Wikis vs. Message Boards

While the old school librarian in me bristles at content being propagated online that is not authorative, I have found Wikipedia to be a great source to at least get me started for subjects I know nothing about.

My husband talks about finding obscure, yet interesting facts in Wikipedia about his favorite childhood cartoons, comics, toys, and shows. I know a huge amount of content is there that I may have trouble finding fast in traditional print resources.

And of course the better Wikipedia articles include some bibliographic citations.

Someone cited my websites on using a lucet in the external links part of that record.

I have even set up my own Wikipedia account and added content, both editing an entry and adding further content.

For collaboration, I can see Wikis as a good tool to manage a knowledge database. If I was going to make a Wiki, the topic would be on knitting patterns. It seems like almost all knitting patterns published today have errors. I would like to be able to search for a particular pattern, and see reviews of the pattern and corrections to known errors.

I know of a message board on Knitters Review that should fulfill my desire to find out about pattern errors and corrections. I have been trying to compare and contrast its Message Board with the Wiki model, and I think I probably prefer the Wiki model for its clarity and ease of use.