Wikis

[dmm]

Has anyone setup a Wiki in their workplace, and if so,
has it been effective in distributing relevant information?

Which Wiki did you use?

 

[David L. Jones]

dmm wrote:

Has anyone setup a Wiki in their workplace, and if so,
has it been effective in distributing relevant information?

Which Wiki did you use?

Not in the workplace, but I've just set up a Wiki here:
http://ozcanyons.alternatezone.com/wiki

This uses the MediaWiki engine which is very powerful and incredibly
easy to install. You can get the link from the MediaWiki button on the
bottom of the page.

A comparison of various Wiki engines is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software
I found the MediaWiki one is by far the most popular though, and it is
the one that powers the massive Wikipedia engine so it must be very
stable and full featured.

I was expecting all kinds of problems but installation was a breeze
following the step-by-step instructions, and the almost fully automated
setup procedure. No need to know PHP or anything like that. The most
complex part was changing the file permissions on the directories, and
that's a snap with any FTP program.

I went from knowing almost nothing about it to have having a fully
installed and working Wiki on my site in under 2 hours.

As for the workplace, intranet web pages work very well at our company,
but the problem is that you have to have someone to maintain it and
edit the HTML etc. A Wiki would allow anyone to edit it with no
knowledge at all, and rollbacks are easy in case you get a total twit
who stuff it up.

Wikis get the thumbs up in my book.

Dave

 

[dmm]

On 30 Oct 2005 18:02:46 -0800, "David L. Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> wrote:

dmm wrote:
Has anyone setup a Wiki in their workplace, and if so,
has it been effective in distributing relevant information?

Which Wiki did you use?

Not in the workplace, but I've just set up a Wiki here:
http://ozcanyons.alternatezone.com/wiki

This uses the MediaWiki engine which is very powerful and incredibly
easy to install. You can get the link from the MediaWiki button on the
bottom of the page.

A comparison of various Wiki engines is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software
I found the MediaWiki one is by far the most popular though, and it is
the one that powers the massive Wikipedia engine so it must be very
stable and full featured.

I was expecting all kinds of problems but installation was a breeze
following the step-by-step instructions, and the almost fully automated
setup procedure. No need to know PHP or anything like that. The most
complex part was changing the file permissions on the directories, and
that's a snap with any FTP program.

I went from knowing almost nothing about it to have having a fully
installed and working Wiki on my site in under 2 hours.

As for the workplace, intranet web pages work very well at our company,
but the problem is that you have to have someone to maintain it and
edit the HTML etc. A Wiki would allow anyone to edit it with no
knowledge at all, and rollbacks are easy in case you get a total twit
who stuff it up.

Wikis get the thumbs up in my book.

Dave

Thanks for that Dave. I'm thinking about implementing it specifically for
Production and Testing, and also for Engineering documents. But I really
don't want P and T to change things without permission, so is that easy?
I'm still considering creating an intranet system for the internal docs, but
yes, I'm concerned that my time would be taken up with maintaining it, rather
than the IT admin we've got at the moment.

Regards
David

 

[David L. Jones]

dmm wrote:

On 30 Oct 2005 18:02:46 -0800, "David L. Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> wrote:

dmm wrote:
Has anyone setup a Wiki in their workplace, and if so,
has it been effective in distributing relevant information?

Which Wiki did you use?

Not in the workplace, but I've just set up a Wiki here:
http://ozcanyons.alternatezone.com/wiki

This uses the MediaWiki engine which is very powerful and incredibly
easy to install. You can get the link from the MediaWiki button on the
bottom of the page.

A comparison of various Wiki engines is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software
I found the MediaWiki one is by far the most popular though, and it is
the one that powers the massive Wikipedia engine so it must be very
stable and full featured.

I was expecting all kinds of problems but installation was a breeze
following the step-by-step instructions, and the almost fully automated
setup procedure. No need to know PHP or anything like that. The most
complex part was changing the file permissions on the directories, and
that's a snap with any FTP program.

I went from knowing almost nothing about it to have having a fully
installed and working Wiki on my site in under 2 hours.

As for the workplace, intranet web pages work very well at our company,
but the problem is that you have to have someone to maintain it and
edit the HTML etc. A Wiki would allow anyone to edit it with no
knowledge at all, and rollbacks are easy in case you get a total twit
who stuff it up.

Wikis get the thumbs up in my book.

Dave

Thanks for that Dave. I'm thinking about implementing it specifically for
Production and Testing, and also for Engineering documents. But I really
don't want P and T to change things without permission, so is that easy?

Haven't got that deep into it yet I'm afraid, although I have heard you
can restrict editing rights to only certain individuals fairly easily.
It's probaly all detailed in the MediaWiki documentation.

I'm still considering creating an intranet system for the internal docs, but
yes, I'm concerned that my time would be taken up with maintaining it, rather
than the IT admin we've got at the moment.

Intranet systems work great for production and engineering
documentation, as the documents are imediately available to anyone on
the shop floor or wherever with a browser without having to use the
company configuration tool or whatever. And of course you can hyperlink
everything any way you like, so you can break down your pages by
product and then have all the files imediately available - schematics,
BOMs, drawings, firmware, software, procedures etc.
It is an excellent way to "release" documents where everyone is
guaranteed access to the latest versions. Handy for ISO audits too.
Everyone knows how to use a browser, so it makes navigating for
documents real easy.

An intranet can be nothing more than a bunch of HTML documents on a
network drive that you can edit using Microsoft Word (no need for a
proper HTML editor). No need to involve IT at all either, which can be
handy. Although it's good to get IT to set up a domain map to make it
easier to find - eg. "intranet.company.com.au" is better than
"K:\Engineering\intranet\index.html" etc.

Gotta watch out for morons who decide to change a directory name or
move things around and screw up all your hyperlinks!

Dave