Wiki New Year’s Resolution #1: Increase your wiki core competencies
by Tak Kendrick on 30 December 2008
A few days left in 2008, and the new year is shaping up to be an exciting one for collaboration and online communication around the world. With that in mind, we came up with a few ideas for wiki/collaboration novices and veterans alike to improve their wiki presence and knowledge in the new year (on AboutUs as well as other wikis). The first of two posts is more nuts and bolts of using wiki including philosophy and outside learning opportunities. The second post (which we’ll put up a little later today is now up) features actions you can take get busy collaborating on wikis.
Steps to increase your wiki core competencies
Of course, getting on a wiki is the first step, but a wiki is more than a website or a tool for online collaboration, but a set of philosophies and general practices that foster and grow collaboration. Here are a few ideas to better learn philosophies, the way we do things as well as some direct primers for wiki enthusiasts of all levels:
Become versed in “The Wiki Way” – Learn about and practice the core philosophies inherent to wikis including: Be A Builder, Transparency, Assume Good Faith and Real People. In addition to the WikiWay resource on AboutUs, another great place for Wiki philosophy is the Meatball Wiki (one of the earliest wikis), which is a community of people actively striving to teach each other how to organize using online tools.
Look at a lot of (different) wikis – When people say wiki, it’s common to think of one or two of the “big ones” (you know the ones), but wiki is more than a few large sites with millions of pages of information. Because wikis are community-grown organisms, each wiki is very different with different rules and ideas for collaboration and sharing, not just content. Find a few that you like and learn the various differences and ways of collaborating online. To get started, take a look at a resource like WikiIndex, which has over 4,000 pages of information on different wikis, wiki people and wiki ideas.
Attend wiki events – Not just for experts, events like Recent Changes Camp, Wikimania, WikiSym and monthly WikiWednesday meetups are happening both internationally and in major metropolitan areas and are a great way to find out more about wiki and online collaboration. And, if there isn’t a WikiWednesday group in your area, start one!
Read all about it! – There are a lot of books on wiki and collaboration, as documented in our three part Holiday Gift (Reading) Guide. To learn more about wiki and online collaborative tools, head down to your local library or bookstore.
Tagged as:
collaboration,
wiki,
WikiWay
{ 1 trackback }
Comments on this entry are closed.