As I said on my previous post, I had so much fun posting at Wikipedia that I decided to do a Wiki Book:
Illustrated Guide to the world of SpiraBut reading the "fine print" at Wiki Books left me in doubt about whether the book really belongs on Wikibooks so after reading a little about what belongs on Wikibooks and what doesn't I decided to hunt for another place to host my FFX musings.
It's not that my Illustrated Guide is so out of place, but I had other plans for my Wiki exploits, so I decided to hunt for a place where I could "spread my wings" better. Just as I'm doing in this blog, on Youtube and in another place (a secret... it's not ready yet to announce), I wanted to explore the possibilities of Wikipedia style technology to write fan fiction, a fiction that is enriched by pictures, sounds, comments and author notes, a recent source of great grief I had on Fan Fiction dot net.
Don't get me wrong, FanFiction is a very good site, and for free who can complain ? But the lack of the ability to add pictures and links to my tales had already made me create this blog to try a less "dry" place for my stuff. Recently I found out that FanFiction shuns any author notes that are larger than one or two sentences which, if this blog has given you any idea about my writing style, is something I simply can not live without!
==My experience at the free wikifarms==
Wiki Farms are places that host a Wikipedia style software. I went to each one of the free sites on the list below, trying to find a place for my Fan fiction writing. After that "pilgrimage" I discovered that reusing rejected (or iffy) wiki content ain't that straight forward!
I signed up on each free site as Renmiri and gave myself 30 minutes to try each one to see the one that would allow me to recreate my book's front page faster. What a disaster! Also, after being used to be the queen bee on my blog, letting any joe schmoe potentially wipe out my hard worked pages got me a bit freaked out, so I wanted the ability to lock SOME pages. What, have my hard work out there free for all to wipe out ?!?! It seems this wiki philosophy of having everything unlocked takes a lot of getting used too. So I set up to find a place:
- Free or very close to free: $5 a month or less. (Heck, my "art" is worth at least the price of a doubble latte per month!! ;-)
- With a lot of reusability towards Wikibooks and Wikipedia code. Not only I have close to 50 pages worth of content already that I don't want to loose, but I am a newbie at formatting pages. The openness of Wikipedia allows me to copy the style and features (such as a table of contents) from any page I like. It cuts down on my learning time a lot, because of the "learn by example" aspect of it and I don't want to loose the potential help that Wikipedia's thousands of pages have. So reuse is crucial to me.
- Security. I need to be able to lock some pages. I know this is against Wikipedia's view of what a Wiki should be, but openness to all Internet doesn't work when the content writers are a small group of people trying to lure new users. How can my Wiki grow if I can't maintain a minimum ammount of good quality pages ? Wo would want to join a wiki that looks awful and has tpos, bad info, etc.. Newly created wikies need to show their value to potential newcomers. How can you ensure that you have value out there with all of your pages open ? At Wikipedia each good page has an unofficial "minder" that makes sure no one erases months of hard work. Me the lowly Fiction writer and my friends could never keep up with protecting all my "good" pages so the only way to get some good pages up
and make sure they stay up is a minimum amount of security.
The only place where I could get something decently resembling my original page, without having to fiddle with it a lot AND could have some security - like locking my logo - was at editthis.info, with BluWiki a close contender.
Both are free, but editthis has security for free which Bluwiki does not. More security will cost me at editthis but the prices are not up yet so I'm waiting to see if I would have to forgo the latte or my firstborn's quota of Minute Maid juice ;-)
Anyhow, see for yourself the results of my exploits: Compare
the original to the cut & paste results
Gratis WikiWas is ein Wiki ? greeted me the home page, entirely in "not English".. Didn't even try to cut & paste my test page or register. I don't speak German!
AtWikiIt's pretty easy to use, and has "Word mode" which I assume allows you to import stuff from word. Cool! Another nifty thing is the "test wiki" page they have that lets you play with it before you even bother to register. I tried my C&P and got (
cut & paste results) that reeked so much of extensive rework needed - not even section headers were working!!! - that I didn't even bother to register. For people who are just starting and have no need to reuse Wikipedia content AtWiki seemed very nifty with it's promise of MS Word compatibility.
Schtuff.comNot so good at reuse (
cut & paste results) but has a very easy to use setup, ability to secure pages and a picture gallery. I liked it so much that I broke my rule and fiddled with it for longer than 30 minutes getting that blah cut and paste page up to
this page in an hour or so
BluWikiThe reusability was great! See my (
cut & paste results): As good as it gets, just like Editthis. Like editthis, it leaves the broken links in red and all you have to do to fix them is to double click on them and load content. Perfect! But unlike editthis, it didn't give me any security for free, so I didn't even bother to register.
WikicitiesReusability
as good as it gets just like editthis But tons of red tape to create a new wiki and no security available. I took a pass.
Fiction at Wikicitieshttp://novelas.wikicities.com/ has less red tape than the rest of wikicities but it still has no security so I took a pass. As with the rest of wikicities reusability is
as good as it gets just like editthis
SeedWikiAnother one with bad results on reuse and with security only available via cold hard cash. I took a pass. But the page editor is very nifty and Wikis are easy and fast to create. Worth a look if you don't mind paying for security and are not worried about reuse.
WikispacesThe way to enter pages uses a very nifty WYSIWYG editor that completely mangles any text pasted from Wikipedia. And, like Wikipedia, they have virtually no security, as a matter of philosophy, so this one was not for me. Their strength is the slick editor and the one click Blogger.com integration (
check my Jecht post). A slick product, excellent for begginers and people who blog, just not what I wanted.
Edit thisReusability
as good as it gets, easy to set up, some security even in the free wikis. All that I wanted in one nice little package. And it allows you to integrate it with your own web site. The winner of my affections!! Expect to see more there soon!
The bottom line is that all the wiki farms listed here are pretty good, but each one serves better a particular kind of user. When reuse, price and security are the top priorities
Editthis wins, but the result would be different if you favored other features.
