Read a very favorable review of:

a free program from Wetpaint.com Inc. that helps regular users create wikis, which encourage interaction. Wetpaint's wikis ease the process of adding Web links [etc.] to sites made with Wetpaint. Likewise, your site can easily be adjusted and enhanced by anyone who views it.
...
In less than five minutes, my own wiki ... was up and running. Setup was divided into three steps playfully termed The Easy Part, The Fun Part and The Other Part.

Wouldn't it be fun to do this on Wordcraft? Ideas?

I'm creating it right now. The URL is http://wordcraft.wetpaint.com. We can fiddle with it as we go, and we can discuss -- here, or there -- what we'd like to do with it.

I've been using wiki's for about 4 years. The syntax of the various wiki's is different, with simple Wiki's being a lot simpler than the complex add ons that have been integrated into Wikipedia.

I'll take a look once the site is up and going, and I can provide some technical support for those. For example, the Word of the Day stuff can be wiki-fied (my own word) if there is a desire for that.

quote: I can provide some technical support

I tried to add some Guy Wetmore Carryl poems. (Bob, you might want to plug in Lewis Caroll poems. ) I pasted one in from my wordprocessor, and everything looked fine. But when I clicked "accept" it removed all the line breaks. Any ideas?

Hic, All the links on that Carryl page are broken. I see that infopop.cc is in the URL. Did you get the domain wrong?

Right, z. Don't know why they've gone bad, but I was going to replace them with links to the wiki itself, after I'd copied the poems there. But I wasn't able to do that copying.

I don't see any "accept" button. When I click "edit the content" I get a box that has "save" or "cancel". I started a test page, which you can use to test stuff. I'll some more information to help out. You should start a "Help" page where we can easily give help.

How about a section for limericks? We wouldn't have to worry about workshopping or perfection; we can just have fun with them.

How's about it? On the chat we had talked about starting a limerick-fest...perhaps a wiki instead?

Actually, we are beginning to work with wikis at my work, and I think they are wonderful. We are hoping to get multiple perspectives on the wiki project we are working on.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

My worry about wikis (and the plethora of other new computer-based ideas) is that they seduce me into spending even more time in front of a screen. I have deliberately not set up a blog, or a webcam, or VOI, just to ensure that I sometimes see the green grass and blue sky.

The APS forum uses a wiki for their FAQs. We might consider something similar.

When I tried to sign up I accidentally typed the second entry of my email address wrongly so the application was thrown out. However, when I retyped it correctly it then told me that the username "arnie" was already in use. I've had to sign up there using "arnie_".

EDIT: On researching further it appears the same usernames are used throughout the Wetpaint system. I suppose someone else beat me to the name.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: arnie,

Awww...poor arnie. That happened to me on realbeer.com, and I had to use kalleh1.

Wordcrafter, arnie, or whoever...could we put a link to this Wiki on the Community page? I want to edit my Limerwiki material, and I am not sure how to access it without coming to this thread.

I like your idea about the FAQs, Arnie.

Richard, I see nothing wrong with sitting in front of a screen to learn new things. I find it a refreshing way to do work. Our Wiki project at work will be fantastic, I think, and we never could have done it as effectively or efficently without this format. Life changes. I suspect people in the 40s and 50s felt the same way about television.

quote:

Richard, I see nothing wrong with sitting in front of a screen to learn new things.

It's not a question of right or wrong. But we only have around 18 hours every day to do the things we want to do, and if you're watching a screen then you can't be taking a walk or having a pint down the pub. It's a question of trying to strike the right balance and I am beginning to feel that my screen time is already too much.

Hmph.

Although the site seems to work OK with IE 6 and IE 7, it doesn't work in Opera; even the links to sign in don't work, and it seems to use other non-standard stuff elswehere so that parts of the site don't display properly. In Gran Paradiso (the alpha version of Firefox 3) it also has display issues, although not so serious.

Kalleh: why not bookmark the site? I'll put a link on the Community home page, though.

quote: it removed all the line breaks. Any ideas?

Solution found while posting the newspaper article: i nstead of using RTRN to separate paragraphs, use SHFT-RTRN.

Well, I added a comment to the Limerwiki, but now I want to edit it. I can't find that it's possible to edit a comment. You can delete a comment, so I suppose I could copy, delete, and then add it again with the corrections. Still, that's a pain. Is it possible to edit your comments? I thought that was the whole point of a wiki!

I fixed the first link on the Carryl page. The other poems don't seem to be online yet. Why are they linked?

Someobdy should probably edit the home page for info, too.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

Okay, I figured it out now. I had been using the comments section, and not the page. If no one uses it, I will just delete it. It's just that we had talked about starting a "lim-fest" here, so I thought the Limerwiki might be fun.

Okay...I submitted my first limerick on the Limerwiki.

So get going, limericists! Please?!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
Okay, I figured it out now. I had been using the comments section, and not the page. If no one uses it, I will just delete it. It's just that we had talked about starting a "lim-fest" here, so I thought the Limerwiki might be fun.

Well, don't delete it instantly or anything. You know I'm slooooowww, so I'll get around to it later!

Once I've worked out how to do it, I'll try. Writing limericks is easy for me; working out new computer tricks is not.

Yes! Bob has added a limerick!

Come on, guys. Let's get going here.

I have another idea, too, for these, but perhaps we'd better get a few going first.

quote:

Someobdy should probably edit the home page for info, too.

I agree. That should be a priority. Shu, it's your baby; do you want to do the honours?

Yes, that's a good idea...either that or making this a sticky thread. Otherwise we'll just forget about this.

I don't think this thread really belonged in Potpourri, so I've moved it to Community. I've also made it a sticky topic.

Perfecto. Thanks, Arnie.

Would somebody tell me exactly what is the benefit of this strange animal called a wiki?

I followed the link and signed up, only to be told I had to create a home page. I don't want to create a home page; I simply want to post a limerick as kalleh requested I do.

How is this wetpaint wiki thing better than the Wordcraft board?

Well, Richard, to be honest, I don't think the wiki format is better for writing limericks. I wasn't very creative in my choice of posting limericks on the wiki.

However, a wiki can be quite useful when you are doing a project and want diverse input, such as with wikipedia or wikitionary. In my work, we are developing a wiki so that all the educators at our 59 boards of nursing can make contributions to a project where we are developing a process to approve nursing programs. You see, this project will benefit from everyone's diverse experiences. Perhaps one board has a wonderful assessment tool that can be used, while another has a great procedure for setting up the interviews with the nursing programs. The key is to have oversight of it (which we will have) so that you can delete subpar or inaccurate information. Wikipedia sometimes suffers from that. If you recall, in another thread I had posted that Richard Wagner's works were never staged in Israel. I got that data from Wikipedia, but it was wrong. In fact, another Wikipedia article had the correct information!

But for limericks, you are right; we should just have a thread on Wordcraft. I was just excited to get a wiki started, that's all.

I can understand the rationale now. But I still don't know why I have to have a home page, or what will happen to me if I choose not to put anything on it.

I think the "home page" is the home page of the Wiki, not the individual. I've already suggested that shu, as instigator of the project, put something there.

Well, this is what I get when I click on that link:

Home

RichardEnglish, here are some tips for starting your home page:

1. Describe what your site is about and who it is for.
2. Add an image that illustrates what your site is about.
3. Write a to-do list that lets visitors know how they can contribute.

It seems to be a home page dedicated to me.

Bethree has added a couple limericks on the wiki. She's good!

Richard,
I didn't know what to do with that homepage thing. I did make use of the info at 'wetpaint central' referenced further down-- learned how to modify pages, tho nothing about homepages. Then I went to the little menu on the left, straight to Limerwiki, then to 'here are the limericks', & modified the page.

I think I'll wait for a limerick thread - or maybe I'll start one.

OK, I finally tried the Wiki and added a quickie that's pretty lame, just to try it out. The only problem I would have with this is that after many weeks and more contributions, all the new stuff would be waaaaaaaay down at the bottom.

Suggestion is that new material should be added at the top of the column so that it isn't a chore to get to it to read it!

WM

Hmmm, good point. I am not sure there's a way to do that, though. Arnie, do you know?

By putting all the new limericks on one page, the natural inclination is for people to add a new one at the foot of the page. If you want to see them in the reverse order, they'd have to add new posts to the top, instead. If you wanted that system someone would have to get busy copying and pasting and edit the page so that the most recent was at the top.

Since many of the limericks are replies to ones preceding them, though, I'd suggest that the current order makes the most sense.

I got fed up with being reproached by the wiki for not creating a home page, although it has evidently not bothered anyone else. I've therefore placed some content there. If anyone wants to add to or change what I've written, by all means do so.

Wordcrafter, we'd all appreciate it if you would add a link to the wiki on the Wordcraft Home Page. Who knows, we may bring in some newbies that way.

Some of you shirkers might want to check on the the limericks in the wiki. You even might learn a new word.

Well, I took a walk to the wiki, as it were...
Not too many folks...

Yeah, yeah. The OEDILF, it's not! Oh well. A few of us (very few, I admit!) are having fun.

I had a message come on my screen that informed me that I was the 11th out of 11 contributors - which doesn't surprise me at all since I have contributed nothing at all.

This is primarily because I haven't the least idea how to do so and the instructions (or lack of any) on the wiki help me not a jot.

If someone could explain how it is better to submit limericks there rather then here it would help. If the only "benefit" is that someone else can alter what I have written then I'll do without, thank you very much.

I suspect that I shall probably try to leave the thing as I find it a time-wasting irritation. My fault, I suppose, that I don't know how it works, but if you don't know, you don't know.

Richard makes a good point. Anyone can go in and fiddle with my lims and make me look like an idiot. Hmmm... Okay, make me look like more of an idiot than I already do...

I myself went back in and changed a lim of mine because I had refered to wordmatic as a guy when she was/is in fact a girl.

And since there is no record of when anything is submitted you would never know who was messing with your stuff.

Ah, well, we're just having fun. This is not OEDILF, that's for sure. Were it, we'd all be on hold or behind the curtain or whatever they call it!

Mention of wikis in the links forum reminded me of this thread and the Wordcraft wiki, so I went back there again. Kalleh seems to be the only member using it.

I also noticed that the display issues in Opera I noted back in April are still there, despite Opera having brought out a number of updates. In particular, clicking on the OK (or Cancel) button when signing in has no effect, so the site is unusable apart from just browsing. It works OK in Firefox, though.

quote:

And since there is no record of when anything is submitted you would never know who was messing with your stuff.

I just noticed TrossL's comment above. Actually, if you click on "complete history" in the blue box at the foot of the page you'll see a list of all the changes to the page, with the names of who made them.

quote:

Kalleh seems to be the only member using it.

Yeah, that seems to be what's happening at my Wiki at work, too. But there's always hope!

I will check the wiki out again. This group of comments is very entertaining to read. What fun you all have! I love this site.

housekeeping = keeping one's Wikiup