Thursday, September 13, 2007

week 7, thing 16: learnin' 'bout wikis

One of the things I liked about the slide presentation was the RocWiki - "The people's guide to Rochester." It was a perfect use for wikis that I never thought about before --- a full guide to a city, completely created by residents for other residents or visitors. I think I had previously thought of wikis as being used for "things" like astronomy or stamp collecting. I had not considered wikis as being helpful to groups like city residents or conference attendees. I would guess that the likelihood of vandalism and spam would become smaller the more focused your subject became (although I could be wrong...).

When I went into the RocWiki (it was linked to in the What is a Wiki? presentation), I was even more impressed with the product than with the idea. It links to local resources, often providing business information like street address, phone number, and/or web links. Some entries had comments under them --- commenting on the quality of service at an auto repair center and offering each other directions to a home brewing supply warehouse!

This wiki was marvelous. It combined the regional geography of a phone book with the user feedback often found on department store and travel service, and the community-building aspects of different social groups.

The ALA 2006 New Orleans wiki had all the great stuff that a conference brochure does, plus more. I like the flexibility that the wiki offers - you can link to the web site if you want the concrete details - keynote speakers, times, etc. - but if there's something you forget to mention (like bus routes or public transportation from other parts of the city), someone else can always add that to the wiki. Plus, "bars" and "wifi" are usually not categories you see in a lot of conference handouts ;)

Another thing I liked about the Rocwiki, the ALA conference, and the Book lover's wiki from Princeton were the easy to navigate layouts. Granted, this is because they're made with either the frontpage, mediawiki or pbwiki software (is it software? a close enough descriptor).

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