[yapc] Kwiki Clarification
Jim Brandt
cbrandt at buffalo.edu
Mon Jun 7 19:02:57 CDT 2004
I thought I would send out a clarification on how the kwiki works, in
case there is any confusion. If you know what a kwiki is, you can
delete now.
A wiki is basically a web site you can edit. A kwiki is an
easy-to-set-up (quick) wiki that runs using a module developed by Brian
Ingerson.
Since the idea of a kwiki is to allow anyone to edit the pages, it is
by it's nature somewhat unofficial (after all, anyone can change the
content). However, over the last few years several conferences such as
YAPC and OSCON have found kwiki's very useful for many things.
On the YAPC kwiki, the list of attendees and dorms residents are not
official lists from the conference. They are entries by people who are
coming to the conference who chose to put themselves in there. They
chose to do this because it allows other people to get together with
them at the conference. The other advantage of putting yourself in the
kwiki is you can create a new page with information about yourself. So
if you'd like to be listed in the kwiki, please feel free to add
yourself.
Now, one of the unfortunate side-effects of letting everyone edit your
website is that someone might make a mistake, or even worse not like
your conference and be malicious. While the latter doesn't happen much,
the former can, especially as people new to the kwiki concept become
familiar with it. If you've added content and it disappears (as
happened to at least one person), try adding it again. If it disappears
again, we can track down the cause [and make sure the cause doesn't get
Harry Potter tickets :) ]
If you're new to kwiki's, there are instructions at the bottom of the
page. Two useful links:
http://yapc.kwiki.org/index.cgi?KwikiHelpIndex
http://yapc.kwiki.org/index.cgi?KwikiFormattingRules
These are very helpful in learning the simple syntax for adding content
to the kwiki. You can also look at how other people have added content.
Sorry for the long-winded post, but I know when I first learned about
kwikis I was quite puzzled. I hope this helps.
Jim
================================
Jim Brandt
YAPC Coordinator
YAPC::NA::2004
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY
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