Wikis

As every day goes by, I am becoming a bigger fan of the wiki form. It’s not ideal in every scenario, but I really believe that every organisation should have at least one.

Here’s five ways local gov can use wikis to improve service or staff satisfaction.

1. Procedure Manuals

The wiki is an ideal platform for managing knowledge. Having an online knowledge base of processes and procedures accessed through an intranet would be useful to almost every member of staff. Run it as a wiki, and everyone can keep it up to date and add as much detail as they want.

2. Project Management

Managing projects successfully is all about communication and managing documents effectively. Every project should have a wiki space for discussions and collaborative working to take place. Why email round spreadsheets and word processed documents when you can all work off the same record?

3. Public Consultation

Wikis provide another route into the Council for the views of the community. Now, allowing editing rights to the general public to a Council website might well be a horrifying thought, but various things have to be born in mind. Firstly, a key component of wiki technology is the ability to ‘roll-back’ edits, to remove vandalism and non constructive comments. Secondly, by making it very clear that a site is a wiki, with all that that entails, the information on the site is approached by the reader in a different way. Defra have a wiki and the classic example of a public wiki that works is of course Wikipedia.

4. Improvement and Change Management

Every council has a suggestions box. Nobody ever uses them, and if they do, not a lot happens. But by using a wiki as an open suggestions forum, others can be involved in the development of business cases for improvement opportunities and momentum built up.

5. Knowledge Sharing

Whether lists of useful links, blog posts, or the sharing of home grown knowledge, the wiki can be a useful format for creating a space where people can simply share what they know. Tap into the talent that exists within the council but which you didn’t know about already by empowering people to share what they know on a shared space.

That’s a pretty quick run through, because the potential applications are pretty much limitless. If you’d like to talk more about the possibilities that wikis offer, leave a comment or send me an email!

The Guardian reports on ‘Conservapedia‘:

A website founded by US religious activists aims to counter what they claim is “liberal bias” on Wikipedia, the open encyclopedia which has become one of the most popular sites on the web. The founders of Conservapedia.com say their site offers a “much-needed alternative” to Wikipedia, which they say is “increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American”.

Although entries on Wikipedia are open for anyone to edit, conservative campaigners say they are unable to make changes to articles on the site because of inherent bias by its global team of volunteer editors. Instead they have chosen to build a clone which they hope will promote Christian values.

“I’ve tried editing Wikipedia, and found that the biased editors who dominate it censor or change facts to suit their views,” Andy Schlafly, the founder of Conservapedia, told the Guardian. “In one case my factual edits were removed within 60 seconds – so editing Wikipedia is no longer a viable approach.”

Of course, what one considers to be a fact depends on who you are, or rather, what you believe. Looking at the examples the Guardian provides, it also depends on whether or not you are a nut.

Dinosaurs

Wikipedia: “Vertebrate animals that dominated terrestrial ecosystems for over 160m years, first appearing approximately 230m years ago.”

Conservapedia: “They are mentioned in numerous places throughout the Good Book. For example, the behemoth in Job and the leviathan in Isaiah are almost certainly references to dinosaurs.”

US Democratic party

Wikipedia: “The party advocates civil liberties, social freedoms, equal rights, equal opportunity, fiscal responsibility, and a free enterprise system tempered by government intervention.”

Conservapedia: “The Democrat voting record reveals a true agenda of cowering to terrorism, treasonous anti-Americanism, and contempt for America’s founding principles.”

I can see myself becoming addicted to reading this site. It’ll be like picking a scab.

Wikispaces is excellent. I’ve moved the LGNewMedia wiki to there, from a self hosted MediaWiki.

Technorati Tags: wikispaces, wiki, lgnewmedia

I’ve moved the LGNM Wiki to Wikispaces, having had a look round the Social Media wiki that David Wilcox runs. All the existing information has been copied across.

The system I had been using, MediaWiki, is excellent,a nd I haven’t had any problems with it. The only issue is one of resources: I’m trying to cut down on my web expenditure and the wiki used a whole database and a big wodge of filespace. By hosting the wiki elsewhere I don’t have to worry about that anymore.

Also, wikispaces is a really good system, with a nice wysiwyg editor, so I think it’ll be better too for anyone who fancies helping out too. I know a few people registered on the old wiki, so apologies for any inconvenience.