Courses/Wikis-Publishing Platforms
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Wikis as Publishing Platforms - 3 x 3 hours course
Wikis-Publishing_Platforms/synopsis and goals
Day 1
Getting to know wikis: what are wiki. wiki syntax, pages, categories, Extensions.
Wiki Intro - What are wikis?
http://publicationstation.wdka.hro.nl/wiki Publishing Platforms
Context: wikis as (hybrid) publishing platforms
- Publishing
- what is written on wikis is public;
- Low threshold for publishing - click the edit button
- (Hybrid)
- wiki content can easily be published under different formats or context.
- Examples: Wikipedia Export book function; Toneelstof, Beyond Social, or this presentation (both wiki content and slide show)
Wiki Origins
Ward Cunningham Wiki Wiki Web
In 1995 Ward Cunningham creates the first wiki, naming it Wiki Wiki Web (Wiki in Hawaii means quick!).
- Interview with Ward Cunningham
- links between pages, as ways to connect information
- links to non-existing, encourage the creation of the new pages
- read-write system - writing is as natural and expected as writing
- the wiki territory expands as a result of contributions
- anonymous editing - collaborative writing.
Wikipedia, Wiki Media Foundation, MediaWiki
- 2000 - Jimmy Wales attempts to create a free online encyclopedia - Nupedia.
- Nupedia fails.
- 2001 - After hearing about wikis Wales and Larry Sanger decide to build Nupedia on it, calling it Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia was first build using a software called UseModWiki (a sibling of Wiki Wiki Web). UseModWiki was slow and didn't support the scale Wikipedia was growing into.
- A new wiki software for Wikipedia, starts is developed, based more efficient and scalable web technology: PHP programming language, MySQL database. The software got the name of MediaWiki.
- 2002 - Wikipedia switches to using MediaWiki.
- 2003 - Wiki Media Foundation is created.
- MediaWiki currently power many wikis, including Wikipedia and subsidiary project, as well as other wiki such as this one.
Wiki software
- MediaWiki - PHP, MySQL, Webserver
- Docuwiki - similar to MediaWiki
- MoinMoin - Python, relies on plain text files & folders
- Zim - Desktop wiki, relies on plain text files & folders.
- TiddlyWiki - another Desktop wiki, based on HTML files and Javascript
Running a wiki: 2 options
Install and set up a wiki in your PC or server.
OR
Use a wikifarm (wiki host), such as Wikia. List of several wiki farms.
wiki conventions
Users
To edit a wiki you need most wikis to register as user.
Different user's groups have different privileges:
- user: can edit and create pages
- administrators: can delete pages, put other users into a different group
- bot
Wiki Markup language
Wiki Markup: structured text, simplified version of HTML, easily converted to HTML.
Pages
Pages Creation
Pages can be created by:
- creating an empty page link, clicking it, and start editing. The following [[my empty page]] will translate to my empty page
- adding the page name to URL bar, you'll be directly to the empty page, and start editing http://publicationstation.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/index.php/my empty page
- Red link = previously non-existing page.
- Blue link = existing page.
Talk Pages
Every Page has its respective Discussion or Talk page.
Talk pages are the site of discussion and conflicts that go on to the making of an article.
An example: Talk page on Invisible Pink Unicorn Wikipedia article
User Pages
Experiment:Edit User Pages
Create and edit your user page.
Include internal (to pages on this wiki) and external (to web pages outside this wiki) links.
Include an internal and external image.
Files and Images
To include non-text media (images,pdfs,audio-video) on the wiki, a File page needs to be created as a place-holder for the file
- [[File:myimage.png]]
- the page must be saved
- click on the red link, of the file you want to upload
- Follow the instruction to upload your file
Pages' Revision History
The history of versions or revisions of a page is stored.
They can be accessible via "View History"
Each revision shows its author, time, action, and at times summary.
Revisions can be compared, edited and undone.
Artworks exploring Wikipedia's Revision History
The Iraq War: A History of Wikipedia Changelogs by James Bridle, collects the history of changes from the Wikipedia's article on The Iraq War between 2004 and 2009.
Epicpedia by Annemieke van der Hoek transforms Wikipedia's revision history into a theater script.
Cramer, Florian. 2011. “A Brechtian Media Design: Annemieke van Der Hoek’s Epicpedia.” In Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader, 221–26. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. http://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/critical-point-of-view-a-wikipedia-reader/
Works that:
- present other interfaces to Wikipedia,
- placing in the foreground the revision history:
- question the neutral point-of-view and unified nature of Wikipedia articles.
Experiment:History
Rewind the history of edits from your user page to a previous stage, and back to the current.
Structuring a wiki
What situations require an overall structure, more elaborate than its "flat" systems of pages?
Subpages: simple hierarchy
Subpages are useful for organizing information hierarchically, as parent/child/grandchild
A subpage of a given main page, is create by adding a slash, followed by the sub-page's name, to the main page name.
[[main page/subpage/sub-subpage]]
Example: this very page Courses/Wikis-Publishing Platforms is a sub page from the Courses page
{{Special:PrefixIndex/{{FULLPAGENAME}}/}} can be placed on a parent page to display all its children.
Namespaces: separate spaces
Namespaces are container for specific content.
- Example: the Namespace Wrecks in this wiki was created for material dedicate to Wrecks project and not a part of the Publication Station Wrecks:Main_Page and FIN:Main_Page
- Note: Namespaces need to be created in the configurations of the wiki.
Categories: Tags, Hierarchies, Spaces, States
Categories are (the only) ways to tag content.
[[Category:courses]] a page to the courses category
Problems: No limit to the categories that can be added to a page.
For next week
Install Pandoc on your machines. We'll use it to convert wiki content on other formats.
Day 2
The Importance of Being Markup
Converting wiki content into other formats.
Markups
Wiki syntax is a markup language. Markup languages are exclusive to plain text formats (as opposed to rich text or binary formats). In plain-text file text-formating is applied to the text through a series of "marks" or tags. The marks or tags are like instructions, on how each marked segment of text should be interpreted or rendered.
Markups: write/interpret
You have be doing been using the wiki Markup during this workshop.
You've probably noticed how, when in writing mode, symbols as =heading= bold Page
are interpreted and given a specific meaning or style when the wiki page is rendered, or in other words, is in read mode.
Like the markup of the following segment, originates a styled and structured page.
= Revenge of the Text = There is a room in the '''Musée d’Orsay''' that I call the ''room of possibilities''. That room contains: * a snow flake * the end of a cloud * a bit of nothing
Markup: explicit structure
Markups: interchangeable
Advantages of
Pandoc
conversions
Day 3
Notes on scripts
students should have to understand python to generate "derivates" from wiki content.
Instead they can be given a script that allows them to play with different arguments and allow different "derivates" to emerge from the same content.
Some guidelines:
- each script deals with only one type of content: users, text, revisions, images, subpages
the principal should be similar to epubtrailer where the user can choose: background-color, color, source (wiki, page),