Excellent presentation. I'll be showing that to a few recalcitrant clients.

In the meantime, I thought this might dovetail well and be another information point for you: Online, It’s the Mouse That Runs the Museum.

A choice quote: "While only a handful of museums have successfully harnessed Web users to develop their collections, social-media platforms are starting to foster new kinds of interactions between Web audiences and museum curators long accustomed to working only with other experts."

Thanks Garret - interesting article. I liked the bit about placing some sort of constraints round things to help manage the contributions.

I think, within these hugely popular social networks, the process of self-categorization is fascinating (Twitter hash tags, etc.). It's more fluid than - using this case as an example - a 'history forum.' Single subject forums always had subject-creep, because people *are* social. Really, noone's happy being a 'one-note Charlie' (even partisan political sites). Twitter shows the power of 'temporary' self-categorization. There is much I would like to do to the UI to enhance that usage.

People are so much better able to cope with apparent messiness than we have been led to believe. And as you say helping them cope with messiness is better than tidying up.

... exemplified by our own office desks, I'm sure! ;^)