Mike's got the right point here

I don't think it's creeping out onto thin ice to question whether wiki is
the right way to go. In the course of my current Social Networking research
project working with Linda Spurdle and Renaissance West Midlands, I'm
finding there's an oft-mentioned need within regional museum or heritage
places/space for some sort of collaborative space, tools or just web
presence. 

It could be that this boils down to a more fundamental set of needs around
simple cms solutions like customised Wordpress sites, basic level off the
peg wikis and so on. Or, indeed, if there's little or no skills base in the
region (not the case in the West Midlands!) it could be that much cruder
social networking systems like Facebook groups would do the trick. 

Wikis seem to me to work well with closely linked professional groups in an
intranet/extranet situation where there's shared collective understanding of
the editorial context/critical regime etc. Where they don't seem to work
well - apart from the shining example of Wikipedia - is when they're used in
general public situations where there's sometimes little understanding of
collective publishing behaviours - ie what you can do, what you can't, and
what you'll get flamed for...  

Jon

Jon Pratty
 
Digital publishing consultant, culture sector
Journalism: arts, technology and society
 
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-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mike
Ellis
Sent: 05 December 2008 10:52
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Wikis

I'm in danger of heading out onto thin ice here, but powerful though
MediaWiki is, it is far (FAR) from being easy to either set up or edit. As
soon as you have a requirement for authors to write in CamelCase you've
immediately lost maybe 80% of your potential editing audience to geek-types.
And yes, I know you can implement a rich-text editor, but that isn't easy
either...

I obviously second what Frankie and Mia have said - way more important is
whether this is the right tool...



Mike Ellis
Professional Services Group

Eduserv
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tel:   01225 470522
mob: 07017 031522
fax:   01225 474301
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-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Frankie Roberto
Sent: 05 December 2008 10:18
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Wikis

Linda wrote:

Can anyone tell me where and how I can set up my own wiki?

Will I have to pay? Is it easy to do?


Well, *cough*, as the co-author of a paper on museums and wikis to be
presented at mw2009 (http://www.frankieroberto.com/weblog/1346), I can give
you a few ideas. As with other types of web software like blogging
platforms, you have the option of going for a 'hosted' service, or
installing it on your own server. The former is probably a bit easier to set
up, but may come at a cost and/or adverts on the website. The latter gives
you full control, but requires a bit of fiddling.

 There's a huge number of different wiki programs (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_software for a list, or if you
like big tables see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software),
but they vary hugely in terms of features and community support (online
tutorials, forums, plugins and so on).

The market leader is MediaWiki <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki>,
which used and published by the foundation behind Wikipedia. It's not the
simplest of the lot, but has a huge amount of community support, and the
similarity with Wikipedia can be an advantage in and of itself.

Far more important than which software to use though is what you're going to
use it for, and how you frame the interaction. Do you have an existing on or
offline community you want to use it with? Or is it meant as a way of
interacting with the general public?

Cheers,

Frankie

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