I have set up a test postgrad wiki here. I am not sure how to set the ‘settings’ or if anyone can edit the wiki pages. Can someone go add something, please!
For examples, here is a simple entry for postgraduate students or a simple unfinished cultural studies. Plus one for me to give a very rough idea of what it could mean to have a personal page online.
Hopefully people will get the idea.
I need a volunteer to eventually help set up a mediawiki wiki. I don’t know any of the programming languages having failed computer science (ok, 1st year programming) at uni. If anyone knows MySQL and php, err, stuff and can help set up a mediawiki wiki, then can you contact me please!!! I am going to lean on some people, but the more the merrier :). I sent out an email a while ago, but apparently some epople didn’t receive it!?!?!
Also, if anyone has some connections at a web hosting company and can sought us out with some server space for the wiki files and database jazz for not much then I would be grateful.
I imagine that a second test of a proper mediawiki wiki would need to be carried out.
EDIT: I need to send invitations to people. This is fine for this test wiki, but it will not be like that for the actual wiki!!! So if you want an invite reply to this post with a proper email addy in the correct email field using the haloscan comments. Or just send me an email if you already have my email.
it said I needed a password to edit Glen
Why mediawiki? It’s a sledgehammer approach to a walnut problem 😉
I would suggest Instiki:
http://instiki.org/show/HomePage
Or MoinMoin
http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/MoinMoinWiki
As both are more nutcracker than sledgehammer. Instiki, in particular, doesn’t (seem) to require a great deal of technical know-how to get started.
ok, i have sent invites to you two.
Ben, I know mediawiki is a bit overboard, but think of the wiki in terms of housing radioactive waste:
1) lots of it. I want each postgrad to have a page, that is at least 150 odd pages over the 3-5 year window of postgrad life. This will house links, bio, etc. I want every event to have a page, ie seminars, conferences, workshops, etc. Every university needs a page. Then there are the pages relating to postgrad life and cultural studies, things like research methodology, bibliographies, funding possibilities, associations, postdocs, etc. Then there are the more cultstud-type engagements with postgrad life, issues of labour (tutoring, lecturing, RA’ing, other work), of identity, of collectivities, etc.
2) needs to be stable over time. the main argument for mediawiki is that for as long as wikipedia is around, so is mediawiki. This includes development and support. Any problem that may come up will probably already ahve happened and have a forum post or email list entry about it somewhere.
3) allaying fears through ease of interface. in terms of affect contracted as habit there is the basic architecture of a wiki and that is pretty straightforward, but there is another level of familiarity of the mediawiki design. I want it to be as familiar as possible. mediawiki is an image, I want people to be able to immediately grasp it.