Wiki?

REWILD FORUM
#1

Proposal:

There is a lot of really good info in these forums, but as is the nature of conversation it’s scattered. I didn’t know you used to have one, but it was lost somehow over the years.

While a forum is great for exchanging info and getting to know each other, the wiki could complement it by making some of that info more available to general searches. If the comments (or talk pages) were turned off and replaced by links to relevant forums or topics here, it might help to bring in more discussion too.

Like me, you’re all probably quite busy with other stuff and wouldn’t like to take on a lot of work, but google’s wiki is really easy to use (so you could invite non-techies too as editors), you can attach it to a domain or sub-domain (e.g wiki.rewild.com) and it costs nothing except your soul.

It’s extremely easy to make a clean-looking site, users can embed videos, images easily, control layout etc.

Another possibility is wikia.com, but that’s public so anyone can contribute and we’d probably spend an inordinate amount of time just keeping it spam-free and idiot proof.

Self hosted wikis I’ve found so far are a nightmare to edit (thus severely reducing the number of contributors) and even the ones who claim to have wysiwyg editing are really only wysiwygiyag (… if you’re a geek). The only other one I’ve seen that’s anywhere near as easy to use as google is the one Apple bundles in with OS X server.

Anyway, let’s see what people think.

#2

I have mixed feelings. I definitely see the benefits. On the other hand, if we have all of the articles on rewild.com + the forum + a wiki- seems like a bit much. I also like that the forum keeps things in the form of a conversation, rather than an educational assertion.

#3

Oh, right… I didn’t realize there was articles + the forum already. That makes it less necessary, maybe unnecessary.

Nevertheless, a wiki could serve a function, maybe enhance the articles by making them collaborative. And wiki articles don’t need to be educational assertions. I mean we don’t need to (and I certainly wouldn’t want to) copy wikipedia.

As an example, if something comes up that interests me—some idea I had not come across before, perhaps—I’d like to be able to find out whatever else you or others had written about it. I might find other stuff elsewhere to add to it, or have ideas myself. I could contribute the results of any research or thinking, much like we do in the forum, but this way the thoughts are presented in a less scattered way.

This is for conversation. But things come out of conversation, and I think they’re worthy of being shared with others in a more coherent form. There’s only a point in it if enough want to do it though. It’s just something that came to mind as I read things here.

In fact, we could fill a gap with such a wiki. Most of what I can find about rewilding already online is either authoritative or written by someone conscious of the need to earn a living from their wilderness tours, or the products in their store. A whole wiki that’s dedicated just to the concept of rewilding, showing even conflicting views on a topic and without the need to dumb things down to attract a wider audience or avoid putting off executives from buying a male bonding “experience” could help to increase the activity in this forum.

Things like wikipedia don’t really show all you can do with a wiki, just one use. It can be whatever we want it to be. If people are interested, it may turn out something else is more appropriate, like a blog with tags and categories, I don’t know. A blog doesn’t have to be used like a journal.

I can’t find any links to the rewild.com articles.

Cheers
Andy

#4

I was extremely disappointed when Peter deleted the former Rewild.Info wiki. I put a lot of work into it that isn’t duplicated anywhere else. I think wikis are excellent ways to catalogue and explore group thinking.

#5

(The articles are still being written.)

I think it could be cool to see the Articles and a wiki merged.

#6

Assuming you decide to have a wiki, you could make sure it can be backed up. An installed wiki would have that, but then I know of none that are truly easy to edit. Google’s one can be downloaded using a fairly flaky piece of software, but it does work, and you could also copy it to another google site, perhaps one you own so it can’t be deleted, and made private so it wouldn’t confuse search results.

I know it really sucks when you lose a lot of work.

#7

I think we should have a wiki.

I also think a lot of the old wiki is salvagable on the way back machine:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080704110441/http://www.rewild.info/fieldguide

#8

Willem, here is your body skills article: http://web.archive.org/web/20070808084223/http://www.rewild.info/fieldguide/index.php?title=Body_skills