[t_hah]

Has anyone set up a Wiki-type website before? How complicated is it to maintain or supervise? How do these Wikis work (in a few words)? I am a bit confused on how the creation of new topics, linking, and updating works.

Any suggestions on which one to use? phpWiki, TikiWiki...etc?

Thank you,


t

[Mithras]

1. Wikis are really neat.
2. How complicated it is depends on how much experience you have with HTML, config files, and databases. I'd put it at "moderately complex." But most Wikis have a pretty clear set of directions.
3. I like MediaWiki, the basis for Wikipedia and related projects; it has a nice clean look, handles Unicode seamlessly, and is pretty easy to work with. But there are dozens of decent Wiki projects.

Come to think of it, noodling around on Wikipedia is a good way to get used to Wikis. Linking and new topic creation are easy -- just point to a page, even if it "doesn't exist" yet, and you'll be presented with a default page that you can begin editing to fill in the page.

[t_hah]

Originally posted by Mithras:
1. Wikis are really neat.
2. How complicated it is depends on how much experience you have with HTML, config files, and databases. I'd put it at "moderately complex." But most Wikis have a pretty clear set of directions.
3. I like MediaWiki, the basis for Wikipedia and related projects; it has a nice clean look, handles Unicode seamlessly, and is pretty easy to work with. But there are dozens of decent Wiki projects.

Come to think of it, noodling around on Wikipedia is a good way to get used to Wikis. Linking and new topic creation are easy -- just point to a page, even if it "doesn't exist" yet, and you'll be presented with a default page that you can begin editing to fill in the page.

So do people get to create their own topics, thread (whatever they are caled in Wiki)? And then how does the editing work? Can anyone jump in and edit, or do these edits have to be superviesed so that people with bad intentions do not mess everything up?

I am guessing it is like an open blog where people can add their own knowledge to the entries. My major concern is security of the data and filtering those with bad intentions out.

Do you have experience with supervising one? How time consuming is that? I can imaging that you actuallly have to read over the entires and decide if you want to keep them...

Thank you for your help,


t

[Mithras]

In its default form, a Wiki is really like a web sandbox; people can create whatever they want, wherever they want. Wikis aren't centered around "topics" or "threads" per se; rather, simply pages. You can edit pages to create a structure of pages like discussion threads, though.

Most Wiki software has an option to restrict editing to a few preset users, and all allow you to review the most recent changes, and quickly rollback any changes you don't want.

I've only ever used Wikis in a controlled environment for internal projects, with fewer than a dozen users, so reviewing changes has never been an issue. A totally public wiki would probably have to face spamming issues; maybe someone else has experience with that?

Again, I'd recommend that you wander around Wikipedia a bit to get a feel for the process.

What are you hoping to use a Wiki for?

[t_hah]

Originally posted by Mithras:
In its default form, a Wiki is really like a web sandbox; people can create whatever they want, wherever they want. Wikis aren't centered around "topics" or "threads" per se; rather, simply pages. You can edit pages to create a structure of pages like discussion threads, though.

Most Wiki software has an option to restrict editing to a few preset users, and all allow you to review the most recent changes, and quickly rollback any changes you don't want.

I've only ever used Wikis in a controlled environment for internal projects, with fewer than a dozen users, so reviewing changes has never been an issue. A totally public wiki would probably have to face spamming issues; maybe someone else has experience with that?

Again, I'd recommend that you wander around Wikipedia a bit to get a feel for the process.

What are you hoping to use a Wiki for?

Thank you for your help again. I am thinking about opening one up for foreign Mac users tocreate help pages. I think I would like to restrict the Wiki to only registered users and I might only give accounts to people that I know come there to help.

We have a gruop of people that are excited and ready to start on a page like this, but noone really knows how it works. I might just give it a shot and install it on the server and will go from there.

I will also look around on Wikipedia of course as you suggested.