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

you are definitely limiting your market share to those people who have have clue about what wiki's are and what you do with them, which i don't think is many people but might be the only people you are interested in i suppose. i don't think this site has much structure either. you might want it to all be random, but a bit too random and it becomes confused and people don't know what they could add to it anyway. i don't really know though. maybe that's why it seems confused to me.

so will this just appear on the page then?

• -- susie

  Yes Susie, it'll just appear I don't honestly believe it's that hard. If you want to find out how to add content then you will. I did after all. Your comments about structure are interesting though. I think people need to know:

• to click on the title of a page
• to use the text search

• about LocalSiteMap

• to get over their fear and just click! Go on you can do it!

  -- SimonHuggins

"Wikis wock" I just think they're ahead of their time a bit to be honest. That and the fact that people won't really /want/ to change the content of a site that isn't theirs, because that's a bit like trespassing. Add that to the fact that there are MIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIOOONNNNNNNNS of people's webshites out there and what you have is something that should stick out but probably doesn't to anyone other than those who know you *and* know of your wiki. That narrows the number down somewhat I would imagine.

[http://carl.ebrey.net/ <Blatent_plug />]

• -- Carl

  But wikis have been around for like years. Since 1995 at least (cf WikiHistory). I can understand the trespassing point but I'm not sure how to undo that. I guess the real issue is maybe that people don't have a lot of any worth to say and that they know that if they add rubbish it'll be deleted. Still even rubbish can be valuable in starting a discussion as it can be refactored.

  -- SimonHuggins

Some kind soul corrected AddingPages recently and someone else added bits to RandomStuff so perhaps all is not lost.

• -- SimonHuggins

i like that you can just doodle all over someone else's website, maybe because it feels a bit naughty (ooer). my problem is that once i have got here i have no idea what to put. most people have their own blogs now and so will put all their random poo in that and people will post comments if they want a discussion about it. maybe a wiki is just not different enough from blogs/forums/news to warrant lots of attention.

then again, this discussion page seems to be working quite well.

• -- susie

(i'm sorry huggiebun, you'll prolly get lots of emails now because i kept doing things wrong and having to save changes over and over again).

• Well I think the point is that the content here shouldn't really be just another blog. It's not really designed to be blog like anyway. The content is more likely to be HOWTOs or tips or factual information which can be made richer by the wide variety of people visiting some of whom can add something relevant to a particular page. I think a wiki is or should be different from blogs. See www.wikipedia.org for instance.

  -- SimonHuggins

I think [http://www.ox.compsoc.net/oxfordguide/ structured wikis] may be a better way to go. wikis like these are useful for random scratch pads (as you mentioned things like the OxLUG/earthlings pages are the only things that have really been used widely) because it's not all things to all people, and I don't think it suits a replacement for your web page, which is what you /seem/ to want. Actually I said to myself that I'd never end up running a wiki because I didn't think I'd ever care enough about them, but the Oxford Guide has enthused me - because it ends up being a structured guide that can be used as a normal web site. I was even thinking about the possibility of having some magic to make it into a printable guide book - now that's about as far from a traditional wiki as you can get! -- Dom