The Lakota Indians just withdrew from all treaties with the United States (via FoxNews.com). It’s not showing up on Google News front page. Important news, but something that doesn’t directly impact many people. I wonder about Gnews and blogs driving news reporting…it seems to leave big holes just like old media, often in similar places. -Peteforsyth 12:17, 21 December 2007 (PST)

• Not sure if this is accurate, but I found this map showing the territory possibly in question. - Ray | talk

MarkDilley: Look Ted, this 1 million deaths per day on Duels.com looks interesting.

TedErnst: What the heck is that?

MD: It sounds pretty cool, like a lot of people are using Duels.com.

swishes hand around in air

TE: Let’s look at the AboutUs WikiPage.

argh

TE: It’s just a basic starter page.

MD: That doesn’t matter. What are it’s categories?

TE: They’re all redlinks

telepaths to you, the reader, the page doesn’t yet exist

MD: That doesn’t matter.

clicks out all the categories to see if there’s anything in them. click, click, click

MD: Ted, Category:Role-playing Games has 74 pages in it, Duels - 17, Dualist has 23, Duelling - 9, Dueling - 9 and Duals - has 14.

TE: Cool. Let’s look at the RPG one and see if there’s something interesting there.

MD: That’s cool because I like Role Playing Games. And, look at Category:Role Playing Games. 296 pages!

TE: Sounds confusing.

MD: It’s a folksonomy! It shows the inherent quality of AboutUs as the folksomony of the web.

TE: Rockin!

magically creates the page by typing text and saving

MD: Sweet!

checks the specific recent changes for those categories

MD: Cool, 4 people other than myself have edited pages in this category. Well, that’s not quite the 1 million deaths per day Duels.com is getting, but we can aspire.

TE: Mark, let’s build one of those cool new news boxes you’ve been showing me.

MD: And it’s more than that. Once we get it put together, it’s a whole new Role Playing Games wiki!

TE: What do you mean?

MD: Let me show you.

creates the news box and adds it to the two categories

TE: Great, what’s next?

MD: You’ll see!

writes three news items

TE: Wow, a whole new wiki!

MD: Yea, let’s go duel

next turn

contributors: MarkDilley and TedErnst

Rumor has it that Apple is going to release a bunch of fixes to Leopard next week. This is fabulous, because most of the AboutUs office uses Mac. Thinking about writing this post, we went to the the AboutUs WikiPage for AppleInsider.com, and saw it wasn’t that good. We then went to Google and found out AppleInsider was part of CNET’s Blog 100, so we added that to the page and reformatted some and it looks a little better. Then we thought, “what other rumor blogs are out there?”, and added Category:Apple Rumor Blogs to the page. Turns out, that category didn’t exist, but we added it to a few other pages and now it does exist. The category isn’t much yet, but since AboutUs is a wiki, others that know more about the subject can make the category better.

Good thing we started the category because today a legal battle that has raged on for a few years between Apple and the ThinkSecret.com settled. ThinkSecret is shutting down, and even though they say it was amicable, the chilling effect is troubling.

AboutUs.org is based in Portland, Oregon, so we know it’s a great place to live and wiki. The Portland Oregon Visitors Association shows that it’s also a great city to visit. You can prepare for your trip before you leave home by visiting their website, and then when you get to Portland, you can visit their physical location. The WikiPage links directly to various sections of the website to get you the info you need quickly and easily. (View Comments)

The phrase “Collaborative Think Tank” sounds like an oxymoron, but check out the Evolution of Thought Institute (ETI) to see why that’s not always the case. Among other features, the site contains a forum and articles area, where global and local issues are openly debated. Co-founder Bryan Daugherty and other community members have built a wonderful WikiPage with great use of Internal Linking. And don’t overlook the highlight of this wiki page: the great use of supporting/linked in pages: ETIGallery and ETIRecommendations. (View Comments)

GrowersBox.com is a business that wasn’t possible before the internet. Flowers aren’t new, of course, and neither are flowers for weddings. What’s new is the ability to order flowers for your wedding from the comfort of your home, and directly from the farm, bringing you both freshness and cost savings. See the WikiPage for more information. (View Comments)

AreasOfMyExpertise.com is a truly wacky book. Don’t take our word for it; watch the video on this WikiPage. Also, be sure not to miss the furry lobster photos, no joke. Well, it started out as a joke, but read the WikiPage to find out what happened then. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Look at the history of the page to see how Steven Walling rocked out on it! (View Comments)

ActiveFind is a brand new social networking site serving the LGBT community. The site’s founder Alex Wild wisely believes that folks will enjoy ActiveFind so long as it remains free and fair, key ingredients of any social networking experience. The WikiPage is chock full of useful links to related topics and organizations and makes great use of images. Anyone with a valid email address can join the ActiveFind social network meet new friends, learn about others and forge valuable connections. (View Comments)

To better help our customers, we’ve acquired the toll free number 1-800-AboutUs (1-800-226-8887), making us the only major wiki to our knowledge to provide toll-free support for our visitors. For those in the Portland, OR area, we will also have a local number, 503.488.5763. Customer support for AboutUs.org is also provided via IRC chat, email, talk page message, or notes to our SuggestionBox and ConcernsFAQ pages. For help with contacting AboutUs, check out our ContactUs page. For the next few months, the 1-800-AboutUs number will be shared with the former owner of 800-226-8887, BasketAndFloral.com, as they transition to a new number. BasketAndFloral.com is a Florida-based floral and gift shop providing a variety of services and deliveries to the greater Orlando area. Their new 800 number is 888-855-0003.

Alex rocked out on his site and the WikiPage ActiveFind.net. This is the kind of beginning collaboration we like to see. He has learned a lot of basic wiki tools in the process and has helped himself in search engines. Now he will be able to work with the site if his community shows up!

Nathan made an interesting technical edit by moving the logged in people to the top right of the page. Vartan also helped in the technical arena by helping us focus on a long standing task of making images linkable - as an example our Values image.

Finally, for a bit of fun, Saad made the WikiPlane!