What Does DITA Have To Do With Wiki

What does DITA have to do with Wiki?

Information development models andimplementation ideasCentral Texas DITA Users GroupJanuary 23, 2008

Introductions

Ben Allums - Quadralay WebWorks Chris Almond – IBM Anne Gentle - OLPC Ragan Haggard - Sun

Why use a wiki?

Originally created in 1995 for making quick web pages Cross-platform, cross-browser Encourage collaboration - simultaneous edits Encourage crowdsourcing and customer's view point Living, breathing, changing documentation Easy linking to other wiki pages Subscription-based RSS feeds of recent changes, "watch"

pages for edits Easy searches within the body of the wiki Scalability  - many pages edited by many authors May save on customer support calls (eBay wiki) Customer might expect a wiki when a customer forum isn't

enough Open source products often use wikis (Apache wiki) Registration and log ins can control authoring privileges

Case study questions from WikiPatterns book

Why did you choose a wiki? What type of wiki are you using? How are you using the wiki? What changes have you seen as a result

of using the wiki? Looking at WikiPatterns.com, which

patterns or anti-patterns are in place? Have you done anything to encourage

one pattern or squash out an anti-pattern?

Case study - WebWorks Wiki http://wiki.webworks.com/

Why did you choose a wiki? Mailing lists and forums discounted due

to redundancy (existing “wwp-users”) and high moderation requirements

Already using them in Development Enables public project workspaces, a

“garage” for projects Excellent place to “distill” reference

materials

Case study - WebWorks Wiki http://wiki.webworks.com/

What type of wiki are you using? MoinMoin Active community Theme support Parser plug-ins (support for XML,

ReStructured Text, alternate Wiki markup languages, source code)

Product integration optionsWiki Publishing

Case study - WebWorks Wiki http://wiki.webworks.com/

How are you using the wiki? FAQ Tips and Tricks Developer documentation Projects – Enhancements Staging area for documentation

enhancements

Case study - WebWorks Wiki http://wiki.webworks.com/

What changes have you seen as a result of using the wiki?

Community self-help Outlet for extended Support Quick delivery of missing

documentation Customers honing their information

requests

Case study - WebWorks Wiki http://wiki.webworks.com/

Looking at WikiPatterns.com, which patterns or anti-patterns are in place?

People Patterns: Invitation Adoption Patterns: Built-in

obsolescence, Community Write, Magnet, Scaffold

Adoption Anti-patterns: PageOwnership, Sandbox

Case study - WebWorks Wiki http://wiki.webworks.com/

Have you done anything to encourage one pattern or squash out an anti-pattern?

Patterns Actively request uses to place widely used

“recipes” in the Wiki AuthorGroup editable by AuthorGroup Template pages and “New Page” forms GUI edits despite potential side-effects

Anti-Patterns Comment boxes – Any level of involvement is

welcome Ownership of home page (“FirstLast”) to reduce

Wikiphobia

Case study - WebWorks Wiki http://wiki.webworks.com/

Requirements for creating a “Wiki Company” Identify your wiki’s goals

Get everything out of people’s heads, white boards, Inboxes

Focus on effectiveness, not perfection Train all users

Create a hands-on lab Get people over the “Wikiphobia hump”

Define workflows within the wiki as needed to promote the value of wiki use Services quotes Product designs Suggestions

Case study - WebWorks Wiki http://wiki.webworks.com/

What does DITA have to do with Wiki?

Maybe nothing How much training will you require of

your domain specialists? You have one hour to teach them

Wiki markup Base DITA topic structure Your specialized DITA topic structure

Case study - WebWorks Wiki http://wiki.webworks.com/

What does DITA have to do with Wiki?

Goals Projects

Good, Fast, Cheap Pick Two

Content Knowledge, Reuse, Structure Pick One?

Content goal for Wiki? Knowledge capture sounds pretty good

Case study - WebWorks Wiki http://wiki.webworks.com/

What does DITA have to do with Wiki? Avoid the “Tyranny of One”

Content authored by domain specialists will rarely/never be used directly

Explore the “Sluice Box” concept Raw Wiki DITA topics Wiki Specialized DITA Topics Wiki

Leverage “SisterSites” – Review changes to information as necessary

Case study - IBM BlueWiki (internal)

Why did you choose a wiki? What type of wiki are you using? How are you using the wiki? What changes have you seen as a result

of using the wiki? Looking at WikiPatterns.com, which

patterns or anti-patterns are in place? Have you done anything to encourage one

pattern or squash out an anti-pattern?

Case Study – One Laptop Per Child

Why did you choose a wiki? OLPC chose a wiki as an open source solution to offering information to developer volunteers initially, but end-users also need documentation in their wiki.

What type of wiki are you using? Mediawiki and Floss Manuals, which runs on TWiki, a structured wiki.

How are you using the wiki? wiki.laptop.org contains all information about the XO laptop, but Floss Manuals contains targeted information for certain audiences. The structured nature of the wiki would let us re-use content for different audiences such as kids, parents, school admins, or teachers.

What changes have you seen as a result of using the wiki? Since they started with it from the beginning, the only changes I’d say I observed was my own learning and building of mental models for the use of wikis for information storage.

Case Study – One Laptop Per Child

Looking at WikiPatterns.com, which patterns or anti-patterns are in place? The Invitation pattern is a nicely done people pattern. They also have a nice Starting point on the OLPC wiki. And Welcoming is definitely a part of their best practices, even though it’s very difficult for them to keep up with the interest in volunteering.

Have you done anything to encourage one pattern or squash out an anti-pattern?I know there have been acts of Vandalism on people’s talk pages, but those just get reversed immediately by a very on-their-toes administrator. I guess the act was in retaliation for an answer someone gave in an FAQ. I also see a little bit of ThreadMess going on with some development-oriented pages.

What does DITA have to do with Wiki?

Is wiki source or output? Wikislices - using a DITA map to keep up

with wiki “topic” (article) changes DITA Storm – web-enabled DITA editor,

but not very wiki-like DITA to wikitext XSLT transform, but no

round trip, have writers determine what content goes back to DITA source

Case study - Sun OpenDS Wikihttps://www.opends.org/wiki

Why did you choose a wiki? To create and distribute open-source technical documentation and so gain the contributions from the wider community.

What type of wiki are you using? JSPWiki

How are you using the wiki? www.opends.org/wiki provides user doc and developer documentation for an open source directory service.

What changes have you seen as a result of using the wiki? The wiki enables me to work 24 hours a day.

Case study - Sun OpenDS Wikihttps://www.opends.org/wiki

Looking at WikiPatterns.com, which patterns or anti-patterns are in place? Have you done anything to encourage one pattern or squash out an anti-pattern?Oddly enough, I promote the EmptyPages anti-pattern as a way for users to communicate their wish list to the community. We also persist in the Sandbox anti-pattern, because we think its useful. We're also planning to maintain the Registration Required anti-pattern because we need contributors to accept our terms of use and registration is the mechanism for that. Plus, I'm apprehensive about the amount of vandalism that would occur without registration.