Friday, July 15, 2005

Gettin' Wiki

When I first started this blog, I envisioned it as a forum for South Pasadena residents to congregate online and perhaps even as a jumping-off point for offline community. There have been a few interesting discussions stirred by posts, but I feel like it's still my blog rather than a shared venture.

So I started a South Pas Wiki at Wikicities.com. If you're new to wikis, the idea is that the wiki is a site that is built together by the community. So please feel free to hop on over and add anything you think the community might appreciate. If you're not that familiar with html, feel free to email me any questions--although, I must say, I'm a novice myself.

10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very cool!!!

I can walk you through how to use nested tables (tables within cells of other tables) to get them to display horizontally if you'd like.

3:31 PM  
Blogger South Pas Blogs said...

Thanks, Jill!

I don't want to litter the page with tables, but on the other hand, I don't think the page should be one big mass of text, either. I guess the contributors will have to figure out what the essential parts of the Main page are. I think some tables can be for organizing other parts of the Wiki, and other tables can be for instantly accessing information (like the table listing blogs). Any input and instruction is welcome. Feel free to make any changes yourself, too.

3:36 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Maybe I just don't fully understand wikis. I can see them as a way to create, say, a South Pasadena directory of sorts, where folks can post and edit opinions about things and places about town. But a wiki as a forum? From what I gather, wikis aren't really suited to ongoing topic-oriented conversations, which I think is where you are trying to go, if I understand you correctly.

If you are interested in creating a bulletin board-like forum where people can post messages to one another, and carry on long- or short-term conversations, take a peek at http://www.forumer.com and as a plus, it's free. Maybe adding a forum as well as a wiki to your South Pas "arsenal" might better round out what you're trying to create here.

I for one would participate in such a forum. Too, I created a wiki entry on Gus's BBQ, just to get the ball rolling and to see how the wiki might work.

2:06 AM  
Blogger South Pas Blogs said...

Thor, I think your comments are good. To include a bulletin-board would be a great way to facilitate on-going conversations. To be honest, I guess I'm just jumping on the wiki bandwagon; it seems like technology has a way of driving people just as much as people have a way of refining technology for new and unexpected purposes. I like the interactivity aspect of wikis. Perhaps it's clumsy right now, but who knows how it will evolve and where it will be one year or five years or ten years down the road?

6:16 PM  
Blogger South Pas Blogs said...

Thor, I took your suggestion and started a forum at: http://southpas.12.forumer.com/.

8:42 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Cool, I put a post in Test already with some suggestions on how you might want to flesh this out into a full-blown community forum, based on some other city-oriented forums I've seen and participated in over the years. This forum could be a good thing, if the word gets out about it and it starts to build like the wiki will.

The wiki is cool too, and I hope to see that develop more fully as well. Is it possible for users to add more restaurants to Restaurant Reviews, so that we can comment on more than just the three mentioned there now? And other subjects as well?

1:15 AM  
Blogger South Pas Blogs said...

Thor, if someone has a basic knowledge of html, they should be able to add links and webpages to the wiki. The way that I know how to add a new page to the wiki is by clicking to edit the Main page. Take the Restaurant Reviews box, for instance: there is an icon in the editing menu that allows you to add an internal link. If you click on this icon, it will give you a generic internal link. Then you can change the link to read Shaker's or Wild Thyme. After you have added this link, you will see a link to Wild Thyme in the Restaurant Reviews area. When you click on this link, it will take you to a page where you can enter text. Perhaps there is/are other way(s) of adding content to the wiki, but if there are I haven't discovered them yet.

11:47 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

OK, great, I'll give them a try. Take a look at the Forum, I replied to your post there.

2:55 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Hi, I was up in the middle of the night so I decided to mess around with the wiki a bit. I got the main page's bottom section to display in three columns so there isn't all that white space on the right. I also added a lot of restaurants and made a few more entries.

12:01 PM  
Blogger South Pas Blogs said...

Thor, the table at the bottom of the main page looks really good. I've been busy the last couple of days so I haven't been able to add any content.

12:26 PM  

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