Comments on: Wikis in Documentation: Ann Gentle Asks, Can Wikis Stand Alone, or Must They Be Supplements?

By: Can wikis stand alone? « Science Notes

Can wikis stand alone? « Science Notes — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:02:43 +0000

[...] wikis stand alone? 2008 August 19, Tuesday, 12:00 — monado Anne Gentle asks, “Can wikis for documentation stand alone or do they need to be supplemented?” Posted in Web, communication. Tags: technical [...]

By: Protect your domain name « Science Notes

Protect your domain name « Science Notes — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:02:21 +0000

[...] domains. And CIRA is helping me along by sending this reminder about why it’s a good idea to protect your domain name. Posted in Web. Tags: [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 05:00:01 +0000

@geldexpert, To be honest, my enthusiasm for wikis is waning.

By: geldexpert

geldexpert — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:05:16 +0000

To me the name Wiki equals your statement: Wikis are notorious for being scattered mazes of chaos.
After reading your Top Reasons Why Wikis Will Increase in Popularity, and after doing some research, I would like to add another reasons: it is possible to add a new skin/look-and-feel on top of a wiki. So a wiki doesn’t have to look like the world famous wikipedia.

By: A Web 2.0 Documentation Idea Gone Wrong | I'd Rather Be Writing

A Web 2.0 Documentation Idea Gone Wrong | I'd Rather Be Writing — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 05:39:29 +0000

[...] So are you dismissing wikis as viable ancillary tools for online help, in contrast to what Anne Gentle was half-way considering? [...]

By: rick

rick — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:47:36 +0000

Actually, KeyContent.org uses TikiWiki (www.tikiwiki.org) — not Twiki. TikiWiki is wiki-based CMS (it offers wiki + blogs, calendar, security, permissions, surveys, categories, structures, tagging, etc.).

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:05:15 +0000

Roland, thanks for the recommendation about Twiki. I know that Bill Albing and Rick Sapir over at www.keycontent.org use Twiki and rave about it. I use MediaWiki and have been happy with it. I'm curious how Twiki handles simultaneous edits from multiple users. That was my key reason for choosing Mediawiki.

By: Roland Jones

Roland Jones — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 21:38:31 +0000

I personally recommend TWiki (http://www.twiki.org) for (internal) documentation. Between its ability to use metadata, forms, and templates, a documentation group could create an entire publication workflow (with the exception of easy output to print centric documents…which requires some concessions like using CSS to define a custom output format and moving from HTML to whatever end format is needed). TWiki is promoted as a “structured wiki” meaning that it is somewhere between a full CMS system and a traditional wiki and allows the creation of mini-applications without programming skill. I like being able to refactor documents into reusable components then creating libraries of content that can be included in any other pages within TWiki. The versioning system is good because it allows absolute links to past versions; meaning that if a writer included content via link+version then it is possible to get historically accurate documentation sets if required for legal or compliance purposes. Since TWiki is written in Perl it’s also not too difficult to find programmers that can add any specifically needed functionality. I’ve been using it for single-sourcing whenever possible over the last few years. TWiki plus a Google Search Appliance makes for a very versatile documentation system.

By: rick

rick — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 17:37:15 +0000

There’s also a good discussion on KeyContent.org that asks a similar question: Is Using Customer-Accessible Wikis for End-User Documentation Gaining Momentum? (http://www.keycontent.org//tiki-index.php?page=Wikis+and+Docs)

It includes a list of several sites that use wikis for customer documentation

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 01:28:36 +0000

Judy, you make some valid points about the drawbacks of wikis. Thanks for pointing me to your white paper.