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Posted by mjrusher on 05 Mar 2011 01:40, last edited on 05 Mar 2011 01:40
Good day. Signed up and even purchased the beefier account, because I'm in an advanced college English course, "Weblogs and Wikis." Now I have a wiki which I have no idea how to use (or why). The blog site I chose is not working out. Hoped to learn about editing and working with the wiki, and then creating the pages to 'create a fully functioning blog.' Like all your tutorials and how-to's, it is well written - and it is written well above my head. ?! This wiki/weblog stuff is a playground for those who write because they are writers. It is only frustrating and tiring to me. I have yet to have a single soul explain this one simple aspect to me: Why? Why wikis? Why weblogs? What was Cunningham shooting for when he came up with this? Why blogs? Just to blather on? SOMEthing falls between Cunningham's 'invention' and what is here today. You'd think with all these writers filling up all those computer screens with words, someone would have given some clarity as to why these venues draw people. Me? No attraction. I have the attention span of a stapler. Oh well - it's midterm. Half way through this mystery.
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Yes, welcome on wikidot ! You are not alone with such questons.. :)
But in contrast to a single blog site this is a community of wikidot users. With a wide spread over all reasons why a wiki is build.
Have a look on our featured sites.. and read our What is a wiki site? - you should find some answers for your "Weblogs and Wikis".
Your thoughts are more philosophical .. could be you get better out in the wind far away from any computers?
Good luck for your course!
P.S.: I use wikis for
and NOT for a blog ( i have a lot to say about our situations in the society, but who will read this or is really interesting in it).
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 ?
In a single word: collaboration
Just imagine you have a policy document in your workplace that needs input from several people in different countries in different timezones. What happens in a lot of organisations is that a first draft of a word document is sent out for everyone to comment on. Someone then has to collate all these changes, circulate it again and go through the whole process possibly several times. Changes overwrite changes and eventually it is very difficult to see who has made what change at what time.
With a wiki the process is made much for efficient. The initial text can be put on a page and members of the site can go in whenever they want to and make changes to the document live. Every single version of the page is saved in the history but each person is always looking at the current live version of the document.
The following image captures this difference very well:
This wiki/email comparison image was originally produced by Manny Wilson in June 2007 for a presentation to senior leadership at the United States Central Command to demonstrate how wikis could be used to more rapidly draft contingency plans.
Many colleges use wikis for students to collaborate on assignments. One college in Toronto is using a wikidot-based site for collaboration between students at their sister college in China!
Many businesses use wikis as the basis for their knowledge management, with staff from across the organisation able to add to and update information easily and quickly.
Many villages and towns now use a wiki platform for their community website. One advantage of a wiki over a traditional website is that the responsibility for making changes doesn't rest with just one person, it becomes a group resource and everyone has a stake in it and a contribution to make. Making changes and adding content can become quite addictive and good fun.
Not at all, you can use use wikis for anything you like, not just blogs and not just for writing. And it's not just for writers. Look across the sites you get at Wikidot and you will have everything from a Serbian historical site to a golf club website in Scotland, from role playing game sites to full business websites.
Some may treat it as such but others take it very seriously. I have no doubt I am in the latter category. So it is no different to any other sort of web use in that respect. Before I created my first Wikidot site 3 years ago I had worked with several collaboration tools in a global context but I hadn't used wikis. Initially I had the same philosophical questions as you and wasn't quite sure of the benefits at that stage, although I had the advantage that I had a team spread across Scotland who needed to communicate, collaborate and work together quickly and easily. I learned very quickly that a wiki is an invaluable tool in this sort of context but is flexible enough to be useful for everything from a shopping list to a business website. Wikidot is amongst the best in this respect so you have come to the right place.
Rob Elliott - Strathpeffer, Scotland - Wikidot first line support & community admin team.