Trade-a-fact

A trade-a-fact website is one run on the principle that users who take a fact contribute a fact.

Sites set up using generation 1.0 internet technology can only be viewed passively and the user is just a recipient of content. The availability of generation 2.0 internet technology brings with it the need for a more active stance.

On academic collaborative editing projects like the Psychology Wiki there is a growing academic and professional expectation that users will contribute in order to build knowledge bases never before possible.

Each generation of technology brings its own etiquette and social rules which take sometime to be socially negotiated. Just as you now switch off your mobile phone in theatres, on the new websites the social contract involved between one user and the others is that facts will be traded.

If you find a reference useful add a reference, if you find an ISBN link useful, add an informative paragraph to an article. This doesn't preclude you from contributing more actively, that is always welcome. Rather it indicates a fresh academic and professional responsibility in your interactions with this new kind of database.

Over time we will develop an appropriate set of cultural norms involving wikis