Comments on: Effective collaboration with wikis

By: cat mcconnell

cat mcconnell — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:13:07 +0000

Just want to add one more free and easy hosted wiki possibility, Google Sites. It is actually a wiki, though for some reason they don’t use the “w” word in their documentation. It has all the fundamental functions of a basic wiki: simple web pages that are easy to create and edit, collaboration permissions (which they call Site Sharing, and is site-wide, not page specific), and an archive of versions of each page you can roll back. It is a very stripped-down iteration of the wiki engine Jotspot.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:52:40 +0000

Thanks all for your comments, and to Beth for including the post in her wiki resource!

I will think on these comments and try and produce the number 10!

By: Alanna

Alanna — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:02:12 +0000

@Michael – that comment abput not thinking of all wikis as wikipedia is a huge leap for me in how I think about them. (yes, I realize how embrassign that is.) Thanks!

By: Beth Kanter

Beth Kanter — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:35:38 +0000

I love step-by-step guides like this, especially if you’re just starting out.

For sure, I’d tweak the first step and add: identify who you want to participate and what exactly you want them to do. Do you want the wiki for coordination, collaborative writing, repository of links, etc.

Dave’s Step 10 – is blank. And, I think it could be filled in with a point about facilitation – who will take on the role of moderator or facilitator of the wiki – the wiki gardner or gnome. See Wiki patterns for more on this.

BTW, I’ve added your post to the WeAreMedia wiki process section

By: Ruediger

Ruediger — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:31:04 +0000

Well, I seem to have started off a discussion..
Dave – we’re working with Wikispaces today again – everythings’s perfect and NO lost data, so a smile is back in our faces. Strange both of us had differing results the same day. Perhaps the site was somehow locked out by our regional provider, QSC.
Stickipad was also my first attempt to use a hosted Wiki and experience same as Margaret – the product has obviously been abandoned.
After having used BSCW as a web collaboration platform a numberof times we’re now trying out wikispaces for a small software development project to communicate and provide the document and process platform for half a dozend dispersed team members, and so far I’m v e r y pleased with the results. Definitely the way to go.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:40:23 +0000

Dave, thanks for this – really helpful and much appreciated, now looking forward to getting stuck in! Chris (a he!)

By: Michael Idinopulos

Michael Idinopulos — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:29:37 +0000

Dave,
Thanks for a great post. Here’s a suggestion for a tenth point: Don’t try to re-create Wikipedia. Wikipedia has been a great poster child for mass collaboration and wiki technology. But it’s a really unusual way to use a wiki. I work at Socialtext, and most of our customers use wikis “in-the-flow” of daily work to manage projects, share observations, capture meeting notes, standardize processes, etc. (I’ve been blogging about this at http://michaeli.typepad.com). The result typically looks less like an encyclopedia and more like a work tool customized to the unique collaboration needs of the particular group.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:07:48 +0000

Goodness, Margaret, is that right? Will remove it forthwith!

Ruediger – I’m not having any problems with Wikispaces at all?

By: Margaret

Margaret — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:05:05 +0000

I can’t believe people are still recommending Stikipad, which has been “down” for over 2 months. It has essentially been abandoned by its owners, and it is not possible to download your data from it so that you can migrate to a new system.

By: Ruediger Schmidt

Ruediger Schmidt — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:17:04 +0000

Nice wrap-up of wiki use. I’m also a big Wikispaces fan. Its impossible not to be. Unfortunately it’s currently down as of 2008/09/07. Let’s hope they’ll get it up and running asap again and not too much of the 1.000.000 users data will be lost…