1、A Tale of Two Wikis,Techniques for Building, Managing and Promoting Collaborative Communities,A Tale of Two Wikis,Introduction Starting the wiki Maintenance and expansion Promotion and advertising Site monitoring Dealing with problems Policy considerations The importance of community Conclusion and
2、questions,Introduction,This presentation is not about Wikimedia Im not an academic! Practical advice on: Starting a wiki dedicated to your community Promoting it to other potential contributors Maintaining and expanding the site over time If you are interested in the above, this is for you If not, f
3、eel free to stay, just dont complain later! ;-),Why a separate wiki?,Some articles are unverifiable even if factual Whos had such an article deleted on Wikipedia? Whos voted to delete such an article? Wikipedia isnt the place for it so where? Answer: A separate site dedicated to the topic: Easier to
4、 gather contributors Less stress defending against deletion Policies appropriate to your community,Why should you make it?,Youre the one that cares the most. Be bold! You have wiki ability and domain knowledge You get the chance to make your own rules Maybe youll find out why they were like that May
5、be youll find a better way Its really cool to see a site with 1,000+ articles and know youre responsible for its creation What else were you going to do with your time?,Sample wikis,Two fan-based communities Creatures Wiki: December 2004 June 2005 First featured on Wikia. 2,000+ articles Endorsement
6、 from game developers Influenced republishing of game over a year after “death” WikiFur: July 2005 Present 4,500 articles to date, still growing at 150 edits/day Close, vibrant community involving real-life friends Not Star Trek/Star Wars, but not far away either,A Tale of Two Wikis,Introduction Sta
7、rting the wiki Maintenance and expansion Promotion and advertising Site monitoring Dealing with problems Policy considerations The importance of community Conclusion and questions,Hosting your wiki,Self-hosting or wiki farm? Adequate technical ability? Can you handle growth? Flexibility vs. performa
8、nce/uptime? Licensing restrictions? GFDL, CC, total ownership? Server hosting vs. Ad-based vs. Monthly fee Time spent working on server vs. community People complain no matter what you choose! Several established hosting companies Wikia is good, but check them all out yourself,Names and branding,Nam
9、es are important - keep it simple If people cant figure out what your site is about from the name, find a better one Try not to use anyone elses name! Use a generic name to get started, change later? It worked for Star Wars Wiki, now Wookieepedia Think up a few slogans for publicity purposes Example
10、: “By Furries, For Furries, About Furries” Helps define both contributors and visitors,Site logo,You need a logo, too make it simple but meaningful Consider a logo contest soon after you get started Test it with the ten-foot challenge Make sure you have the rights necessary to use it!,Seed posting,Y
11、ou have the vision, but A vision is just promise without substance You have to write a lot of articles yourself Some may write with you; nobody will do it for you You have to be at least interested in the topic If youre not, find someone else to start the wiki! You must believe youre the right perso
12、n to do it but also that others are essential for success,Mission statement,A site without focus has no purpose therefore it will not succeed Hundreds of dead wikis demonstrate this You must have goals to work towards They can be optimistic, but should be achievable “Complete listing of all Creature
13、s breeds and addons” “Most comprehensive site for furry fandom information” Define your audience and contributor pool Dont be too exclusive, especially not at this stage,Initial policies,Keep it short and sweet Decide what your license is (if theres a choice) Consider the desired tone and assumption
14、s Use language appropriate to the audience Remember that policy tends to be a bit formal If you dont have a certain policy, dont write it Wait until people finish arguing about it ;-) Once you reach a consensus, write some more,A Tale of Two Wikis,Introduction Starting the wiki Maintenance and expan
15、sion Promotion and advertising Site monitoring Dealing with problems Policy considerations The importance of community Conclusion and questions,Attracting and keeping contributors,Welcomes are not minor edits Relevant to contributions (avoid templates) Link to help pages and a place to ask questions
16、 Ensure the first thing people see is welcoming MediaWiki:Anonnotice can be very useful Welcome to WikiFur! Check out our Featured articles, the Comic of the Week, and our Did you know? section! Organize your home page for new users Remember, search engines benefit from quality links, too,Contributo
17、r help and support,Create your own help and style pages Cover the essential topics in a friendly style For detailed help, direct users to Wikipedia Remember to warn them that not all policies apply Make a great community portal to direct editors Provide public and private places for assistance Publi
18、c: LiveJournal, forums, mailing lists Private: User talk, email, IM, phone Different people prefer different methods,Customization,Customize your wiki to your community It doesnt have to be much just a unique flavour Images can be very easy to change Appropriate in-page design helps as well If an ar
19、tist or designer can help you, let them Consider the effect on usability About 10% of users are still stuck at 800x600 Be warned: Some dont like dark colours,Customization,Norn appears on edit link Its just for funexactly what you need in site decoaration Creatures Wiki category bar includes well-kn
20、own graphic Get permission for these! WikiFur category bar features pawprint motif shown in logo Reuse graphics to reduce time Wikicities category bar one of many echos of the logo,A Tale of Two Wikis,Introduction Starting the wiki Maintenance and expansion Promotion and advertising Site monitoring
21、Dealing with problems Policy considerations The importance of community Conclusion and questions,Promotion: A necessary task,Your wiki needs other contributors They will not appear by magic Someone needs to lead them there As the leader, people expect you to write most of the promotional material Yo
22、u have the vision, you need to communicate it Others may help with distribution and graphics You can do it it just takes practice!,Avenues for promotion,News posts on community websites Contact site owners and ask them to link to you Forums, LiveJournal, Open Directory Conventions, user groups, noti
23、ce boards, etc. Conversation in chat rooms, word of mouth Remember: The best promotional tool is good content Majority of wiki users arrive via Google,Types of promotion,Contributor-oriented Objective: Inspire others to join in Explain why they should bother helping at all What problem does your wik
24、i solve? What is your vision of its future? How will you get there? Describe different ways in which they can help “Only you can create this article!” “Share your interests!” Artists, writers, organizers, copyeditors all have their place Mention other well-known contributors, if any,Types of promoti
25、on,Visitor-oriented “Why should I bother looking at your site?” Emphasise breadth of topics Tell them a story, include interesting links to follow Make sure youre sending them somewhere good! You can combine both types of promotion “X has written interesting articles on Y and Z”,Example: WikiFur Fly
26、ers,Targets both visitors and potential contributors Outlines goals of site Cites previous success Makes personal appeal Thanks exisiting editors Incorporates appropriate graphics and formatting Call to action at end,Example: WikiFur Flyers,Example: From the Creatures Wiki,Thread posted on major com
27、munity forums Including non-English-speaking community Long, conversational, many links to best articles Specific mention of active contributors Results: Mentioned in company weblog Endorsement from games designer, Steve Grand Significant traffic boost, continuing to this day,Promotion on Wikipedia,
28、Good source of contributors, but tread carefully Add links in articles to prevent articles being created on Wikipedia for non-notable topics Use interwiki links if possible looks better Dont go spamming links inappropriately Try suggesting transwiki in relevant AfDs Port general-purpose articles bac
29、k and forth but keep the non-notable details on your copy,Search engine advertising,Is it worth it? It depends! How much can you afford? How much do keywords cost? Can you get a community deal? Not the ideal way to attract contributors, though it helps Best used for attracting visitors to your fines
30、t articles Google AdWords is nicer and cheaper than Yahoo However, neither system has complete coverage,A Tale of Two Wikis,Introduction Starting the wiki Maintenance and expansion Promotion and advertising Site monitoring Dealing with problems Policy considerations The importance of community Concl
31、usion and questions,Site monitoring,You want to know how youre doing, right? The best way to judge success is to measure it Number of active users, articles, edits, links, images. Visitors and pageviews, site referrals, search ranking General reputation of site, mention in publications Use this info
32、rmation to plan improvements Popular articles, site navigation Its also great for promotional material,Monitoring tools,Internal statistics Access log analyzers Analog AWStats Webalizer Wiki-specific statistics,Web-based stats Google Analytics Any number of alternatives,Other ways to measure,Check w
33、hat your referrers are saying about you We actually found groups planning to attack us . . . Google searches on your wiki name and URL You can also try searching on related topics Site/topic-specific search engines: LJSeek et. al. Just ask people you may be surprised! Take every source with a pinch
34、of salt . . . and remember, size/popularity isnt everything!,A Tale of Two Wikis,Introduction Starting the wiki Maintenance and expansion Promotion and advertising Site monitoring Dealing with problems Policy considerations The importance of community Conclusion and questions,Vandalism and spam,Most
35、 wikis have some; the level varies widely Defamation, blanking, obscene text/pictures Why do people vandalise? Personal grudges (or trying to hide past actions) Controversial topics (LOL FURRIES!11) Because they enjoy attention (so deny them it) Can be devastating when “sponsored” by a site But: A c
36、risis can be turned into an opportunity,Example: Something Awful,Three weeks in, thread opened on SA forums WikiFur selected as Awful Link of the Day Looked like a proxy attack, so many different IPs Edits every 45 seconds what would you do?,Example: Something Awful,Lock down the wiki or meet them h
37、ead-on? We chose the latter Added welcome message to point out recent changes Promoted good users who were trying to help It worked: vandalism was brought under control Many current admins became involved at this point One month later: 1000 article pages 50 regular contributors,Wiki spam,Automated p
38、rograms exist to add external links There may also be people doing it manually Simplest way is to block originating IPs Make use of publicly-available proxy lists Consider using pattern-matching software Matches external links substrings If you have a hosted provider, have them do it You shouldnt ha
39、ve to waste your time on it,Coping with conflict,Most wikis involve disagreements now and then As the founder, you are the default arbitrator Encourage people to help you You dont want to be the only one making the calls Prefer debate over immediate voting Its OK to call a vote after finding several
40、 solutions If in doubt, look to Wikipedias guidelines If the final decision makes policy, write it down,A Tale of Two Wikis,Introduction Starting the wiki Maintenance and expansion Promotion and advertising Site monitoring Dealing with problems Policy considerations The importance of community Concl
41、usion and questions,Importing policies,Wikipedia is a great example sometimes It is not the only way of doing things Some features and policies are very useful Featured article, “did you know”, picture of week NPOV, “no personal attacks” Some dont work so well Original research may be your best cont
42、ent Verifiability is best reserved for active conflicts,Modifying processes,You may have to alter how things are done Complex systems can be inappropriate Lower barriers to participation Example: Featured articles on WikiFur Users did not care enough to go through the process Admins (mostly myself)
43、ended up doing the work Contrast: Comic of the week Simple vote-based system, widely used,Personal information,On community wikis, contributors can be topics Whether they should be depends on the community Issues to consider: Puff pieces and personal attacks Dealing with removal of information On Wi
44、kiFur: Personal articles can be removed, but not public actions or creations (like comics)S There are always exceptions use consensus to decide Lots of problems but lots of referrals, too,A Tale of Two Wikis,Introduction Starting the wiki Maintenance and expansion Promotion and advertising Site moni
45、toring Dealing with problems Policy considerations The importance of community Conclusion and questions,Importance of community,Vital to the success of any group endeavour Individuals matter! Wikipedia has 25,000 regular users; you have 5 to 50 One good contributor can make or break the site Encoura
46、ge users to become part of the group LiveJournal, forums, talk page discussions, etc. Offer help if they need it, dont wait for them to ask Do what you can to keep people on the site But, if they are determined to go, let them.,Example: GalCiv II Wiki,Created as knowledgebase for game after release
47、Promoted for a short time on main website A fortnight of work by founder, then abandoned New users welcomed, shown help, but little else Results: Just 1-2 edits a day from 500 visitors/5k hits Few long-term contributors; most have departed Lack of community involvement = dead wiki,Example: Creatures
48、 Wiki,Seven months of work, 2000 articles (now 2500) Half the visitor count of GalCiv II Wiki Consistently 10 edits/day, sometimes far more Group of contributors who care for it Some visit daily, others drop in every week or two Actively help others, update pages, combat spam Small, stable community
49、 = viable wiki Without community, all you have is a static database,Example: WikiFur Cards,Simple but distinctive Personal thanks from WikiFurs administrators Provides sense of community to bearers Reminds people to edit every time they look at it Can be used as conbadge Free advertising! Cheap ($70/1000 cards),A Tale of Two Wikis,Introduction Starting the wiki Maintenance and expansion Promotion and advertising Site monitoring Dealing with problems Policy considerations The importance of community Conclusion and questions,
