Wikis Getting to the Nitty Gritty Meredith Farkas

Wikis Getting to the Nitty Gritty Meredith Farkas September 25, 2006 ALA Headquarters

What you should learn How to edit and format a wiki ¡ How to deal with spam and vandalism ¡ Wiki management strategies ¡

Adding content to Media. Wiki Step 1: Create an account ¡ Step 2: Check out the Wikipedia’s editing guide ¡ Start adding content! ¡

Create your own profile Name ¡ Position ¡ Website/E-mail address ¡ Picture ¡ A little about yourself ¡ Add your profile to the list of members ¡

Getting rid of spam and vandalism Vandalize your page. ¡ Get rid of the spam ¡ l l l ¡ Rollback History Manual deletion Get to know (and love) RSS feeds

How to deal with posts you don’t like ¡ Guidelines l l ¡ ¡ Limit to on-topic posts Take a note from the Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines Get a committed group of volunteers (library school students are ALWAYS eager) to patrol the wiki so that it doesn’t look like the ALA is limiting dialogue If you need to delete something - use discussion area to explain why things were deleted.

Making the wiki compelling Seeding the wiki ¡ Social elements ¡ Unique content (not on any other ALA site) ¡ Not restrictive. Make people feel like the wiki belongs to them. ¡

Getting people to add to the wiki ¡ ¡ Get divisions to market and to commit to contributing to the wiki Get presenters to put content about presentation (slides, etc. ) on wiki Work with library groups (student, etc. ) in D. C. metro area to get their membership involved in adding info about D. C. Put an article about wikis in American Libraries to teach people about wikis and to market the wiki

Questions? Comments? Meredith Farkas mgfarkas at gmail dot com http: //meredith. wolfwater. com/wordpress/ AIM: librarianmer