Salve Omnes!
As mentioned in the "Relocating to a new home" thread, Marius and I have been working on an experimental model wiki for the SVR. I have created a wiki called "Ancient Ways" <wink, wink, nod, nod> on a free wiki hosting site called editthis.info (link below).
Ancient Ways
A couple of points before I begin. Although this wiki is structured to resemble the format of our beloved societas, there is no/no SVR content in it. It is a model, nothing more. I also call it "experimental" because it is in no way meant to be a replacement for the website (in part or whole). Again it is merely a model of how we could convert portions or the whole site to a wiki.
So, to demonstrate how SVR content could be used in a wiki, I created this little site with pages that mimic current or potential future pages for our site: Intro & Faq, Groups(Colleges), Rules(Regulae), etc. There is no real content on the pages. It is mostly "Lorem ipsum...".
In the "Groups" page for example, it lists a little about each group and then a link to each group. Within that group's page there are links to essay's, articles, and other links and the like.
So..take a look, browse around, let me know what you think! You do not have to create an account to view the pages. If you would like an account (for Ancient Ways only, not for editthis) in order to experiment with editing or creating pages, send me a PM and I will create an account for you and give you instructions (very easy). No personal information is required.
So, what could a wiki mean to our society?
Well, a largen burden for keeping the site up to date "could" be eliminated by having the content as wiki pages instead of web pages that any sodalis could contribute to or edit. You could submit an essay or article yourself, you could create a page outlining a rogatio for ease of viewing. Annales and regulae could be easily updated (by those authorized to do so). You could create a page for a topic or a project you had in mind to solicit input. The possibilities are almost limitless.
All of this is not to say that Marius and the other site administrators aren't doing their job, they are!. Our site is very professional, well-structured, and well run. But, a wiki could free them of some of the routine responsbillities and allow them to concentrate on mission critical tasks as needed (and thereby giving them more opportunity to participate as well). Plus, a wiki can't do everything!
What are things it cannot do: It does not replace the forums...you cannot run a forum (as far as I know) inside a wiki. There are "talk" pages to discuss a page, but nothing as comprehensive as a phpBB or other type for forum. It cannot replace the chat room, again, you cannot run a chat room within a wiki. (You can easily link to a forum or chatroom from a wiki though, see the examples on Ancient Ways). It cannot handle the application process (as it is now). But...as I have said. The wiki doesn't have to replace the website. These other vital functions can still be performed on our web server.
For those who would like more technical info please read below. For those looking for more info on wiki's in general go here: What is a wiki. Otherwise please check it out and let me know what you think!
Salvete,
-Severus
Technical Info:
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editthis is a wiki farm that offers free hosting of single page or multiple page independent wikis. It is free and offers up to 25MB of material per wiki. It does display Google Sense ads at the bottom of every page. it uses MediaWiki as its engine (the same as Wikipedia) and offers a good deal of user's rights management and most of the other features found on Wikipedia, Wikia, etc. I am not suggesting using editthis if we were to establish a wiki (since MediaWiki is open source and could easily be run on our own server me thinks) but it made an ideal platform for me to set up this model site. There are various options for hosting wikis out there. The pages within the site took me about 75 minutes to create (and I am not very good at wikitext and markup). This was the first wiki site I ever created (I had only edited pages before now). if you would like to discuss further details please do!)