Long shot - Wiki's

Submitted by II Architect II on Wed, 2008-10-15 02:43.

Member's Forum

Hello everyone,

I have resurfaced after a long period away from posting, but now im back *tada*.
I would like to know if anyone has in their workplace an internal wiki.

I'm looking to implement this system into a company to help form a easier navigation and storage of documentation that everyone in the companies team can look at and edit/add too when they see fit.

I'm interested to find out a) how easy it is to set up (for internal use only) b) how useful people find it.

It may not be used by most (or probably any) of you on here, but just throwing it out there just incase.

Cheers :)

Timely

Submitted by Alex on Thu, 2008-10-16 10:30.

That's a very timely post - I'm working on exactly the same thing to allow the design and marketing teams here to store, reference and share information about the visual ID and written ID of the company I work for (for example, little things like: do you write '1st' or 'first', what's the preferred leading for a certain type size, etc).

What I've found so far is that it is ridiculously simple to set up (depending on your IT infrastructure). Getting people to use it is tougher, but, if your company (or team that is using it) is large, forming a small group of 'evangelists' works brilliantly - they can also act as a steering group to ensure that its development (or metamorphosis) stays on track.

Hi

Submitted by II Architect II on Thu, 2008-10-16 12:24.

Thanks for the reply.

The group im going to implement it for is only 14 strong so I see it as an ideal way to keep things tidy and im fully confident they will get use to the idea.

I've had a root around the internet to see what I can find although i'm quite confused by what some of it says, im not too sure how to get started and if possible I can implement it without costing the company anything (since some of them are attached with monthly fees).

Any help or suggestions?

Wiki suggestion

Submitted by Alex on Thu, 2008-10-16 12:55.

I went for MediaWiki [ http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki ], partly as I (and my target user audience) was familiar with Wikipedia (which runs on it) Also because my web host offered it as a one-click install, so I was able to try it out quickly and easily.

The version we are running now is just on the machine we use as an intranet server (you just need PHP and MySQL) - this is more secure and handier (and faster) than running it from a web-host.

You can pay companies to host a wiki for you - the advantage here is that is't completely hands off for you and they will, presumably, take care of backups and any problems for you. I've not really looked into this option though so can't really advise as to it's merits.

There is a full comparison of Wiki software here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software

Thanks for the links. So

Submitted by II Architect II on Thu, 2008-10-16 15:53.

Thanks for the links.

So MediaWiki is completely free for I suppose, a commercial but internal use?

So if I download MediaWiki on the works PC's what do I need to do to keep it just within the office?

Sorry, im a newbie when it comes to all this stuff, I just think it will be a good thing to implement.

this might just be right

Submitted by Alex on Sat, 2008-10-18 17:41.

I've done a bit of searching and found this wiki software: http://moinmo.in/MoinMoinWiki

The main advantages of this is that it offers a desktop edition (which, it says, is suitable "for personal use or small workgroup setups"), has a good setup guide ( http://moinmo.in/DesktopEdition ) and is available for Mac, Windows and Linux.

I'd give that a go as it looks like exactly what you are after and should work on just about any setup.

Let me know how that works, and how the wiki system works for your team in general. I'm always looking for hints and ideas.

Good luck!