to do so, but most do not. In this post, I want to discuss a related but different skill and mindset required to collaborate on details: how to determine an atomic unit of detail to collaborate on. I can't seem to find much conversation about this topic, but I have encountered some of the problems and would appreciate any insight out there on this topic.

One such common problem is when authors of content assume the approach to writing a book or long paper is the same as working on a Wiki. Unfortunately, this approach assumes a sequence that progresses a reader through a cognitive process. An understanding of any one section of content requires the full context of everything that precedes it, ultimately making the entire thing one large, unwieldy, indivisible unit. To such authors, breaking the content down to smaller, self-standing chunks is non-intuitive and introduces a redundancy that seems improper.

I remember back to the late 80's and early 90's working on some commercial client-server applications that needed Help files. People who were good at writing large users manuals often struggled to create good Help files. It took effort and practice to learn how to identify a unit of information that would most likely help someone while providing hyperlinks to other content that may be related. Later, early Web site designers dealt with similar issues. Today, people who keep blogs have an upper hand in understanding how to identify atomic units of content that links to other items of relevance. And, of course, Wiki editors are also getting firsthand experience.

Wikipedia identification of an atomic unit is a good case study. To begin with, this collaborative has adopted an encyclopedia paradigm. So articles are expected to be notable, neutral, and of an encyclopedia size. Wikipedia provides policies and guidelines to this effect, but relies on the community to actually enforce the policies. Most notably, the atomic structure of articles is ever changing so Wikipedia encourages readers and editors to identify merging or splitting opportunities and provides a process for merging and a process for splitting.

The MediaWiki engine of Wikipedia makes a clear distinction between two different units of content: an article and a section of an article. The article is atomic in the sense that it provides the complete picture of the subject. However, the section is a smaller piece of an article with its own header. The section can be edited independent of the rest of the article making it the unit of editing. That distinction is an important one because changes to any one section can be reverted or revised independent of other sections.

Not all Wikis have a clear picture of what granularity of detail is needed and how to encourage it. Wikipedia has the benefit that most people have used an encyclopedia at some time in their lives, but even so, policies and procedures are provided to help the community make granularity decisions. Wikipedia also has the benefit of mass collaboration leading to the wisdom of the crowd. Smaller collaborations with a finite number of people involved make the problem harder, not easier. I think the Wikipedia effort around granularity is an important lesson to other Wiki applications: provide clarity about granularity intent and a process to achieve it.