Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

Summary:

The Wikidot.com project needs some advice and help from the community

Spreading?

michal frackowiak 12 Sep 2006 10:13

Hi,

I have decided to start this thread because I simply need help. And also I treat Wikidot mainly as a community project, not a commercial one only.

I have started the Wikidot project and now it has >1000 registered accounts and hosts ~500 sites (some of these are abandoned of course). But although the numbers might look good, it is not that good after all and the trends are not very promising. The project needs some boost.

The complication also is that the whole Wikidot has been developed by me (only). I have been working on this for ~6 months. This is both good and bad — running costs are very low, but the "manpower" is limited too. It is also founded from private capital (limited too) which at the moment does not allow to hire additional developers or maintainers. I am hoping to get some $$ from EU for small companies and start-ups which possibly would change things a bit. There is also a possibility to start looking for some Venture Capital — but I would like to wait a bit before doing so or even avoid this.

The current assumptions for the service are to:

• remain free and ads-supported (or "get rid of ads" for a small fee)
• extend the user-base as much as possible
• encourage people to build not only homepages, but larger community sites (with forums etc — this is what Wikidot is designed for)
• concentrate on community-building aspects (not found in other Wiki solutions. ok, it is a buzzword a bit)
• offer any "enterprise" version — not now. no money for it.

And I believe this could be done with the help of the Community — i.e. YOU ;-)

As you might have noticed Wikidot is "a bit" tech-oriented and has no fancy graphics (yet?) and not WYSIWYG editor (yet?). But (look at the list of features) it offers a lot to "power users", i.e. these who want to learn how to use Wikidot.

What I plan for the not-so-distance future are "private pages" - you could mark categories (namespaces) as "private", i.e. not visible to non-members. Quite a few people would like to use this feature which could be very good for the teamwork. It would be a paid option.

But the main concern at the moment is: how to encourage people to use Wikidot and to create interesting sites? What do you think about this?

I was thinking about reviews at some tech-oriented places and I believe that Wikidot is ready for this. Does anyone has any suggestions where to hit best? (http://techcrunch.com? http://slashdot.org?) Or perhaps the whole idea needs re-thinking? Or any other direction should be considered? Since last year when I started thinking about a Wiki farm the area became far more competitive…

The bottom line is that Wikidot needs more people, more traffic, more coverage, more everything — to exist, grow and become "a better place". A lot of people think it has a great potential but certainly right now it is the high-time to think how to spread and use this potential.

So far Wikidot got some attention because of the Steal This Film wiki and the CAPSoff campaign (covered by a lot of media). I am very thankful that they have chosen Wikidot to host their projects. Creative discussion with these guys also helped develop new features and fix bugs ;-)

I would be VERY grateful for ANY opinion and ANY help.

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Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

Re: Spreading?

pieterh 12 Sep 2006 12:27

OK, here are some random comments…

Why did I choose wikidot.com for CAPSoff? First, I wanted a free wikifarm. Actually before I found wikidot.com I did not even realise wikifarms existed. I tried jotspot.com but it was too commercial for my project. Wikidot.com looked right - not too fancy, not too simple. I've used wikis a lot, and it felt nice to use.

Why do I like wikidot.com? Because it's simple, and effective. I've got lots of ideas for extensions but basically what I need today, I have, and without any stress.

However, people who know wikis well are still a bit unusual. If you want a mass market, there are a few things to do before presenting wikidot.com to the wider world, IMO:

- site templates, so that a new site gets menus and initial content that help people get started
- shared page templates, for common types of page
- CSS templates, so that people can make *pretty* sites
- work on making common tasks easier to do, as a priority to adding more features

I have made a couple of sites that could easily become templates (e.g. a news/discussion site), a family site, etc. All I need is a place to stick these…

For CSS templates, you might want to (a) provide a place for people to contribute CSS layouts, and (b) get a designer to make a few professional layouts.

Reviews can help but you want more critical mass first, IMO. There needs to be a clear message why wikidot.com is different from other wikifarms and enough happy users to make reviews solid.

If you're not actually getting any revenue from the Google ads, I would disable these for now, because they will put off some people. I do find them a little annoying on some pages, where they come too close to the text. Just make sure your terms of service make it clear you may add these later.

For financing the development of the product, ignore VCs unless you really know what you are doing. VCs tend to have megalomaniac visions that work in 10% of their projects and destroy the other 90%. An angel investor can help if you can't grow organically any more. But I'd try to generate income from wikidot.com right away and base the business on that. You can also look for partners who are willing to co-fund your work in return for small shares.

Ways to make money… advertising, obviously, but that's not worth switching on until you get traffic. In general you need to provide something people really want and put a value on. In the short term, I'd definitely suggest that if people want specific features, custom CSS designs, etc. in a hurry they can pay for them.

Last thing, the thing that differentiates a wikifarm from stand-alone wikis is the community, and the reason people come back to a site is the community. So encourage this in every way possible. Some ideas:

• A place where people can contribute skins, page templates, etc. and vote on them and then share them.
• Open source the software so that people can develop and contribute modules.

Last last thing, I think wikidot has a real chance of great success, but you will need to be patient and economical and focussed on quality, speed, and making things simpler and more fun to use.

-Pieter

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Portfolio

Re: Spreading?

michal frackowiak 14 Sep 2006 08:01

Thanx. I think your ideas are very good but some time is needed to implement this. Some really good ideas are to make "site templates" available — so people could create e.g. forum sites straight away. Or news sites. Or photo galleries.

Also customization is important. BUT what bothers me a bit — we can not make it too complicated to use. Ordinary users (also perhaps power-users) would like to something more "clickable" — it is difficult to remember about all the modules available, all the syntax (although the editor gives hints and generates some code).

So perhaps the interface should be reconsidered a bit? "Modern" wikis use WYSIWYG editors to make editing easier. This however has several drawbacks when translating wiki syntax <—> html to edit. Because WYSIWYG editors operate solely on the HTML code. Some wikis (e.g. WetPaint) do not use wiki syntax at all — which is strange ;-)

But perhaps (since the editing, posting posts and generally writing) is the most common task on any wiki, we should work more on the ~WYSIWYG editing? (of course switchable to the source code). This would help a lot of people. Most of the browsers now have the design mode.

Also corporate users would gladly see this option too since the whole system would be much easier to use without learning the wiki-syntax (at least for the most basic editing).

And I have been thinking a lot about open-sourcing the code. And… YES. For a long-term strategy I think this is a VERY good thing. Of course it needs some time to prepare (not too much I hope) but it opens several new possibilities. I have been talking to a few people who would gladly use Wikidot internally for some teamwork. This would be the very first open-source multi-site software. If we could make it as easy to install as MediaWiki or WordPress — it would be great. Again there are a lot of technical issues (e.g. Wikidot works ONLY with PostgreSQL database, not MySQL) but they can be resolved. I hope. I have been observing how WordPress is doing and their model is quite nice.

When the decision about open-sourcing will be final all the development will be moved to http://www.wikidot.org.

As for ads — I think to have them from the beginning. I myself would be quite unhappy if I started a site without ads and after some time there would be some nasty ads on my pages. It is better when its obvious from the beginning. Another thing is that there will be an option to remove ads for a small fee. Quite soon.

well - back to work ;-)

michal

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Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

Re: Spreading?

maki 15 Dec 2007 14:55

+1 on site templates. Currently Wikidot has just too few themes to choose from. More "pre-feabricated" themes, more colour combinations, please; graphics is the first thing a user notices.

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http://feedback.wikidot.com/wish:382

Re: Spreading?

maki 15 Dec 2007 16:21

"In the short term, I'd definitely suggest that if people want specific features, custom CSS designs, etc. in a hurry they can pay for them." - Michal, I think you should explore this option.

What about publishing your Wikidot "technical to do list" and offering everyone who needs a feature outside the list (or needs a feature from the list urgently) to pay for its immediate development?

Of course there will be one condition: even though one pays for the development of a feature, once created, that feature will be freely available to every Wikidot user.

You could even open a marketplace on Wikidot for "Wikidot gurus" who are ready to respond to such requests. (Then they'll get the money but you would still benefit from greater and faster Wikidot development, as well as more time to focus on the rest of the "to do list".)

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http://feedback.wikidot.com/wish:382

Re: Spreading?

steiger 13 Sep 2006 15:37

hi michal,
here just a few opinions from my side:

im a teacher for chemistry and informatics, pupils until 19 years, switzerland. we are evaluating some tools for our courses, ICT, eg. moodle.org, OLAT.org. a wiki is quite a good tool to provide informations to students. its also a great tool because students can also provide informations, so, we teacher like the wiki. :-)

on really bad thing is, that people can change my (hopefully) correct informations to wrong informations.

we teacher do not like this. same for other people … wikis with an easy mechanism to allow some users (members of a class) to modify some pages would be great. this is possible for your wiki (see thread http://community.wikidot.com/forum/t-54/class-user). cool. COOL!
for a more practical use it would be great, if
- the administor of a side could easily define some person having the permission to modify some pages (so far only possible for wikidot members)
- an easier mechanism which pages are allowed to be changed
- an easy backup system which would allow to restore the whole pages (moodle has a quite easy and cool feature which does allow this)

One big drawback for the usual ICT-tools for schools is, that the pages are often hidden behind a login … reason is usually, that
the teachers wants to have a control, which person would change their wikis …

i have the impression, that there is (at the moment) a quite boost on computer and education. combining your wiki with
educational portal. for switzerland: e.g. www.educa.ch.

- one drawback for all pages on the web: printing. also wiki. A wiki is a cool tool for any information, but there is, so far, a missing link between the screen-version and the print-version. the print-version is usually ugly. i guess, having a wiki with a good possibility to print some stuff in a pretty way would be great … your wiki?!

As 'pieterh' already wrote: 'pretty pages' with css, 'pretty paper version' with ?

i will write more, must prepare some exams … wish the best, rainer

Re: Spreading?

michal frackowiak 14 Sep 2006 08:15

Hi,

thanx for this point of view! I realize wikis are great for classrooms. I have been using moodle at the university and it was much too complicated (all the permissions etc). I still can not use it :-( Wikis are more "plain" but much more flexible too.

And ok — for purposes such as education (pupils have often nasty ideas) custom permissions and user classes would work nicely. This however introduces another level of complexity to the whole system… I will certainly need to rethink it.

Printing — of course it is a problem ;-) On Wikidot there is some print-hinting (when you click the "print" button") but this is not ideal for printing texts, scripts etc.

Fortunately Text_Wiki (which is used here as a base for wiki transformations) allow exporting as LaTeX. So possibly (after some tweaking) it would be possible to produce valid LaTeX code from the pages and convert it to PDF on the server. This would produce very nice printed version. Including math and other things.

CSS themes are important… Not everyone wants a plain, clean and… not-fancy themes. I hope there will be a few new ones (more "cute") ;-)

---

Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

Re: Spreading?

Dominik Mayer 19 Nov 2006 02:38

I vote for the pdf-export. Since I discovered wikidot.com I nearly do all my work in my privat wiki and it would be great if I could just export it to pdf.

Re: Spreading?

michal frackowiak 20 Nov 2006 17:07

Cool! I am indeed exploring the pdf/ms-office/open-office export/import formats. It seem that it can be done at some point!!! (I hope quite quickly, but there are other things too).

michal

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Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

Re: Spreading?

raghavan 01 Oct 2006 14:22

First of all let me congratulate you,on your fantastic site.All the more so,as it is a single person effort,namely,yourself.
To get more people,I would like to suggest the following;-
1.Iinclude an "INVITE",feature,by which,letters of invitation can be sent to people whose e-mail address is known.
2. Let the members of wikidot.com,be aware of this.
Regards,
Sadasivan
http://v12v.wikidot.com

Re: Spreading?

Flemming 07 Feb 2007 15:03

Hi Michal

a little sad to hear wikidot is somewhat struggling for it's life. I sincerely hope it will
stay as the superb service it is, on the Internet
I have a few comments:

---

I think you'll find it a hard time to make wikidot a community it self. The competition from bloggers are way to hard, I find.
Better look at wikidot as a communities per wikodot-site.

---

I don't think you'll gain more users adding more features. On the contrary. The many features and the tech-approach does not appeal to the mainstream user.

---

Wikidot is not the place you put your diary.
IMHO you are trying to achieve something impossible. Wikidot are about sites
and not so much about pages. You wont see a "lemming" effect at wikidot I am affraid. Having in mind that the wikidot learning curve is rather steep and combine that with the above, leads to a limited number of users.
But I am rather confident that you can sustain a loyal number of those.
Because you indeed mix publishing and user participation by means of
sofisticated forum options in a very rich and unique way.

---

IMHO:
Think BLOG, think default wikidot settings, think "no more" new features for the time being:

1. Make a number(max 8) ready-to-use "site" templates with one page, ready to edit.I am sure the existing wikidot community can help.
2. And only so few options to chose among. Basically the site name and a valid email-address.
3. Make a set of VERY open default values(very important)

If this could be accomplished by means of a GUI interface, that'll be great. But it's not important.
The important thing is that the user feels stimulated because he/she is in "control"
and experience a success(that's not the case for the majority of users who visite wikidot to day)
and you'll end up with a site that provides a blog-a-like ready-to-use site with ONE active page.
And let it grow from there.

If at all consider new features it might be:

1. a youtube and flickr wizard in the editor(consider making a formel co-existence with the two, I mean you are already "supporting" them)
2. permalink per page

And then; WHEN the administrator and his/hers users ask for a feature,
they are most certainly already there.

I think that's about it!

best regards Flemming

PS: I wouldn't mind paying a reasonable yearly fee for wikidot. I could easyly do with a wikidot
as of today. I am much more concerned about the very existence of the service.

Last edited on 07 Feb 2007 15:09 by Flemming + Show more

Re: Spreading?

arkansas 09 Feb 2007 20:01

To jump in, I agree with you very much that it is a group of communities rather than one. I also agree with the ease of use at startup focus you suggest. But you cannot ignore your real wiki users also. I still think that the wiki is the central concept to build the communities around with other services (email lists, forums, etc.) orbiting that central concept.

The strength of this site right now is the attractive and easy to use wiki core and to promote as just another blog or social networking site seems wrong. Right now people who know what a wiki is are the customers and they come here because it looks better and is more advanced than the other wiki farm alternatives. It seems like the constituency is not bloggers, but instead people who are familiar with Wikipedia or others and want their own "encyclopedia/community" for specialized areas.

To attract users who are not familiar with a wiki….you are right that you have to make it easy to start up and get SOMETHING going and feel in control. But you have to follow on with some sort of education to get them beyond that and into more advanced wiki work…..hints at more advanced stuff as they go along.

This is such a beautiful interface and so much better than other wiki farms, that I too would gladly pay a bit of a fee. I can't pay much, but would not begrudge paying a bit for use of this wonderful site.

Re: Spreading?

Flemming 13 Feb 2007 19:22

Hi

arkansas wrote:

To attract users who are not familiar with a wiki….you are right that you have to make it easy to start up and get SOMETHING going and feel in
control. But you have to follow on with some sort of education to get them beyond that and into more advanced wiki work…..hints at more advanced stuff as they go along.

My original response was first most aimed on how to get more users; because that's Michal's main concern.
No matter how(IMHO); including next to 100% freedom to use and co-develop WIKIDOT to whatever that will be.
To a certain extent it might be a BLOG in wiki-disguise. May be with a starter approach like this
http://www.socialtext.com/ E.g notice a simple but effectfull design with the operation buttons
at the top like the "edit". That kind of things.

arkansas wrote:

The strength of this site right now is the attractive and easy to use wiki core and to promote as just another blog or social networking site seems wrong.

IMHO:
I don't agree in that at all. WIKIDOT is not an easy to use WIKI(in fact not that many WIKI's are) especially
not compared to BLOG's - that's off course why I suggest BLOG approach in the first place.
Inthe sense of basic starter template BLOG featured functionallity.
WIKIDOT's richness in features are its strengt and weakness.

best regards Flemming

Last edited on 13 Feb 2007 19:24 by Flemming + Show more

Re: Spreading?

Flemming 09 Feb 2007 21:19

Hi, here I go again

do you know this site:

http://www.socialtext.com/

thats the kind of default layout I am talking about in my former mail.
If you could make a number of basic featured working templates like that, then I think it's possible to reach less technically minded users(i.e. more users).
You might consider using an open source approach to acchieve it. I am not a programmer myself, but I know this and that about core community facilities. And I'd like to help you, or at least comment on your ideas.

BTW:
you are not mentioned here !?:

http://personalweb.about.com/od/wikihostingandsoftware/Wiki_Sites_Wikia_Wikicities_etc.htm

Do you skype. We could make a session some time in this weekend !? Find my Skype info here:

http://herald-tips-tricks.wikidot.com/herald:author

best regards Flemming

Last edited on 09 Feb 2007 21:20 by Flemming + Show more

Re: Spreading?

namzezam 13 Feb 2007 00:13

Hi, I suggest to focus on statistic, as they are reflected in nice positions in google results. This attract those who are interesting in their marketing. In my case the results are impressive, i could specify what i mean. Hope it could help. ;-)
good time good luck

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99occupy

Re: Spreading?

(account deleted) 23 Mar 2007 13:09

Michal,
I could spend some time in supporting your great wikidot-project.
I would like to make it multi-lingual, by translating help-files, button-texts etc.
And I could design some cool CSS-templates if that us useful to your project.
Just let me know.

Re: Spreading?

maki 15 Dec 2007 16:10

I would suggest a video presentation introducing the concept of the wiki.

I bet a lot of people want to build sites but have neither knowledge in html nor any time or desire to learn it. At the same time they associate the word "wiki" only with collaborative content creation and not with a an EASY to learn, yet flexible syntax.

I myself am such a person. Long ago I was looking for a way to build a site without using html. I was associating the idea of my quest with phrases such as "site creator" or "site builder" and it never occurred to me that wikis were a solution, too. It was only by chance that I visited http://capsoff.org and the "Thanks to wikidot.com for providing the infrastructure for this website." note urged me to realise that this site was built on a "site builder".

Update: Suggestion added here, as well: http://community.wikidot.com/start-ideas:wikidot-on-youtube

Update2: samoore has created nice video tutorials on YouTube: http://bit330f08.wikidot.com/wiki-resources-and-videos

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http://feedback.wikidot.com/wish:382

Last edited on 15 Sep 2008 15:40 by maki + Show more

Re: Spreading?

maki 15 Dec 2007 16:28

Post a "Call for proposals" to Wikidot users with a writing talent to share PR stories how Wikidot helped them; select the best one by votes from Wikidot users and publish them somewhere.

Or just open a page for wiki PR story for Wikidot.

Update: already available here: http://community.wikidot.com/promote

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http://feedback.wikidot.com/wish:382

Last edited on 28 Aug 2008 09:24 by maki + Show more

Re: Spreading?

maki 16 Dec 2007 00:29

What about opening a page "Wikidot's Competition" where users would be able to list the features they love in competitive wiki farms - I believe this would bring great feedback for Wikidot.

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http://feedback.wikidot.com/wish:382

Re: Spreading?

cslim 14 Jan 2008 21:45

Ok. my suggestion : -

+++ 1. a proper/creative/simple search engine .

Purpose : allow me to key in what i want as what i'm thinking of and you help to me to relate to respective function.
Result : i solve my immediate " need " , as well as learn your function.
Impact : it creates the immediate interest for me to come back to wikidot everyday as addicted to it.

2. a simple " link "

, to recommend to friends , immediately after this

Re: Spreading?

maki 25 Aug 2008 22:17

http://community.wikidot.com/promote

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http://feedback.wikidot.com/wish:382

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

shemo 13 Sep 2006 16:45

Hi,

I havent really had the time to get into this and check what I could do with a wiki site.

What came to my mind though is that it might be something af a next generation blog… that was after reading www.strobist.blogspot.com - I commented on the last post but the comment has not appeared yet - I suggetsed transferring the page's forum to wikidot.com… that might generate some new users.

The Idea of changing sites is cool, but it has the drawbacks already mentioned by steiger.

another thing is that having no experience with wiki sites I find this a bit discouraging

What I like though is the maths tool, which could be used to easily creata a scientific forum I believe, but again, the option of arbitrary changes the content comes into play…

I think that a bit of publicity would do good, so you should think of some ways how to get to people who are most likely to need wikidot.

- you could also post an animation to 'youtube' or sometihing….

and, after all, graphic interface is what people love and find easy to use….

ok, I have to get back to work.

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

willfulwizard 14 Sep 2006 08:55

Hey.
I like the idea of WikiDot being promoted as a place to blog. A lot of the things on my wiki would have gone on my blog had a friend not suggested a wiki. I choose WikiDot because of the full control over the non-blob content/style, and I believe others would too.

Promoting Wikidot as a good place to blog does have a downside: it puts you up against Live Journal and My Space. (These are the ones I'm exposed to as a senior in college majoring in computer science) When I realized how much LJ and MS overlapped, I choose one, and didn't touch the other. Others will have similar reactions, and the choice is usually made based on where their friends already are. Thats a problem, but maybe one you can overcome.

I have one big suggestion. If you want to gain from other social networks, make Wikidot part of Open Id. Maybe even get them to try moving the OpenID wiki to wikidot (assuming they don't host it themselves.) Once Wikidot supports OpenId, I can go post a comment on LJ from WillfulWizard.Wikidot.com. People will see the comment, think "wikidot? whats that?", hopefully click on the link, and find out. I for one would be happy to post comments with a wikidot signiture.

The next few times that I'm using WikiDot heavily, I'll see just how much I could convert from LJ to wikidot without losing my LJ infrastructure. If its successful, I'd be happy to do the bulk of the work on adding such a tutorial to the community site.

Finally, I want to say that I feel google adds are worth it. Unlike most internet advertising, google ads can be relevant to the page you're on, and therefor possibly useful. I certainly wouldn't mind the site without them, but if you can keep the ads to just google, I'll come here for all my wiki needs as long as you're online.

A very pleased fellow developer
Will

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

michal frackowiak 14 Sep 2006 18:00

Hi,

I have a very mixed feeling about OpenID — imho it is a very good project but it somehow failed in the first round (with the 1.0 and 1.1) but certainly has a great potential. IF more online services are going to use it.

For ordinary users it is quite difficult to use. And although some web sites support OpenID, your options are often limited if you are only a "guest".

I was already thinking about it when designing the authorization model. And it was too risky to use it as the primary (and only) authorization. But as a secondary — would be great to extend the reach. You are right.

As for ads — I am glad they do not disturb too much. I'd rather keep them in such a place than promoting them e.g. to between paragraphs (pbwiki did this once) ;-) I am not sure if I stick with Google AdSense — but I will try to use similar, context-aware solutions.

I have been also thinking about a set of modules that would enable typical blogging functionality on the top of the forum structure — with things like callendar, full-month view etc. But this would come a bit later.

cheers - michal

---

Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

Last edited on 14 Sep 2006 18:12 by michal frackowiak + Show more

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

The Horror Movie Man 16 Oct 2006 21:24

Hello I am down to help as much as I can as long as you stay free.
I have a lot of really good Ideas but No manpower. I barly Sleep as it is.
This is my first time to Wikidot.com I need to set up my account and maybe I can
help with the moderation of the abandon sites and Bring in some more Traffic
through some other forums in the open sorce world. But I am forming a nonprofit
and can only be involved with Donations "A Powerfull Tool" that I really need to
start using becase like yourself I have slaved over projects. I Will post that later.
Any how I am hear if you need me just tell me what you need and maybe how to do it.

Good work
eerie

Re: Spreading? Think multilingual !

gerdami 21 Nov 2006 21:55

Hi, I am Gerdami, from Belgium. My first language is French.
I've been running my own private wiki on http://www.lycos.fr for a while. It is a Russian WackoWiki which comes in Russian, Polish, English, Spanish, ….
I just landed on Wikidot thanks to a Google ad I saw when listening to .
I really like your Wikidot farm. I have created http://fivenations.wikidot.com as communication tool between golf players.
Unfortunalety, most of them do not understand a word of English. The Wiki concept is already unusual, with the foreign language difficulty …
If you look at Wikia you will see that the final user can choose the language of the interface as it also the case for Wikipedia.
I am sure that you can count on the Wikidot community to help you translate the interface in any language of the world. Of course language pages would be wikidot pages… héhé.
I would be happy to translate into French.
Good luck!
Gerdami

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gerdami - Visit Handbook en Français - Rate this howto:import-simple-excel-tables-into-wikidot up!

Re: Spreading? Think multilingual !

michal frackowiak 22 Nov 2006 22:29

Thanks!!!

michal

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Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

arkansas 03 Feb 2007 22:36

You want an overall wikidot community, but you also have to think of it as a collection of different communities….one community for each wiki in the farm.

I will tell you that right now my main concern is the forum aspect. Yes I can do an RSS feed through FeedBlitz or FeedBurner but it is a pain and I can only get digests unless I pay extra. I have also found that its not reliable. I miss forum emails for a day, go look at my FeedBurn, and its down for some unknown reason. Not a problem with the RSS feed, but something with the feed subscriptions or something.

If I want an email list its a lot easier to go to Yahoo! Groups or Google Groups than it is here. I know that I can start one of those and have a reliable email list to my users/community and that they will get one email for every post if they want and can reply and have their email post to the group and mailing list. I don't have to worry about imbedding, subscribing, burning, feeding, or RSS feeds. I can just add a member and I know they will get an email post from the forum every time.

My solution will probably be to not use the forums in my wiki and instead have a separate wiki and email list/group through Yahoo! or Google. I don't like that because I like the wikidot forum style and having my community AT my wiki site in a self-contained unit.

So maybe this is just a pet peeve of mine, but it seems to me like you need to think of the Wiki aspect as just another tool (major tool) in having a community. Not with the Wiki as the end-all/be-all. That means having things like reliable Email mailing lists associated with the wiki and forums and emails on page changes maybe, expanded user profiles to allow users to find other users with similar interests, locations, etc., allow user review of public wikis.

In general, add some of the same things that Yahoo! Groups or Google Groups to the wiki and some of the things that a MySpace adds to user networking. The Wiki concept is a great central tool to build user communities….but don't ignore the other tools that orbit the wiki for a full community experience.

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

arkansas 03 Feb 2007 22:40

Oh by the way, the Wiki component is so far superb. Seriously, wikidot is the best of the best in getting up and running with a wiki out of the box. The current wiki interface is great, I love it. It is a beautiful effort at a wiki farm.

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

michal frackowiak 05 Feb 2007 11:10

Hi,

thanks for your great comment. I am indeed thinking about some kind of email-subscription to Forums. I can clearly see that only a small fraction of Wikidot users use RSS feeds to get fresh posts. So it would be nice to send email notifications about new posts in the (subscribed or all) forum threads.

pieterh also encourages me to implement more features that would bring forums closer to mailing lists. This would include taking part in a discussion by sending emails. I am against it at the moment because it would be better to develop an external API first and create an email server that would use this API. But email notifications — yes. Certainly a good idea and worth doing!

---

Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

arkansas 09 Feb 2007 20:04

Michal, just curious. Why do you not have some link for accepting donations to help run this place? Or do you and I have missed it? A few PayPal donations to pay for some of the expense during the formative period might help.

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

Flemming 09 Feb 2007 21:08

hear-hear

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

michal frackowiak 13 Feb 2007 14:12

I do not have a "donate" option yet. I am working on making a payment system like wordpress.com has — so that you could buy "credits" and exchange them to some extra features. Of course this could be also treated as donations. I think this would be the best option. I do not think that many users would go for "pure" donations right now.

Thank you very much for all your comments! This forum topic is quite old and Wikidot has grown nicely since then!

I will try to write more a bit later!

michal

---

Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

Flemming 14 Feb 2007 21:48

hi

woops - I didn't realize the thread was that old. Does it mean that you are at high spirit by now,
and dont fear the very existence of WIKIDOT ?

best regards Flemming

PS: I am rather positive that this thread was first visible to me when I made my first reply - around the start
of february 2007. Sorry anyway.

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

michal frackowiak 16 Feb 2007 08:42

Hi,

I greatly appreciate all your comments — they are VERY valuable. They also very much overlap with the plans for Wikidot.

The "wiki market" is not easy, and as you said wikis are not blogs — you do not check your friends' wiki pages but more likely you read their blogs. If you look at the popularity of wiki farms (even the top ones) you can not see any boom — contrary to what people say about "the era of wiki". There is not such thing as wikisphere - but there is the blogsphere with all the aggregators, connections, trackbacks etc.

Look below: pbwiki and wetpaint are the largest services that allow you to create a wiki (wikia.com is not much above them, but they have a different policy). If you compare it to blogging platforms there is nothing really impressive. Try to add blogger.com to the list and the wiki providers will not even be visible ;-)

http://www.alexaholic.com/multiply.com+vox.com+pbwiki.com+wetpaint.com?y=r&r=3y&z=3

Wikidot is also not "boooooooming". Yet. It is more advanced that other wiki platforms and sometimes more difficult to handle. Yes. But it already is growing nicely compared to the leaders:

alexa website statistics by alexaholic

The market is growing but it is quite small now. Look at it from a different pov: pbwiki is about 10 times larger than wikidot at the moment. Only. There is no clear leader in the wiki market that would be far ahead. (The statistics are not accurate but you can catch the image. But other numbers confirm it: PBwiki claims to have ~25 000 page edits daily. We have 3000.).

And also there are tons of wiki famrs that failed. Not to mention John Gotts and his Wiki.com project. It started exactly at the time Wikidot started. Guess which one was better. Wiki.com is closed not. Wikidot is a newcomer but is more dynamical than many "old" players:
http://www.alexaholic.com/xwiki.com+wikidot.com+seedwiki.com+schtuff.com+socialtext.net?y=r&r=3y&z=7

I think Wikidot started nicely. A bit too late. It was much easier for pbwiki — there was no serious competition. Wetpaing got ~$13M from VC so they have a lot of many for promotion. Wikia has enormous "propaganda" power. Wikidot had to start from scratch with only a few $$ in the pocket. I think this is not that bad ;-)

There are many ways to turn Wikidot into something popular/profitable/successful. At least a few should succeed:

• wikidot in general
  • offer open-source code — allows you to install wikidot on your server for any purpose. many people ask me about a possibility to install it in intranets. this should bring both popularity and developers
  • commercial support — see above
  • commercial hosting for wikidot-based farms
• wikidot.com — the online service
  • make things easier
  • WYSIWYG editing, easier image upload etc.
  • create blogging features
  • charge for premium features
  • earn on advertising
  • API — let people create their own applications that can communicate with Wikidot.com

Some of these are certainly long-term plans. They are more detailed than scratched above.

The bottom line is that that Wikidot already has a nice userbase (including early adopters) and growing popularity. Although not booming this allows stable growth. I think the roadmap will allow Wikidot to place itself among top 5 Wiki providers.

And I am really glad that people use and like Wikidot. I get tons of positive feedback. There is still a steep path ahead but it seems that it will be both interesting and successful.

cheers - michal

---

Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

Last edited on 16 Feb 2007 08:51 by michal frackowiak + Show more

Applications that could use Wikidot

gwpl 17 Feb 2007 22:48

I'm very enthusiatic for creating bot's and other tools for Wikidot.
Main reason: I use wikidot every day, and I'm developer. So, why no to create tools for my everyday work :).

I guess you mean some on-line ajax/widget based turbo combo apps :P … I mean only simple client side apps, like for synchronization… maybe some bots, to maintain some things automatically. (But as far as I know using such apps is not permitted by regulations.)

Best reagrds.

Making thinks more user firendly

gwpl 17 Feb 2007 23:13

One more idea:

We have to keep in mind, that there is a LOT LOT LOT of novice/begginers computer users, that have problems with understanding a lot of thinks. For example ideas of internal/external links, site structure organization. Usage of "nav:side" "nav:top" pages.

I don't know if I'm sure, but in my opinion WYSIWYG is not most important for such people.
My mom is now learning computer. She has problems with undrstading all abstraction ideas.
Thinks like syntax notation "++ heading" or "* item1" are easiest thinks.
Beside I agree that WYSIWYG editor could enlarge group of wiki users.

I think that illustative tutorials like that one - Forum step by step - are very very good for such people.
Community sould make more such tutorials on community pages.

I think that it's worth to consider Screencast.
I guess that it would be unique in wikis world.
(I use for example Wink for makeing flash tutorials, it can contain voids, clouds, "stops" etc).

Last edited on 17 Feb 2007 23:43 by gwpl + Show more

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

promod 18 Feb 2007 01:41

Thanks for sharing information about the relative size of Wikidot. I recently joined and had concerns about your survival. The stats on the homepage gave comfort. Here's what's especially great about Wikidot

• community orientation, not just a business
• free private wikis (which only Netcipia also offers)
• URL forwarding
• nice templates
• considerable flexibility
• modern feel
• more storage (though 100 MB is reasonable)
• no advertising, for now :)

It would really help to have

• a WYSIWYG editor (though learning wiki codes isn't torturous)
• spelling checker (very important)

Maybe there are workarounds?

What you've got here is excellent. I'

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

michal frackowiak 19 Feb 2007 09:10

Hi,

I will try to reply a few posts above:

@gwpl: There are reasons not to encourage people to write their own software that could communicate with Wikidot at this point. The most important are:

• complexity: it is not easy nor nice to reverse-engineer the communication protocol
• stability: the applications you would write would break each time Wikidot changes even smallest things.
• API: such things should be done via a web API. And this will be available sooner or later. I also suspect that libraries for languages like PHP, Python, Java will naturally emerge. The API will give you a way to read/modify contents of a wiki easily, to post/modify forum discussions. Web API will use the same core API that the web (on-line) version of the Wikidot does.

Screencasts — this is a great idea! I have been also thinking about making a short video tutorial. The real problem is that I lack manpower at the moment… However if people from the Community would like to do it - it would be great!

I agree that the wiki-structure is not very clear now :-( The documentation could be improved…

@promod: I am glad that you have chosen Wikidot. Indeed the numbers (popularity) makes me certain about the future too ;-) It was much more difficult at the beginning when very few people were using it. But since then Wikidot became much more stable, useful and mature.

cheers
michal

---

Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me

IDEA: Site templates / wizzards

gwpl 20 Feb 2007 10:18

What do you think about whole site templates or wizzards.
Let's imagine one of sf.net developers.

He goes into wikidot.com, clicks "Create new page" , etc.
After registration of new page, he clicks in Admin Panel , somethink alike "page wizzard" , "sf project template" , and Whola ! Almost page is done. Forum is setuped in way suitable for most project. News section is setuped with sf.net/project rss news … etc. etc.

It's just an idea…

Populariy-Bloggs

gwpl 20 Feb 2007 11:01

In Blogs is one think that keeps people uptodate, and generates dozen of visits after each update.
It's RSS.
Wikidot's RSS feature :

• doen't show each change made on website , but only from time to time , making this feature unusefull.
• site admins doen't pay attention on rss-es on their websites. In effect there are no RSS buttons on most wikidot's websites. No RSS buttons == no subscribers.
• I know that there is possibility to add pages to "observated" (or how is it called in english), and to get RRS from own profile. But unforunatelly it is not so clear for less advenced people.
• Some informations how to add buttons like "[ADD TO GOOGLE READER]" maybe could help.

This are only some thoughts… Maybe they will bring some ideas.

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

gwpl 19 Feb 2007 11:36

Promod, don't forget about custom domains ! :D

Last edited on 19 Feb 2007 11:36 by gwpl + Show more

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

promod 28 Feb 2007 02:52

Excellent point, gwpl. Custom domains are indeed nice. I've started using them :)

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

(account deleted) 08 Aug 2007 16:17

First let me say that I am very impressed with Wikidot - its the best I've seen to date.

I started a private wiki with you to test the technology for social collaboration within a business setting (policy development and scientific collaboration).

But I've got to say that there are some issues yet to resolve:

1. That's great that you like to keep your editor true to "teckie" preferences but if you want Wikidot to succeed you NEED to implement WYSIWYG. And not a crappy version of WYSIWYG either - I want to be able to swear that I was using MS Word when I edited a wikidot page - and that importing/exporting between the two was seamless. You have to ask who are most likely to be your future customers? Will it be wiki-afficianadoes, or will the big audiences be the lay-user who's business would become much more effective with social networking?

2. User friendlyness is also key. There's no point offering 300 options if only 30 people in the world know how to use them. Go back to your design and ask yourself: If I knew nothing about computers, would I be able to access a wikidot page? Would I know how to edit a page.
A SMALL GREY EDIT BUTTON AT THE BOTTOM, AND ANOTHER (EDIT SECTIONS) HIDDEN UNDER THE +OPTIONS BUTTON ARE NOT USER INTUITIVE. MAKE THEM BIG AND BRIGHT (PERHAPS MOVE THE GROUP PF BUTTONS TO THE SIDE, OR TO A FLOATING BOX.

ALSO, NOT KNOWING IF FILES ARE AVAILABLE ON A PAGE WITHOUT HITTING THE "FILE" BUTTON IS SILLY. IF I WAS NEW TO THE SITE, I'D NEVER FIND THE FILE.

At the moment, I have a potentially huge audience to bring into the fold, but how do I convince a research scientist in his mid-50s to log on and deal with a complex and fussy editor, and a non-intuitive interface (I don't have time to train each person on how to use your wiki - it has to come natural to the inexperienced user). I guarantee they'd revert back to e-mail gridlock within a day.

Hiring focus groups of inexperienced users would be dead cheap (just go to your local unemployment office), and observe them trying to access, edit, and use various options offered. Or even better, get grade / middle / high school students to help test.

The non-tech savy crowd should be your targeted audience - this is who you want to advertise to, this is who would consider paying for access.

Your site is much better than WetPaint.com but until you improve user friendliness, they'll beat you every time (that's not to say you should imitate them - I still like your design better)

I guess you need to decide when to take your business to the next step. A smart small business owner needs to know whether his talents and hapiness lays in the technical aspects of the business (in which case he should work for someone else) or if he is willing to hire technical talent, and focus on the business side of the equation?

Doing it all yourself and hoping for money is a foolish approach.

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

hartnell 08 Aug 2007 17:42

I'm not an admin anymore, but I have to say this.

1. MS Word is slow. If you want to use MS Word, THEN USE MS WORD.

2. Stupid people make stupid wikis. People who are incapable of reading docs are incapable of making good wikis too.

3. Wetpaint has been around longer, and you know what? My wikis, made mostly by my lonely overworked self, ALWAYS DO BETTER THAN WETPAINT — and sometimes even better than wikis dedicated to the subject that have been around longer.

4. Michal rocks. He is a genius, not a cubicle worker.

—hartnell

---

"Early in life I learned that I was a firestarter. When I learned that I could light fires of passion I became a pyromaniac. My greatest desire is to set the world on fire." — Shawn Hartnell

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

dicegeorge 14 Nov 2007 00:16

hello,
found wikidot from google,
setting my first one up..

first impression-
the left column was too full
on my first default wiki,
i think it should be almost empty
but with a Help and About link
which would tell us all we need to know…

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

Helmuti_pdorf 14 Nov 2007 08:20

Thanks for the idea - I think youmean a standard minimized "template" for new created sites..
( or a list of available layouts) .

Wikidot is a big tool-kit to create your own site. If you do not think about the layout than it makes no sense to create a public wiki…

if you need a private one for yourself ( as collaboration-tool or "to do" lists, a.s.o) than the layout is not so important.

You ask for the necessability to READ all the stuff of documentation ("because no other link available") … before to start your own site layout..
This is hard and not a good usability for most of the visitors! :)

Looks like you buy a car and have no switches on board until you have red all the handbook sections….

---

Service is my success. My webtips:www.blender.org (Open source), Wikidot-Handbook.

Sie können fragen und mitwirken in der deutschsprachigen » User-Gemeinschaft für WikidotNutzer oder
im deutschen » Wikidot Handbuch ?

Last edited on 14 Nov 2007 08:21 by Helmuti_pdorf + Show more

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

Guy Aron 20 Dec 2007 02:08

One angle that has not been mentioned in this discussion about how to promote Wikidot is the capability it offers for the average user to create a wiki without waiting for IT staff in thei organisation. I work in an Australian university and the colleague in the cubicle next to mine requested a MediaWiki weeks ago. He is still waiting! Meanwhile I have gone ahead, started mine and "pimped it up" to a great degree! I think this is a factor mentioned in the pbwiki advertising (i.e. the independence from the IT folk) - nothing against them, our techs are great - there just aren't enough of them.

There is not a huge role for Wikidot users to help spread the wiki except by

• using it wherever we can, and
• mentioning and demonstrating its great features.

As for the eventual business model I can only hope that, whatever Michal comes up with, Wikidot will still be available, as in my experience it is by far the best. Part of what makes it so is the courteous and timely support.

Regards

Guy
PS BTW the page width feature (not being able to see the RH margin in messages you are sending to the Forum) looks like it has been fixed - thanks guys - again!

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

Alex Keyta 18 Nov 2007 06:27

Hola Michal
Disculpa que no te ayude con alguna sugerencia como ya muchos lo han hecho aquí, sólo quiero aprovechar para agradecer la labor que haces al facilitarnos una base firme y maleable a la vez.
Soy maestro de secundaria en Mexicali (noroeste de México), y después de valorar la riqueza del aprendizaje en colaboración encontré en los wikis una excelente herramienta; y de los que encontré, wikidot fue el mas intuitivo al trabajar, tiene un diseño sencillo y muy versátil. Cada nueva herramienta que le agregas la pongo en práctica.
Mi wiki está en solodarydar cuyo fin es promover la solidaridad mediante proyectos colaborativos. Aún no cumplimos el año de haber iniciado y te comparto que éste mes grupos y escuelas de Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Chile y por supuesto de otros estados de México han mostrado interés en participar.
¡MUCHAS GRACIAS!

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

gerdami 18 Nov 2007 07:17

Hola Alex Keyta,

You should add a link to your homepage behind your logo in the top of your nav:side

[[=image http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2091/1961025339_c6d61781d5_m.jpg width="150px" link="http://solodarydar.wikidot.com"]]
**INICIO**
* [[[start | Presentación]]]

---

gerdami - Visit Handbook en Français - Rate this howto:import-simple-excel-tables-into-wikidot up!

Re: Spreading? Wikidot needs help.

Alex Keyta 29 Nov 2007 21:13

Orale, Gracias!
I did it!