Chinese-Forums Wiki?

[gato]

I think Roddy has converted the Wiki pages into regular threads already....

[roddy]

I think it’s a great luxury to have a great wiki, but at a minimum, a great wiki requires full-time management.

I don't know about full-time, but ideally it would need a lot of input and I would hesitate to call it a success if it wasn't getting useful edits and additions on a daily or almost daily basis. I don't think we were anywhere near that happening. I don't have a lot of time - any, really - to put into it, and so I'm reluctant to try and persuade others to do so.

I turned the wiki functionality off as part of the recent upgrade. It can get turned back on. However, as the developers no longer seem to be supporting it, at some point the forums software and the wiki software will diverge and it will stop working in one way or another. We could fix it ourselves, but there's no telling how much time and hassle that would be, and given that it wasn't hugely active I wanted to stop and check to see what people thought.

I should make clear that the information contained within the Wikis is still present and won't be lost - the wiki articles now appear as normal threads, and they can be moved into the appropriate forums, discussion can continue, they can be stickied, etc.

Edited July 19, 2008 at 08:14 AM by roddy

[simonlaing]

I think we should keep it as a wiki , so in case there are some new people,

Who ask very simple questions, we can say look at the wiki.

It is good to have some pages that most of the regulars agree are good advice and that is what the wiki can serve as don't you think?

So I haven't been writing much in it.

I have been on vacation in europe and then now preparing for an exam in August. Got a wedding in October but after that should add more.

I think it shoudl be kept separate though , I might rearrange the forums topics and put the more popular ones at the top, studying chinese, and living in China.

Have fun,

Simon:)

[muyongshi]

I actually agree that I think the Wikis should remain wikis however as they are not being supported by the new upgrades and eventually the chance of compatibility could be dropped all together, I recommend not having them until we could be insured of compatibility.

[gougou]

I think we should keep it as a wiki , so in case there are some new people,

Who ask very simple questions, we can say look at the wiki.

A sticky (or actually just a link to a previous post, as it is currently done) would serve just fine for that, wouldn't it?

[Luobot]

I agree with Muyongshi in that it would be a pity to put a lot of work into a wiki only to find that it isn’t being supported.

A sticky (or actually just a link to a previous post, as it is currently done) would serve just fine for that, wouldn't it?

If it’s not stickied,then the problem is finding the right previous post. The search function either yields no results (even if it should), or more often, too many imprecise results. If you get hundreds of posts to look through, none of which may actually have what you’re looking for, then it isn’t a practical solution.

A better search function, if one exists, would be helpful.

[gougou]

A better search function, if one exists, would be helpful.

Depending on people's efforts, the tag function might come in handy here.

If not, stick with google and limit your search to this site (by adding site:chinese-forums.com after your search term).

[roddy]

Have turned the wiki's on - hopefully usage will pick up, but I don't want to be poking people in the ribs to try and get them to contribute, especially as I don't have much time to do so myself. The article on Beijing, for example, has only been edited once this year - surely the city has seen more changes than that?

[roddy]

Looks like the entire Wiki section is seeing extremely low levels of activity - maybe averaging two to three edits per month over the entire section. Unless anyone's got any ideas on what to do with it, it might be time to call it quits. Thoughts?

[roddy]

Last call for anyone who thinks they're worth saving . . .

[imron]

How many extra resources does it take up to just have it lying around?

[roddy]

Very little, but I think it would make sense to fold the articles there back into the appropriate forums - nobody will be able to edit them, but nobody IS editing them anyway, and it'll save having two sections that nobody is using sitting at the top of the forums listing. We won't lose any info, it'd all just get moved. It also makes upgrades and so on slightly easier, as there's one less plug-in to worry about.

[simonlaing]

I think they are worth saving as a reference tool

make them a part of living China like Teaching in China is.

I could add more to them. Sorry .

Don't delete them I think they are a good resource espicially things like city guides and things like that.

have fun,

Simon:)

[roddy]

Nothing, bar maybe some empty placeholder articles, would get deleted. The topics would get moved in to Living in China, Resources and Study Tools, whatever, and become standard discussion topics.

[adrianlondon]

I think they should be moved back to the forums. People expect info in forum threads to be out of date (and will look at the date of the post to work out how much to trust it), but a Wiki kind of implies that it's current, or at least has been validated recently.

[renzhe]

I know that I was one of the people who wanted to keep them, but if there is no activity, then there's not much point I guess.

I'd recommend saving the information (like you intend to) and adding the threads to a sticky somewhere or stickying them so they don't fall into oblivion.

[simonlaing]

Could there be a way of sending new articles or links to new articles to someone and then they could put them up.

A complete wiki is perhaps not quite necessary.

I do think the information is useful and thats why most average people come to chinese forums to get good information and advice.

have fun,

Simon:)

[flameproof]

Last call for anyone who thinks they're worth saving . . .

There is some useful information in it. Leave it, or upgrade it!

Why not just do a real wiki? Dokuwiki is quite a nice Wiki and does not require any Mysql setup. However, users need to register again (maybe not a good idea at all, but I thought so so only after posting it)

I know that I was one of the people who wanted to keep them, but if there is no activity, then there's not much point I guess.

Reminds me on that street crossing. It always had car accidents there. Then they put up a traffic light. No more accidents then, so they removed the traffic light ....

Is that Wiki a vBulletin function? If so, they they should write a simple script for a "suggest to wiki" button. If somebody finds the info useful and could click it to get copied to a wiki in-box for later sorting. Would make things way easier.

[gougou]

There is some useful information in it. Leave it

Once again, information will not be deleted. Only the format will be changed, from a wiki to normal forum posts.

[roddy]

I'm tempted to delete them just to live up to everyone's expectations.

I turned off Wiki functionality a couple of days ago while fixing something else, will move the threads soonish. I'm going to tag them all as old wiki articles beforehand to make them easier to find if anyone's looking for something specific. As you can see the threads are still present - there are some formating issues as the wikis used specific BB code for header tags and maybe some other stuff, but that should be easily fixed.

Is that Wiki a vBulletin function?

Third party plug-in, and there are question marks over ongoing support for future versions of Vbulletin. Looks like development has ceased, so at some point the plug-in and VB would stop working together and it would have to be moved to a different system, or patched, or whatever. But the real issue was that hardly anyone was actually using the wiki functionality.

Why not just do a real wiki?

Because the toy one didn't work.

Thanks of course to everyone who did add information to the wikis - rest assured your work isn't being lost, it's being moved.