This was an interesting activity. I expected the sandbox to be more organized and less chaotic, but then, it is a playspace, and there are a ton of beginners (including myself) poking around in there, so no big deal.
I think that I'm so unused to communal webpages that I tended to use it more like a message board than a website editor. I wanted to sign my additions (and did) because you can't tell who added what, and it felt strange and wrong to edit someone else's webpage. I know this isn't an uncommon feeling - after all, as the last activity said, we're very picky about our personal space! I kept thinking...what if I change something that the original person doesn't like? How will anyone know which are my contributions and which were already there? Maybe if I could get used to and start to enjoy the idea of anonymously adding content, I could get into it more. Actually, I think that's pretty much required in order to use wikis a lot - that's the whole point! Maybe I'm too much of a control freak for the concept not to make me twitch a little bit around the eye.
In any case, I thought it was fairly easy to use, but as someone who actually knows a bit of html, I found it annoying that I couldn't use my coding but had to rely on their WYSIWYG buttons. Since it's a bulletin board, it also uses that odd alternate html with brackets instead of carats (carrots? carets?), which may or may not be called CSS? I'm not sure. I don't really know anything but basic html, and I definitely don't know CSS. But I added my contributions nonetheless. I edited the blog page, the What I Am Reading page, and the Rather Be Knitting page.
Kinda fun, not too difficult.
Showing posts with label wikis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wikis. Show all posts
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Wikis in Libraries
This has been one of the most interesting things for me to explore. I'm a fan of Wikipedia already because if you're just looking for some quick information on something and don't necessarily need it to be collegiate-level accurate, Wikipedia's got everything. Surprisingly, the information usually seems to be pretty accurate, despite the fact that anyone on the web can add content. And sometimes, it's handy to use Wikipedia as a springboard to find search terms you can use in more reputable databases.
To be honest, I never knew that a wiki was something independent of Wikipedia. I'd never even heard of a wiki outside of that website. I think that it's a really unique tool, and I'm not sure I've quite organized my thoughts on all the things it can do yet, so bear with me as I talk it out.
At first, it seemed like, to me, that if everyone could just log in and change things, it might as well be a bulletin board, but then I realized that bulletin boards aren't organized to be easily searchable, so that's not really an apt comparison. So it's a website, and that's handy, because the more content you have, the better the site, and opening it up for multiple people to contribute (who might not necessarily do so otherwise due to computer illiteracy) is really handy. Being a part of a team that is attempting to create a library website and worrying frequently about how we will generate content to keep it going, I can see the obvious benefits to having many, many contributors.
However, I can't help but think that, in terms of a library wiki, the content would need to be monitored a bit more carefully than any old wiki out there in cyberspace. Obviously, this could be handled by only allowing the wiki to be edited by librarians, but then you're not allowing your patrons to have much of an involvement in the project. I love how Princeton Public Library's Book Lovers Wiki incorporates reviews from their patrons, but I have to wonder how they monitor their content. Surely, someone must be watching out for cursing, inappropriate commentary, spamming, harassment, etc? And if that's the case, and someone is spending a lot of time making sure propriety is maintained, then wouldn't it be just time-consuming as monitoring a message board or screening every post that goes through?
I don't know. I love the idea of wikis to which patrons can contribute, but I don't understand how it can be done and content-screened without creating a lot of extra work. The whole idea of allowing a bunch of people to contribute is to SAVE yourself time, so policing the site seems like it's a bit counter-intuitive to the point. Overall, though, I think I'm of the opinion that wikis rock.
To be honest, I never knew that a wiki was something independent of Wikipedia. I'd never even heard of a wiki outside of that website. I think that it's a really unique tool, and I'm not sure I've quite organized my thoughts on all the things it can do yet, so bear with me as I talk it out.
At first, it seemed like, to me, that if everyone could just log in and change things, it might as well be a bulletin board, but then I realized that bulletin boards aren't organized to be easily searchable, so that's not really an apt comparison. So it's a website, and that's handy, because the more content you have, the better the site, and opening it up for multiple people to contribute (who might not necessarily do so otherwise due to computer illiteracy) is really handy. Being a part of a team that is attempting to create a library website and worrying frequently about how we will generate content to keep it going, I can see the obvious benefits to having many, many contributors.
However, I can't help but think that, in terms of a library wiki, the content would need to be monitored a bit more carefully than any old wiki out there in cyberspace. Obviously, this could be handled by only allowing the wiki to be edited by librarians, but then you're not allowing your patrons to have much of an involvement in the project. I love how Princeton Public Library's Book Lovers Wiki incorporates reviews from their patrons, but I have to wonder how they monitor their content. Surely, someone must be watching out for cursing, inappropriate commentary, spamming, harassment, etc? And if that's the case, and someone is spending a lot of time making sure propriety is maintained, then wouldn't it be just time-consuming as monitoring a message board or screening every post that goes through?
I don't know. I love the idea of wikis to which patrons can contribute, but I don't understand how it can be done and content-screened without creating a lot of extra work. The whole idea of allowing a bunch of people to contribute is to SAVE yourself time, so policing the site seems like it's a bit counter-intuitive to the point. Overall, though, I think I'm of the opinion that wikis rock.
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