What took so long? WikiGenes is the first implementation of a new wiki tool designed by psychologist Robert Hoffman. The software that powers Wikigenes enables users to look up the author of every single word in the wiki, rather than requiring them to compare versions and reverse-engineer attribution. Hoffman's scholarly paper in Nature Genetics describes the big value-add:
The uncertainty as to the source of specific texts is therefore an important problem in dynamic publications and decreases the value of articles in their entirety. In WikiGenes, on the contrary, new contributions are identified with every editing step and attributed to their authors. Thus readers can always know the corresponding author of any part of a WikiGenes article.
Hoffman sees his superwiki as a boon for peer-reviewed science. But there's much bigger need for this software over at the world's definitive collection of Smallville trivia. Because what do Wikipedians want most? Credit. Now they can get it for every. Single. Word.
