Managing content is a big job for any site owner. At one time, web content was fairly static with basic text and images. However, keeping content fresh, imaginative, interesting, and interactive are key challenges now.
Widgets are neat little blocks of code that can usually be easily embed in a site. Widgets are often known as gadgets, modules, snippets, or plug-ins. Widgets add content to a page that is not static. Some widgets provide information, like clocks, calendar, daily weather, stock market tickers, event countdowns, or someone's Twitter status. Some widgets allow you to easily add photos and slideshows to a page. Some allow wiki members to connect with each other, by signing an online guestbook or chatting online. Some wikis entertain visitors, by showing video or playing music. Others collect data through online polls. I'm starting a new series on this blog - exploring widgets and how they're used on wikis.
Here's a short video from Wetpaint to kick off our investigation of the wonderful world of widgets for our wikis:
It's really been a really busy season and I've let many things slip-through-the-cracks recently. Maybe you also have felt the time crunch. If you're thinking about something nice, but cheap, that you can give to your favorite wiki creator or wiki administrator, I've got a great idea. You can give your information, your feedback, your opinions, --- your time. Wikis are designed for communities -- they are ideal for collaboration. For 2009, pledge to join a wiki of interest to you and to pitch- in to help. Find a wiki where you can add your expertise or offer a helping hand. Most wiki administrators would love the assistance.
Wikis are great tools for collaboration that allow basically any website visitor to add or to update site content. However, there is a challenge that is common among wiki administrators: the wiki vandal. Wiki vandals visit open wiki sites and maliciously delete or change content (e.g., adding obscene content, falsifying facts) on wiki pages. Here's a little note to the wanna-be wiki vandals: most wikis offer tools to wiki administrators that can easily control the vandalism on the site. A key feature of wikis is the ability to view the history of a page and to revert content. It is generally very easy to restore the deleted content of a wiki page or to remove the vandalism. Such bad behavior is not generally successful in active wikis. Through page watch features, writers and wiki administrators are notified as updates are made on the site. When problems are experienced, a wiki administrator can restrict who can actually update the content of a wiki site on some wiki hosting services. I feel that it's really sad when a wiki administrator must take this step --- because it limits the collaborative features available on the site. Some wiki administrators restrict content additions and updates to community members only. If a community member misbehaves, that community member can be warned (by the wiki administrator or site moderator team through the wiki messaging features) and banned from the site, if necessary.
I have dealt with wiki vandalism several times during the last few months. Today a wiki was added to one of the directories on Everything Wiki, but it lacked content related to the topic and it had some questionable content. I suspected (and confirmed with the community member) that the site had been recently vandalized --- the wiki's admin team is currently working to correct the problem and to implement measures to prevent future vandalism. Earlier in the summer, one individual on a wiki of mine tried to delete a single page -- every day for almost a week-- and posted a comment on the site about his frustration in being unable to successfully delete the content, noting that it seemed to just magically re-appear. That individual finally gave up and went away...probably to vandalize another wiki site. In the last two weeks, a wiki site of mine was attacked by a wiki vandal. The vandal joined as a community member and then decided to attack the site. The vandal added a fictitious page about a virus being on the site and its deletion of the site content. Then the vandal starting editing every page and deleting all the content. Through page watch features, I was notified about the changes to the pages and started my investigation while the vandalism was in progress. I banned the individual from the site and then restored all the content. It was a very frustrating experience. So, unfortunately, restricting edits to community members does not always solve the problems experienced with wiki vandals.
In celebration of today's anniversary of the launch of MSNBC in 1996, I found a video with information and an MSNBC interview describing the Wikipedia Scanner tool. This tool is designed to trace updates to Wikipedia pages. Using publicly available information, the tool is able to identify some interesting facts about who is updating Wikipedia pages. It has identified numerous sinister updates to Wikipedia pages made among corporate competitors. Who's Hacking Wikipedia
As posted on YouTube by CSPANJUNKIEdotORG You may recall the resignation of the campaign manager for a Georgia gubernatorial candidate in April 2006 after being accused of changing an opponent’s Wikipedia biography. Wiki vandals -- a continuing challenge that must be managed in open wikis.
Today, I hope that your wiki site stays free of the wiki vandals of the Web!
Sticking information on the wiki for your community
In celebration of John T Smith patenting the cork board on this date in 1891, I began to think how announcements are posted on wikis for the community. Some wikis include an 'announcements' section on the home page to highlight news and events. Others have messaging features which allow the creators, administrators, writers, and even community members to send messages to the community members. Some wiki farms support online to-do lists --- where wiki creators, administrators, and writers can post tasks where help is needed by the community. Sometimes you have a need to post some information or requests that just do not fit easily on any page on your wiki. Lately, I've seen online cork board pages created on wikis. How can these "cork board" pages be used by community members? to share news with others, to post general announcements (e.g., new content, moderator will be away for awhile on vacation), to promote a news or journal article, to request help on a task, to announce a place where community members will be meeting face-to-face, etc. I have used an online cork board page on one wiki to post information about my availability to the other community members. I've recently created a cork board page on one of my wikis -- and wonder how it will be used by the community.
If you've created or used an online cork board page or function on your wiki, post a comment and tell us about it.
We're starting our celebration early this year. Taking a little break to enjoy the family. Maybe we'll go fishing and spend some time at the beach too. The grill is already ready! Have a great holiday. We'll be back soon, reporting wiki'd ways to build content and collaborate with your community.
Wetpaint is nearing an amazing milestone -- one million wikis! To celebrate this occasion, Wetpaint will reward the one-millionth site creator with the chance to give back to their community and the planet! For one year, Wetpaint will offset the carbon emissions of both the home and car of the creator of the millionth wiki. Wetpaint will also sponsor the carbon offset of a local school or non-profit organization selected by the lucky millionth site creator. Wetpaint is even taking it one step further by offering the package to the referrer of the millionth site, if it's created as a referral generated by an email or a website.
Could your new wiki be the millionth wiki on Wetpaint? Have you been thinking about creating a wiki on the Web? Maybe one for your family, your child's team, your hobby, your favorite TV show, your favorite team, your favorite charity, etc.? Why not create a wiki today on Wetpaint. If your site is the millionth wiki, you'll help the planet Earth plus help a selected local school or non-profit organization. I'd love to be the referrer of the millionth wiki on Wetpaint!!
If you want to know more about wikis, visit the Everything Wiki site. Then, just click on the "start a wiki" link that is displayed at the bottom right corner of any page. If you're ready now, you can create your free website from this blogpost.
Today on Father's Day, I cannot help but recognize the father of wiki, Ward Cunningham
Wikis are great tools for web-based content management and collaboration. They easily allow a community to collaborate and jointly create and edit content. The first wiki was created in 1995 by Ward Cunningham, a Smalltalk developer, who conceived it as a quick way to create and share ideas when working. The first public wiki, called the Portland Pattern Repository, facilitates the discovery and discussion of software patterns. Ward's Wiki is still working today. In fact, on its tenth anniversary, it had over 30,000 pages! His site has a lot more information about the history of Wiki.
Most wikis today are really not their father's wiki though. There's been a lot of progress in the world of wiki since Ward Cunningham created the first. Some note key differences from the original wiki concept and often reference Wiki 2.0. The early wikis required technical expertise during their setup -- often requiring customization of open source code. Wikis were initially customized and installed by people with key technical skills and authorities. These individuals would often be labeled as techies, geeks, or nerds by some. After wikis were created, the community members often had to learn a simple, text formatting language, called wikitext or wiki syntax. The early wikis could be updated by anyone, with little to no protection of any pages. You could see the history of changes and revert content, but there was really no option to lock or to protect a page's content. Today, wiki hosting services permit the quick and easy creation of wikis on the Web. There are no technical requirements or expertise needed to create a wiki on the Web using a wiki hosting service. Hundreds of thousands of wikis exist today -- and most were not developed by individuals with technical skills. Most wiki hosting services support a rich text editor and provide a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) interface for its users. In other words, no tags! Wiki users are not required to learn or to use a text formatting language at all. If you can send e-mail or create a document with a word processing software package, you can create a wiki. The early wikis were primarily text-based sites, with many hyperlinks easing the view of related information. Today's wikis support templates and creative site designs, include multimedia, and permit widgets or small applications to be embed, permitting interactivity and dynamic content. Many wiki hosting services allow a creator to protect the content for selected pages and some wikis allow authorizations at the page level. Many wiki hosting services have enhanced community features, permitting its members to create profiles, to send messages to other members, to send compliments to others, and to identify their associations or friendships with other members. The wiki -- a truly great idea -- is continuing to evolve and open the Web to the nontechnical users.
Here are two very short videos by Wetpaint which discuss some of the differences between the original wiki implementation and the ease of creating wikis today on wiki hosting services.
Today, don't be old-school -- give wiki a try, but start with a wiki hosting service, like Wetpaint, to experience the true ease and power of wikis today.
Managing content is a big job for any site owner. At one time, web content was fairly static with basic text and images. However, keeping content fresh, imaginative, interesting, and interactive are key challenges now. 
