WikiWiki

I actually have experience installing and setting up a Wiki. I started the project with enthusiasm, and a group of apparently enthusiastic people, and then all but one or two of them just failed to materialise in their support. I spent hours writing pages for the thing, and then everything just ground to a halt because a wiki with only one contributer is not much of a wiki at all. The moral of the story is that wikis CAN be an excellent resource... but you need people to get involved. I know my library service has talked about having a staff wiki for notes and training and links to important resources, and I would love to see it happen, but I remain dubious as to how well it would really work in the long term. People are very good at using resources, but not necessarily so good at making them.

This is, I suppose, the strength of places like the Wookieepedia - places that have a very strong core group of devoted enthusiasts, who know great amounts of material, and are willing to put it together to share. That makes it sound as though I'm pointing my finger at these people and calling them Nerdy McNerds, and that's not quite true. I think that kind of enthusiasm for anything is admirable - and it's awesome that it can be harnessed and put together for this kind of resource. It may seem useless on the surface, but I bet there are heaps of people who look at it, if only to get the definitive answer to a trivia question.

I'm delighted to see how much content there is on Princeton's BookLovers Wiki - because that is exactly the kind of thing I would expect not to work. We tried to have book reviews on our website for customers, and it failed (It's pretty embarrassing being one of two people to contribute to such a thing). But this is open to anyone, and I imagine that makes a difference, as to does the fact that it is linked to the summer reading programme. The truth is that a lot of people do like writing reviews (I know I review pretty much everything I read/watch on facebook - and I'm definitely not alone), but people like a convenient way of doing it. And a wiki definitely is convenient! There really isn't all that much to writing up a page, aside from a few little formatting rules.

I was much less impressed with the Wisconson Heritage Online site. It was so hard to find the interesting parts - too much text, too many options. The great thing about a wiki is that you don't need to have great slabs of text - you can break it up, you can do multiple pages, you can do pictures. And the front pages of this just don't use any of that. Ugh. This kind of thing is exactly what we SHOULDN'T be doing with a wiki.

Next up will be editing the wiki, once I get the key. I'm curious to see what PBWiki will be like to play with. I've only used MediaWiki in the past - which I love. So. I may be hard to convince.

I have done a little edit on Wikipedia, though I'm curious as to whether it will last - I probably should have referenced my change. Still! It was nice to have done something.