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January 23rd, 2006

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Another Wiki?

Hi folks.

The last few days, David Richfield and I have been installing a new wiki, this time MediaWiki, the platform that Wikipedia, for example runs on. The new Wiki software is much slicker and more powerful than the previous wiki, and the content of the old wiki has been ported to the new platform.

The plan is to shift as much of the website as possible over onto the wiki in due time, and hopefully eliminating the blog eventually. This approach will mean that the website is really everybody’s, since anyone can edit, make suggestions and comments, and correct mistakes they find.

David Richfield is currently maintainer of the wiki, so if you have suggestions etc, you can mail him, or leave him a message on his user talk page on the wiki.

Posted by Steve in Announcements

8 Comments »

This entry was posted on Monday, January 23rd, 2006 at 9:48 am and is filed under Announcements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

8 Responses to “Another Wiki?”

  1. Chris says:

    Wiki’s are great tools for creating and looking up information. A blog, on the other hand, provides a continuous and complete history of events, which is pretty much impossible to replicate with a wiki. It seems to me we would lose a valuable sense of cohesion if everything was put into the wiki black hole.

    January 23rd, 2006 at 11:24 am
  2. Steve says:

    I share your concern, but I’m not convinced. As long as the culture on the wiki is one of storing old info, rather than replacing it, we should not have any problems with losing information. This will also be aided by the system of locking pages with information we don’t want to have modified, but just retained for reference and transparency purposed.

    The biggest loss in moving to the wiki, I feel, would be the loss of the menu system on the right of the screen. I’m not sure how I feel about it at the moment, though.

    On the other hand, I feel the wiki will fulfil certain valuable roles which the blog can’t do that effectively as it is. But I don’t really like the idea of 2 seperate web-milieus.

    Difficult issue, but we’re trying to approach it as well as we can. Thanks for your input, Chris.

    January 23rd, 2006 at 11:40 am
  3. Rory says:

    I dont like the idea of moving from the current setup of a blog plus the menu’s to the wiki, the wiki is nice for input from everyone but the site as it is, is informative and quick to use something i find lacking in wiki’s in general – i dont want to search for things that are used regularly. I feel the menu bars are amazing and a must have. Only an opinion though 😛

    January 23rd, 2006 at 7:54 pm
  4. konrad says:

    I agree with Rory – the wiki is excellent for specific purposes, but in its present form is not as friendly as the blog is to the average visitor (think potential new players) who just wants to get some info as quickly and easily as possible.

    January 26th, 2006 at 11:56 am
  5. Hugo says:

    I wonder about that one. I find a blog convenient to keep up with news, and feel it may be overwhelming to an average visitor / new player, who might find the “less info per page” characteristics of a wiki more accessable.

    Just another contrasting view… I do like the blog, and will miss it if we go all-wiki, but apparently for the opposite reason. (I’m not anti-wiki though, btw)

    February 1st, 2006 at 11:31 am
  6. Chris says:

    The nature of a blog, ie with most recent history first, is becoming more and more widely understood, and is thus a sensible format to follow. The only problem with the current site is that its not immediately obvious that its a blog – the impression one gets (especially with all the menus) is that it is a conventional website. So its a bit disconcerting at first.

    I’m just speaking from experience, I was a bit baffled by the site in the beginning, but once I realized it was a conventional blog, it made more sense. In other words, something in the title (perhaps a subtitle) indiciating that the site is a blog, or is time based in some way, might be useful.

    February 1st, 2006 at 2:18 pm
  7. Steve says:

    David, Jaco and I met on Saturday to discuss how best to go forward with the website and the blog vs. wiki debate.

    We came to the conclusion that the menu system for static information works well, as does the time driven nature of the posts on the blogs.

    The wiki can fulfil certain useful roles to augment the blog, though, and we have decided to use it for those purposes. These are: for documents under construction, especially when those documents need to be edited by multiple parties (such as minutes of meetings, open agendas, planning of tournaments, etc etc). Also, the wiki will be useful for its user pages, which will allow people in time to find out more about other Go players in South Africa, and their involvement in South African Go – it provides a “mini-website” for any South African Go player, without them needing to find other hosting, and with no knowledge of HTML etc. needed.

    I believe this approach adequately addresses Chris, Konrad and Rory’s comments.

    I also intend to mention that the site is a modified blog in the sticky post at the top.

    Please keep comments and suggestions coming in.

    February 2nd, 2006 at 10:43 am
  8. Steve says:

    Oh yes, the other use for the wiki is for uploading pictures of events and placing them in a kind of gallery. That kind of thing is tricky to do nicely on the blog.

    February 2nd, 2006 at 12:33 pm

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