Can We Have A Wiki? Options

[Jim153]

So, these fora (or forums if you want to follow US English) are certainly a valuable resource. But fora aren't without their problems, and Wikis can fix a lot of these problems.

Fora tend to generate duplicate threads, when the same question gets asked several times. With Wikis, any identified duplication can be edited out. The "easy to edit" property of Wikis tends to mean that if some someone notices duplication between two wiki pages, they will flag the duplication and cross-link the pages, and then if appropriate someone else with editing skills will merge the two pages.

Some of the duplications in the fora could have been avoided if the 2nd poster had searched thoroughly before creating a new thread, but some are unavoidable. When you don't have a clue how to solve a problem, there's a good chance you won't know precisely what to search for and you won't be able to find the previously posted solution. Personally I seem to have more success searching in Wikis than in fora, but I'm not sure why this is and it might be a perception bias, so I'm not going to try to claim that as a general property of Wikis.

Lengthy threads can include many errors, failed solutions or inefficient solutions before someone gets to the best solution. With a Wiki, all the false starts can get edited out as better solutions are added. Ultimately, a Wiki may take up less disk space than a fora system. (Not true for sites like Wikipedia where they promote never deleting any discussion on the talk pages, and they store all versions of a page that ever existed, but it doesn't have to be this way. Talk pages CAN be culled when all the relevant information has been incorporate in their main page.)

Fora tend to be reactive. People respond to questions. It's pretty rare for someone to post a simple example that they made to better understand a command that wasn't fully explained in the help files. Wikis tend to encourage people to add these examples. If a SwishMax3 wiki was "seeded" with all the existing pages from the SwishMax3 help file, there's a clear structure in place for people to add to when they find the help files less than perfect.

Of course, Wikis have problems too. They're definitely harder for the layman to learn to use than the fora, but by and large SwishMax users are a technically competent bunch, so I suspect we'll cope. Malicious users can create more havoc in a Wiki, but it's temporary since it's easy to revert a page to its previous form. A Wiki doesn't t totally replace the fora, so from the point of view of SwishZone staff, they'd be creating a new tool that they need to maintain in addition to the fora, though a well developed Wiki might reduce the amount of traffic needing to be monitored on the fora.

There are several open source Wiki software packages which are free and claim to be easy to instal. Not having tried it, I can't confirm of deny the claim. But there ARE already many examples of fans creating their own Wikis for their favourite computer games, so I guess it can't be too hard to do. Perhaps a SwishMax fan is already thinking about creating their own SwishMax Wiki. In terms of PR, it would be better for SwishZone to get in first, and ensure their SwishMax Wiki becomes the definitive SwishMax Wiki.

Jim.

[HughB]

A wiki is a good idea but does require a lot of maintenance and validation of the entries. We'd be happy to host it and indeed we have a lot of inhouse knowledge on wikis, but SZ staff don't have time to manage a public wiki at the moment. We'd need help from volunteers willing to help out with the editing and this could be a lot of work.

H

[MyNameAlreadyTak...]

You could pick members with a really good reputation to help out.