User:Orimosenzon/wiki presentation

background

What is wiki?

• 'wiki wiki' in Hawaiian language, meaning something "quick". This doesn't tell much about the nature of wiki, just that it is quick and easy to do what you want.

• Technically: A set of web pages that everybody can edit.

• Essentially: A tool that enables collaboration: An easy way to build a common knowledge base that is made of the contributions of different persons.

• The Definition of 'wiki' in Wikipedia: A wiki is a type of website that allows anyone visiting the site to add, remove, or otherwise edit all content, very quickly and easily, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative writing. A wiki by nature enables and encourages people to add content to it.

What is MediaWiki?

A wiki software, written in PHP and uses an underlying MySQL relational database management system. The software was written mainly for the Wikipedia. In addition to basic wiki facilities, it supports version control mechanism, math rendering capability (using Tex), attached discussion pages and more.

What is Wikipedia?

A free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

• Before Wikipedia, there was another attempt to to create a free encyclopedia on the internet that was called Nupedia (launched at year 2000). Nupedia was a more traditional encyclopedia in the sense that it was edited by professionals through a formal process. Wikipedia started as a complementary project and eventually took over as Nupedia growth rate was considered too slow.

• Today, English Wikipedia contains more than a million articles (whereas Britannica contains about 65,000). There are Wikipedia versions in more than 100 languages. The Hebrew wikipedia contains about 35,000 articles (has existed for less than three years).

Wiki as a developer tool

The Mozilla foundation (the developers of FireFox, Thunder bird and more) use the WikiMedia software for the development process. Like many other free software project, the contributors are spread all over the globe.

Wiki VS Sharepoint

• Sharepoint
  • Sharepoint is a shared file system - a repository for documents
  • Represents hierarchical structuring of information, within a somewhat rigid organizational framework
  • Supports MS proprietary data formats like .doc and .ppt
  • Has some scheduling and other organizational features that work with other MS tools like Outlook
  • Requires IE running on Windows
• Wiki
  • Wiki is a shared knowledge base.
  • Very flexible organization and cross-linking structure defined by the users, although it has no formal hierarchical organization
  • Possible in Wiki: have conversations/arguments about a topic, use interlinks, use images, Query the wiki as a data base, search for key words, look at user contributions.
  • MediaWiki has a version control mechanism (with diff capability). Possible to know who contributed what.
  • It is less frightening to edit a wiki - any mistake can be undone. However there is no WYSIWYG interface, editing is text based with simple formatting
  • Emphasis on content over format
  • Works on all platforms and browsers, requires no special proprietary software and is accessible anywhere

Wiki and Sharepoint can be used as complimentary solutions, Sharepoint as a document repository and Wiki as a front page/interactive collaboration system. The wiki can of course link to documents in Sharepoint, although simply putting a big list of Sharepoint docs in the wiki greatly reduces the benefits gained by the wiki paradigm.

Why use a Wiki

What are the real proven benefits of using a Wiki in an organization? The following are based on actual project experience using Wiki, not just the theoretical reasons:

1. Greatly increases effective collaboration over any known existing technique, such as Sharepoint, email chains, meetings. Generally these all involve one person laboriously writing a doc, then broadcasting it to a group who make comments back to the author, then have meetings on the revised doc only to heavily revise it more. A Wiki entry is collaborative from the start, multiple contributors can easily add their piece and discover/debate/resolve issues early on, with a continuous record kept of the evolution. When the time comes to finalize, agreement is quicker because everyone has been involved in the whole process.
2. MUCH more likely to get more useful content creation. The barrier of entry for writing a "standard" document is very high; this includes writing the WHOLE document up front, getting and incorporating feedback, then management of it - where to put it such that the people who need it can access it, telling those people to find it. All this leads to few relevant documents being written - although plenty of spiffy PowerPoint. In Wiki, the barrier of entry is practically zero. If I have an idea of something that should be documented, I very easily make a new page and start writing down ideas, even an outline not filled in. It's immediately accessible to anyone - not as scary as it sounds! I may come back a few days later and find a lot of my outline completed by others. Because it is so easy to do, people are demonstrably much more willing to create useful content. This is helped even more when a basic initial framework is set up, see Legend.
3. Much more likely to have up-to-date documentation. If I notice an error in some Wiki documentation, or want to change a feature, it is so trivial to edit the document and have the contents immediately available, that I am very likely to do so. In more standard methods - even Sharepoint - this is such a hassle that one tends to try to batch changes into one big change, more often than not forgetting to do so. Because of this, much of documentation in the organization is out of date. More intriguingly, a USER might even update your documentation for you (or at least post a comment) if they notice a discrepancy. Thus Wikis tend to be more up to date and have less errors than traditional documentation.
4. Reduce "stove-piping" of information (i.e. groups are vertically integrated stovepipes that cannot see each other) that is rampant in the organization. This naturally hinders progress and leads to duplication of effort throughout the organization. How many times have you discovered some effort going on somewhere directly replicating your group's work, or heard the phrase "I'll have to get you permissions set up" in order to access information you need? While there is of course certain sensitive information where this is necessary, for a much larger percentage this is not true, and these barriers hinder progress. What about "internal" discussion including sensitive points of view? We've found using a forum that is accessible to everyone makes you write more attuned to others' points of view, versus furtively working around them, which in the end often is a more successful strategy. End message: use your engineering judgement, of course hide truly secret information, but don't use that as an excuse to hide everything else.

The proof is in the pudding - in just two weeks, with no formal announcement or edict, by just adding a basic framework and some "starter" content, Legend page went from 0 to over 30 different pages of useful content, from development proposals to how-tos and other documentation that we can now point users to. Similar experience on a previous IDV collaboration wiki, and of course public examples like Wikipedia

Some Effective ways to use Wiki

• Post an outline of something you're planning to implement, and use the discussion to collaboratively work it into a specification
• Meeting notes that you don't have to mail out to everyone to be filed and forgotten. Create a page in your corner of Wiki and anyone in the meeting can easily create notes that are immediately available to all and for posterity - VERY effective
• Collaborate on things like a presentation across sites and time zones without meetings or email (see this page..)
• Make a Wiki page that is THE main home page for your tool. No need for a specific "web page maintainer", your whole group will keep it fresh and up to date, versus the standard static home pages that are often stale and have low content.
• Formal documentation. While it is not a "standard" WYSIWYG document editor with full formatting and trivial image creation, this is usually far outweighed by the ease of maintenance that will keep your content up to date. Which is more important, fancy formatting or up-to-date and relevant documentation?

Wiki Culture/Etiquette

Working in an open, shared, collaborative system like a Wiki is a new and strange experience for most, and requires somewhat of a new way of thinking about writing. Volumes have been written about Wiki Etiquette, here are some highlights to think about:

• Assume good faith of the other participants
• Even more so than in public Wikis, the organization Wiki contributors should demonstrate Gracious Professionalism - remember we all work for the same company with the same overall goals. Personal attacks have no place here (or in the organization in general), debate issues in a professional manner.
• Expect your work to be changed, and don't fret about it (also implies you shouldn't labor over making a perfect page). Don't expect to be the "owner" of a page with exclusive write privileges - putting a note asking for people not to edit "your" page is discouraged.
• Do treat others' writing with respect, and on subjective topics add to rather than replace alternate viewpoints. Do expect the same treatment for your own writing.
• Work towards agreement, or if not possible Disagree and Commit. Dissenting opinions generally have valid points, so should also be maintained so they are not forgotten.
• Remember this is a multi-national effort, so please eschew excessive enigmatic verbiage and parlance...or at least 'splain it