[thelist] wiki

[Diane Soini]

On Tuesday, August 17, 2004, at 04:05 AM, 
thelist-request at lists.evolt.org wrote:
>
> I have recently customised a mediawiki to use for internal organisation
> development.
That's what I want it for.

Right now the method of choice is to use Adobe FrameMaker with CVS, 
which of course means you are trying to use version control to control 
collaboration on binary content. The FrameMaker file is mostly text, so 
its really unfortunate that you don't get any of the benefits of CVS 
because it's not text. The only reason they want FrameMaker is because 
they can output as a web site with Web Works, and because FrameMaker 
lets you put in reference links that are automatically made into links 
with Web Works.

I think that all of this is exactly what a wiki does, and wouldn't a 
wiki be just as easy, if not easier?

> I recommend that you do NOT use a wiki unless you are prepared to "fill
> it in" with lots of structure, and good practice and help files.
That's what I worry about. Not so much maintaining the structure 
(because that's hard enough to enforce in FrameMaker), but 
understanding the wiki code, and understanding how code tranlsates into 
formatting (gosh, do you ever reminisce about the good old days of 
things like Word Star?)

> * added friendly instructional messages to the pages - I used templates
> to acheive this. Can simply type {{templatename}} and the content of
> that template gets inserted.
>
> * filled out the pages with blank info, e.g. "Your Name here" - then
> users can simply copy the whole block of code and edit the text parts.

That's the kind of helpful stuff I think would be really useful.

> * created "request a job" pages - these assume that general users will
> never be able to do floated divs or add images to pages even if you
So then the wiki code and html are both used? I don't think any of the 
potential wiki users in my group know any HTML. I think the wiki code 
would freak them out enough. That's why I thought a rich text editor 
might be necessary. And I'm sure they'd want to be able to just cut and 
paste from Word. (gosh, do you ever reminisce about the days before 
Word...?)


Thank you very much! Anyway, I'm just gathering info so I can make a 
suggestion. That's how I fool them into thinking I'm really smart! I 
really think a wiki would be a great thing to try.
Diane