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Exploring the World of Wikis 2/28/2011 Exploring the World of Wikis Exploring the World of Wikis Collaborative Web sites organize information, encourage participation By: Brian Satterfield June 5, 2006 Never Again International, a nonprofit network dedicated to promoting peace and preventing genocide, has members throughout the world, with chapters in Rwanda, Burundi, America, Canada, the United Kingdom, and China. With so many people dispersed around the globe, the organization needed a way to communicate, centralize information, and ease collaboration. "Because we are scattered," said Never Again's Communications Coordinator Clare-Marie White, "it is very difficult to know what [members] don't know, so we really need ways of sharing knowledge when people travel." To overcome this obstacle, Never Again adopted a wiki . Part of the next generation of interactive Web applications, wikis are collaborative Web sites that allow authorized users - or in some cases, anyone with an Internet connection - to rapidly and easily change the content of pages, as well as view a history of changes that others have made. A screenshot of Never Again International's Community Portal wiki page. © 2006, Never Again International. Although Never Again does have a traditional Web site with information for potential donors, White sees the wiki as a more dynamic communication tool for those who aren't highly technical, pointing out that only a few of its members possess the technical knowledge to edit HTML Web pages and upload them to the organization's site. Heddy Nam, Director of Never Again's New York chapter, adds that since the organization lacks a central server, its wiki also acts as a sort of database. "The wiki is currently the only place where all of our ideas and work are stored," Nam said. She also notes that collaborating on projects via a wiki is much more efficient than sending around email attachments with multiple edits and revisions. techsoup.org/…/page5511.cfm 1/5 2/28/2011 Exploring the World of Wikis As Never Again discovered, wikis can be a great way to consolidate and share your organization's information. In the course of deciding whether a wiki makes sense for your nonprofit, learn how the technology works, evaluate whether it can benefit your organization, and familiarize yourself with wiki-creation services and software. Most Wiki-creation tools are geared toward users who lack advanced technical skills. Rather than forcing inexperienced persons to wade through HTML tags, wikis offer a set of easily comprehensible editing tools — often referred to by the acronym WYSIWYG (short for "what you see is what you get") — similar to those found in word- processing programs. For example, to bold or italicize a word on a wiki, you'd simply highlight it with your mouse, and then click a toolbar icon to format the text. Once you've laid out the page, you simply hit the Submit (or similarly titled) button and your changes will immediately appear live on the wiki. Besides helping your nonprofit organize vital information, wikis can also facilitate collaboration among individuals working remotely, since anyone with an Internet connection can access and update the content within a matter of minutes. And because wikis track and record all changes, you can quickly see the history of any page, determine who added a particular piece of content, and revert a page back to its previous state. Will a Wiki Work for My Organization? Although a wiki can make an excellent tool for cataloging information, fostering collaboration on a project, and collecting thoughts from constituents or supporters, consider the following four points before you build one. 1. Find out whether a wiki will make the process of accessing and sharing information and ideas more efficient than email lists, documents, or whatever mediums your organization currently uses to collaborate. 2. Though wikis are typically easy to use, find out whether non-technical users are willing to invest the time to learn an unfamiliar technology. 3. Be certain that you have enough initial content to launch a useful wiki. Seed your wiki with pages of text and information and invite people to participate: it's more likely that folks will warm to the idea of adding to pages if they have a solid foundation to build upon. 4. Finally, ensure that someone at your organization has time to maintain the wiki and provide technical support. The Different Types of Wikis Generally speaking, wikis can be divided into three basic categories: public, protected, and private. Public A wiki with an active and engaged community of users can come to be a valuable vault of shared knowledge that evolves and expands over time. Public wikis like Wikipedia allow anyone on the Internet to view, create, and edit pages. Although some public wikis require you to create an account before you can alter content, others let anonymous users add or change pages. Protected Protected wikis, on the other hand, are visible to the general public but can only be changed by authorized users. Most wikis have a designated administrator (or wikimaster) who grants users the permissions required to edit, add, or delete information. The wikimaster also makes general rules and enforces standards of conduct to help maintain the integrity of the content. Private Private wikis are most often used for internal communications within a company or organization; only those who are authorized by the administrator can even view the wiki, let alone edit it. If your organization is setting up a protected or private wiki, the designated administrator can ensure that only trusted users are allowed to contribute content or edit pages. However, if you decide to open your wiki to the general public, you should be prepared to remove undesirable or off-topic content that users might add. This so-called "wiki vandalism" takes a few different forms; some individuals might post inflammatory content while others might delete useful information. Spammers have also been known to deface wikis by deluging them with links to commercial sites. If you do choose to build a public wiki, enlist your core community to help you police the content for inappropriate entries and create a feedback form for reporting wiki vandalism. Setup Time Once you've determined that building a wiki is feasible and that others at your organization are likely to adopt it, it's time to decide how to actually implement one. When setting up a wiki, you essentially have two options: outsource techsoup.org/…/page5511.cfm 2/5 2/28/2011 Exploring the World of Wikis it to a third-party host (known as a wiki farm ) or build it from scratch by installing software on your own servers. The latter option requires IT support or a consultant with knowledge of how to install all of the required software you'll need. Regardless of which wiki-creation method you choose, it's crucial to choose a platform with user-friendly editing tools. Adam Frey, founder of hosted service Wikispaces , believes that wiki software with an uncluttered interface and a minimal learning curve is critical when persuading newbies to contribute to pages. For more of Frey's thoughts regarding wikis, check out this interview on the NetSquared site, When and Why to Wiki . Hosted and Free Wiki Services Creating a wiki using a third-party wiki-hosting service is a sensible choice for many nonprofits, as this option requires minimal setup and no advanced technical knowledge. Also, some organizations will likely treat their first wiki as a sort of experiment, evaluating its effectiveness as a communication tool and noting whether users adopt it. Since setting up a simple wiki on a third-party site won't cost you a lot of money or time, your organization will not sustain major losses if the wiki doesn't gain traction. Many wiki farms will host your content for free, though others charge a nominal monthly fee in exchange for greater flexibility and additional storage space. Below, you'll find basic information about popular wiki farms, including their key features and limitations. Since the user interface is a crucial element when selecting a wiki service, try a few of them and solicit feedback from those who will be using the wiki on a regular basis. For a more extensive list of wiki farms, consult Wikipedia's Comparison of Wiki Farms entry. BluWiki Since it's based on the MediaWiki engine — the underlying software that runs the wiki — editing pages using this free service will be familiar territory for anyone who's ever contributed to Wikipedia (which also uses MediaWiki). Though starting a page at BluWiki is totally free, it's only appropriate for projects that are open to the public. This means you cannot create private wikis or restrict editing permissions to a select group of users. On the plus side, BluWiki will let you add audio files and photos to pages. EditMe EditMe lets you create public, protected, or private wikis and can notify registered users and visitors of recent changes via an RSS feed or email. The service's WYSIWYG editing features are more in-depth than those found at some other wiki farms; for instance, you'll find tools for quickly embedding Flash movies and changing the style and color of the font. EditMe doesn't offer a free option, though plans start as low as $5 per month (for 50MB of hosted space and 1GB of bandwidth usage). More expensive plans add extra space and additional features, such as automated data backups. EditThis.info This free hosting service uses the same MediaWiki engine BluWiki does. On the site, you can create public wikis that are open to anonymous users; however, EditThis.info also lets administrators build public or private wikis and specify which types of changes registered users can make.
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