Article source for : Lewiki:About
Lewiki is a <nowiki><a href="http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiWikiWeb">wiki</a></nowiki> for the Lake Erie West region. Well, that's the plan, anyway. Whether or not it gets used for maintaining info beyond just the Toledo area remains to be seen. Hopefully, it won't be focused on only Toledo.
<a href="http://www.metafilter.com"><nowiki>MetaFilter.com</nowiki></a> inspired the <a href="http://www.toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/comments.pl/25/1">creation</a> of <a href="http://www.toledotalk.com/">Toledo Talk</a>, so that our area had a community site to discuss local issues and events and whatever.
h3. Reason for Lewiki
So why not have a "Wikipedia":http://en.wikipedia.org type of site that collected facts about our region? Some info about northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan can be found at Wikipedia, to be sure, but the nitty-gritty, low-level details about all the communities in our region, including info about festivals, parks, neighborhoods, schools, sports, history, etc., won't be at Wikipedia.
Sidenote: Since my documentation skills suck, you may not understand what I'm trying to say, and you'll probably have trouble understanding the [[Lewiki:help|help]] page. Everything here is a work-in-progress. It should get better over time.
Anyway, I "posted":http://www.toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/comments.pl/25/1360#7190 a comment to Toledo Talk on Aug 19, 2005 where I tossed out the idea of a Wikipedia-like site dedicated to our area.
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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.</span>
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.
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About that Swan Creek mention, last summer I saw an excellent two-hour slide-show presentation at the Downtown Latte that was about Swan Creek in the Warehouse District. That kind of fascinating and detailed history should be made easily available over the web.
h3. What's allowed
Well, articles based upon facts with references is the goal. The articles should be about the northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan region. Articles are not a place for opinions. A comment to an article can be used for opinion.
I suppose a "Lewiki blog posting":http://www.toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/lewiki.pl, which is technically an article, could also be an opinion. But it really needs to be about Lewiki, and it really, really needs to be a well-thought out opinion, and not simply something like, "That sucks!" which would get deleted.
Articles under the taxonomy or directory structure started on the main page should be based on facts and not opinions. If you really need to let loose with a diatribe, use "Toledo Talk":http://www.toledotalk.com/.
h3. Source code
This fall, I created a blog/wiki hybrid app, and I used that app to create Lewiki. The source code for this program will be made available soon with the hope that better programmers can improve the code.
h3. File uploads
File uploading does not exist at Lewiki. 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 sharing services, like "flickr":http://www.flickr.com or "photobucket":http://www.photobucket.com. Create an account, upload images, and then link to them from Lewiki.
h3. Blog area
The "blog":http://www.toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/lewiki.pl area at Lewiki is reserved for posts specifically about Lewiki and wikis in general. Ideal subjects for Lewiki blog posts would include web site functionality issues, complaints, article style issues, Lewiki questions, features to add or remove.
For website bugs and features, however, it would be nice if users added a comment to the [[Lewiki:website issues|website issues]] article. But if a new blog posting is used instead, no big deal. The feature or bug will be added to the website issue article, anyway.
h3. Commenting
Each article allows commenting. Or it should, except for the main page article that lists some of the counties in the Lake Erie West region.
Commenting on an article is option for those who may feel intimidated with editing an article and having to deal with HTML or Textile markup. If something in 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. The comment area should be used as a tool to improve the article.
h3. Contact
Contact admin@toledotalk.com for questions or problems.
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