Toledo Talk "Lewiki:About" id 2633

The old, original "about" page linked above was created in late December 2005 for Lewiki. Much of it no longer applies now that this app powers the main site of ToledoTalk.com. Lewiki and Toledo Talk were two separate programs or sites residing on the same server. But the old Toledo Talk has been retired. I'll update this about page as needed.

Toledo Talk began in January 2003. Here's the about page for the old version of Toledo Talk.

Wiki?

Basically, this new version of Toledo Talk is part message board and part wiki that is dedicated primarily to documenting and discussing the Lake Erie West region, but since this site contains a personal workspace area for each user, just about anything can be posted.

The main site or root level content should be about Lake Erie West. Here's the start page for root level content: Lewiki:Home. Articles created via wiki links under Lewiki:Home will be available to all logged in users to edit and comment on, unless the "edit=no" or "comments=no" commands has been applied to the article.

From the old about page: Anyway, I posted a comment to Toledo Talk on Aug 19, 2005 where I tossed out the idea of a Wikipedia-like site dedicated to our area.

Blogs or message boards, unlike wikis, don't allow for good organization of info. Catagories or tags in blogs don't provide the same kind of taxonomy available in a wiki app. They're designed differently. One isn't better than the other. Both are good and have their purpose. Wikis are good for updating and aggregating information, while blogs or message boards are good for discussing current events.

I've thought about adding a wiki area to this site, where logged-in users could add, edit, and update information about northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan, I mean Lake Erie West. It would sort of be a mini Wikipedia or encyclopedia of just our area where the users are the content providers.

Some people may not be interested in discussing or debating issues on a message board, but they may be interested in sharing their knowledge about this area. In a wiki, no single user owns any of the content. It's sharable. If I started a wiki page on the history of the Swan Creek area in downtown Toledo, I would expect many others to edit the page and contribute info and correct mistakes.

About that Swan Creek mention, last summer [2005], I saw an excellent two-hour slide-show presentation at the Downtown Latte [by Fred Folger] that was about Swan Creek in the Warehouse District. That kind of fascinating and detailed history should be made easily available over the web.

Although not directly related to Toledo Talk, this video from Wikimentary about Wikipedia and its corresponding Wikimania conference, sort of helps explains the wiki concept.

Blog area

Each user has a personal workspace area to create articles or blog entries. These are not private pages, but only the user can edit an article within his or her personal workspace. A user can allow others to edit a personal workspace article by adding the command "edit=yes" within the article.

And wiki link functionality exists within the personal workspace area, meaning you can create new personal workspace articles by clicking on the "post" link across the top of the site or by using wiki links within a personal workspace article. If a new article is created via a wiki link within a personal workspace article, then that new article will also be considered a personal workspace article owned by the user.

File uploads

File uploading does not exist. Web hosting for Toledo Talk costs $10/month, and at that price, not enough disk space exists for a lot of file uploading, which would primarly consist of images, I think.

I recommend using one of the free photo and video sharing services, like flickr, photobucket, or YouTube. Create an account at one of these services, upload images or videos, and then link to them from Toledo Talk or embed them into a Toledo Talk article using HTML or Textile commands.

Inappropriate behavior

Nothing is physically deleted. Even if an article is wiped out, an older, good version can simply be made the main version again by editing the older version and clicking the "update" button.

Since a username is needed to create and edit articles, it's easy to see who intentionally blanked or defaced an article or published libelous information. It's easy to remove a bad article from being displayed, and it's easy re-instate a good version, but it's still a waste of administration time. The offending user account will be deactivated.

Problems, questions

For website bugs, questions, new feature requests, etc., post a comment to the website issues article.

Commenting

Each article allows commenting by default. Commenting can be turned off by embedding the command "comments=no" within the article.

Commenting on an article is an option for those who may feel intimidated with editing an article and having to deal with HTML or Textile markup. If some aspect of an article needs added, changed, or removed, a user can choose to make his or her suggestion with a comment. Someone else can edit the article according to the info in the comment.

General discussion about an article can also be done with commenting, as long as the comment is about the article.

Lewiki:About