Talk:Wiki Uses

On the topic of weblogging. I too am convinced that MediaWiki would make a good Blog Engine. However, I have not seen any instances of this. It would be nice to have examples of this. I am attempting it -- but my format sucks -- http://www.ninje.com; so, I would like to see some examples of people doing this. ARF

CSCW statement is incorrect

There's a headline in the page stating that MediaWiki isn't "groupware, messaging, or CSCW software." But CSCW is a very generic term including email programs, IRC programs, mailing lists, videoconferencing programs, workflow engines, Wikis, blogs, some kinds of IDEs, and many other kinds of software. Presumably there was at some point an explanation of why someone thought MediaWiki wasn't CSCW software, but it is no longer present in the page; I think it may be time to remove the unsupported and incorrect statement from the page as well. See http://www.acm.org/cscw2004/prog_technical.html for a list of some topics presently considered "CSCW".

Translations

In fact, I am going to develope a translation interface, a collaborative editor where everybody could enter a translation of an english text (english text remain equal, translated text edited) : I thought I would use a CMS, but seems than MediaWiki is more appropiate (BTW, Mediawiki not a CMS? it appears in much sites as one, even with their particularities...)

Maybe I could include this in the content page, but after all I'm not 100% sure, so I put it on discussion...

Content Management System

Are there any modifications out there of MediaWiki that allows it to operate as a Content Management System? I would prefer software that stays close to the MediaWiki software merging changes when new versions are released. I'm picturing a CMS where a trusted group of users can edit pages and use the "talk" pages but public visitors cannot access any editing features or view talk pages. If this doesn't exist yet, I may be interested in starting such a project. It seems like this could be accomplished by:

• preventing new user registrations
• disabling anonymous edits
• disabling anonymous reading of all but pages in the Main namespace
• optionally, set access restrictions if editing access by group is needed
• a template that doesn't show any of the wiki management buttons unless someone is logged in

Am I missing anything here? It seems like this could be done by changing settings and it would not be necessary to modify the MediaWiki software at all. Has anybody tried this? --Bradley Holt 16:11, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Keep in mind...

The way wiki is implemented makes it inherently unreliable. That isn't to say that what's published in a wiki is necessarily incorrect, but simply that any part of it may be incorrect at any time due to the fact that (unless a page is somehow protected) anyone may make changes. So it's always good, when viewing someone else's entries, to exercise some skepticism toward statements of fact.

None of this is bad, of course; it's just important to keep in mind that this sort of website is really an ongoing conversation, not unlike a forum. I rather enjoy creating in wiki, because while it is important to make things as accurate as possible, one always has the freedom to make changes - even to someone else's work. Assuming that you have a respectful and courteous discussion group, this can be a great tool for collaborative projects; ideas that take time and discussion to develop are always available on the network whenever a member of a group thinks of something to contribute. Asynchronous discussion taken to practically any degree imaginable.

--"Smith" will suffice... 18 April 2006