Wikis Getting to the Nitty Gritty

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WikisGetting to the Nitty Gritty

• Meredith Farkas
• September 25, 2006
• ALA Headquarters

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What you should learn

• How to edit and format a wiki
• How to deal with spam and vandalism
• Wiki management strategies

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Adding content to MediaWiki

• Step 1 Create an account
• Step 2 Check out the Wikipedias editing guide
• Start adding content!

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Create your own profile

• Name
• Position
• Website/E-mail address
• Picture
• A little about yourself
• Add your profile to the list of members

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Getting rid of spam and vandalism

• Vandalize your page.
• Get rid of the spam
• Rollback
• History
• Manual deletion
• Get to know (and love) RSS feeds

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How to deal with posts you dont like

• Guidelines
• Limit to on-topic posts
• Take a note from the Wikipedias policies and
  guidelines
• Get a committed group of volunteers (library
  school students are ALWAYS eager) to patrol the
  wiki so that it doesnt look like the ALA is
  limiting dialogue
• If you need to delete something - use discussion
  area to explain why things were deleted.

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Making the wiki compelling

• Seeding the wiki
• Social elements
• Unique content (not on any other ALA site)
• Not restrictive. Make people feel like the wiki
  belongs to them.

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Getting people to add to the wiki

• Get divisions to market and to commit to
  contributing to the wiki
• Get presenters to put content about presentation
  (slides, etc.) on wiki
• Work with library groups (student, etc.) in D.C.
  metro area to get their membership involved in
  adding info about D.C.
• Put an article about wikis in American Libraries
  to teach people about wikis and to market the
  wiki

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Questions? Comments?

• Meredith Farkas
• mgfarkas at gmail dot com
• http//meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/
• AIM librarianmer