Feel free to discuss random issues with the wiki somewhere below here. Keeping some sensible format probably helps.

HuggieWikiDiscussion

• I think this wiki is a failure.

  Or at least it feels that way. I guess I must have some idealism left in me because I thought that in some way people might see this as an interesting thing, you know, somewhere you can add your own content and improve the existing content. I definitely used to be more idealistic after all I thought AcronymExpansions was a good idea (see the top of that page) once but I can see it really isn't now.

  It's a bit like the FAQ I started for Parinux based on questions asked (and asked again) on the Linux mailing list. That FAQ may have helped people but I certainly never got the feedback for it that I thought I would. Feedback would have been useful to improve it but eventually I grew less interested in it and didn't have time to summarise questions on the list. Somehow I believed that having somewhere which was easier to edit would help people contribute and I fell in love with wikis. The wiki has been useful and groups have used it in the past effectively but often only for one page or a subset of pages without venturing outside. (e.g. EarthlingsInfo, ["NottLUG"] - mostly just the members list, ["OxLUG"] - mostly for the installfest stuff, the DebianExpoList)

  I can't force people to use it nor would I want to but it's a shame to see it not really being used to its full potential. I guess earthlings are the people (besides me) who use it most. I think what I would really consider a success is when I look at RecentChanges and the top changes aren't me and aren't spam. I don't really know what that means. I guess I feel that CategoryComputingTips could be a lot more useful - there is after all a lot more knowledge out there - but that I don't really know how to make it so and without other people helping lack the motivation after all if no one is participating surely no one can be reading and yet there are people reading (well according to the webstats) and they can't all be just me.

  Equally I'm not sure why people would add information here. I mean, I don't know what this wiki has over others (apart from the earthling/nottlug/oxlug connections) and I don't have an idea of a particular category of information that people would be very likely to add to either. I'm lacking a killer sales pitch. Maybe we could start a tradition that for every page you view you have to add some interesting comment somewhere a bit like an ObHack. But that's a little too structured really.

  I don't mean to say that this is going away (though if you think it should feel free to say so ) and I also don't mean to be ungrateful for those that have contributed. Various friends of mine have added their bits or made existing pages better which is much appreciated. It just feels slightly as though there's this great potential here that is going unharnessed. Maybe that's my idealism again.

  -- SimonHuggins

Comments

I can see what you mean, and I have quite often set things up with the idealistic impression that everyone will find them useful. Mostly it's been stuff to do with [http://www.crossfire.org.uk Crossfire], namely a couple of attempts to get a discussion list running and, more recently, seeing if people were interested in [http://www.crossfire.org.uk/forums/ forums]. Even the [http://www.x3ja.co.uk. forums] on my own site only really get used when I set up a topic and tell people about it - it doesn't just get looked at. I also know that Graham set up some forums for ex-Jubilee campus (one campus of [http://www.nott.ac.uk/ Uni of Nottingham]) but that they don't really get many hits.

I guess, as you say, all these things lack a major selling point. Maybe we need some help from a marketing guru

Having said that, I found that my [http://www.x3ja.co.uk blog] along with others I host, have been rather successful. Although I kind of ran blogs on old websites, it was never the focus. I guess that's the major selling point for that isn't it? Think I might use my blog to advertise my forums a bit more

Anyway, just my thoughts and empathisations (is that a word?!) -- "AlexWalker"