Wikis, BWIN, September 15, 2006
Friday, September 15, 2006
Presentation as a Wiki
Who am I?
- News librarian by day, technophile by night
- Participate in technology group at the Berkman Center
- Involved with Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects
Raise your hand if you:
- Know what a wiki is
- Edit a wiki every now and then
- Contribute to a wiki regularly
- Have your own wiki
- Manage a wiki
- Have installed a wiki on a server
What’s a Wiki?
- Specialized Web site allowing easy editing
- Usually has a visible edit link or button
- Wiki syntax is somewhat easy to learn, not HTML
Editing a wiki is easy.
[a quick demo of how to edit a wiki]
A Web site anyone can edit?
Isn’t that bad?
If anyone can edit, remember that means anyone can edit.
Anyone Editing is Good.
- Aids communication, especially among decentralized team members or over time
- Encourages participation
- Central repository for information
Anyone Editing is Bad.
- “Help! I erased everything on the wiki!”
- Technology comfort level
- Wiki spam and vandalism
- Loss of content control
Some wikis have access controls.
The front page of Wikipedia, for example, does not have an edit tab: http://www.wikipedia.org/. Even many registered users cannot edit the page. Only specific trusted individuals within the community have the ability to edit the page.
Caution 1: Storing Information
- Anyone can edit the wiki
- Compatibility with other storage formats
- The right or best tool
- Wiki spam
Caution 2: Using a Wiki as a Source
- Content can change at any moment
- Who’s responsible for the content?
Wikis Come in Different Colors
- Different wiki platforms have different functionality
- Think about what you want or will use the wiki for
- Desirable features
- Intranet, Web site, hosted
Different wiki software
- MediaWiki: http://www.mediawiki.org/
- Twiki: http://twiki.org/
- PBwiki: http://pbwiki.com/
- MoinMoin: http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/
- Wet Paint: http://www.wetpaint.com/
Examples of Wikis
- Wikipedia: http://www.wikipedia.org/
- Atom: http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/
- Library Success: http://www.libsuccess.org/
- Newslib mini: http://newslibmini.pbwiki.com/
- SLA Boston Chapter: http://silversmith.olin.edu/slawiki/
- SLA Boston Programming
- BarCamp: http://barcamp.org/BarCampBoston
- BarCamp Registration
- reddit: http://www.reddit.com/
- Help screen done by wiki
- Codex Dresden: http://epsilon.media.mit.edu/codex/
- Team work
- Distributed, real time collaboration
- Archive for the future
- A Codex Dresden Puzzle
Future of wikis
- More wikis in use for more things
- Growth in the business world
- Change people’s ideas about the Web being static
Future of wiki software
- More enterprise solutions
- More features, like XML feeds
- Easier to use
- International conference for the Wikimedia Foundation
- Excellent way to learn what’s happening with their projects
- Opportunity to network with others interested in wikis
- Held in Cambridge
- Brought together many North American contributors
- Many highlights
- Wiki conferences
- Berkman technology group: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/thursdaymee…
- Local Wikipedia group: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:M…