Wiki New Year’s Resolution #2: Collaborate!
by Tak Kendrick on 30 December 2008
In the first part of our “Wiki New Year’s Resolutions” we discussed ways to improve your knowledge of various wikis, techniques and philosophies inherent in wiki culture. This post deals with more direct methods of collaboration, again for people new to wiki as well as old hands wanting to take their collaboration to the next level.
Get collaborating with wiki
Of course, there are a variety of ways to start collaborating on a wiki, but here’s some of our favorites:
Make edits – A wiki is only as good as it’s community. Reading a variety of wikis helps support the community, but at some point it’s time to roll your sleeve up and make a few edits. It’s easy, fun and a great way to exercise your collaborative skills. Add a few lines to an article you know a lot about, or just help fix grammar and spelling if you’re so inclined. On AboutUs, you can start with updating your domain page info or building out your PersonalPage.
Collaborate with someone you know – Once you’ve made a few edits, it might be time to get started directly collaborating (by making edits or reading articles, you’ve been collaborating all along, but indirectly). Find someone you work well with (a significant other, business partner or friend) and work on an article together. On AboutUs, you can collaborate on the article for your website or find a topic category you’re both interested in and build it out together. If this is your first time collaborating on an online environment, meet in person over coffee first and map some things out before you make your first edits to help work the kinks out.
Collaborate with someone you don’t know – Once you’re a collaboration veteran, it’s time to step up and start working directly with people you don’t know. Here are three ideas:
1. Take a look at some of our
portals like
PortlandTech to see how you can join in a project already in work.
2. Start your own portal on AboutUs using the
PortalBuilder.
3. Ask someone at AboutUs of other
Barnraising opportunities (or watch our blog for things).
users people, patrol edits, tutor people, answer questions on live chat and other activities. On AboutUs, we maintain a list of various collaboration opportunities on our How You Can Help page.
Tagged as:
collaboration,
wiki,
WikiWay
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