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I have had a few "Duh, why didn't I think of that earlier" moments recently and have implemented them. I hope others will recognize their own good ideas for improving the wiki and bring them forward for consideration. You don't know what can be done until you ask!
- "Sign Up" link in the top menu bar. I have written numerous times on the wiki and in email that the wiki "Sign Up" link is on the Login page. Why the extra step? Now a "Sign Up" link appears in the top menu bar when the user is not actually logged in. (This takes advantage of Adaptavist Theme Builder logic functionality that allows control of wiki features based on parameters such as whether the user is logged in or member of a particular user group.) I have been getting people signing up a second time when they forget that they already signed up. I hope that having the "Sign Up" link will not add significantly to the numbers of duplicate registrations.
- "Join PIUG" link in the top menu bar. This link will appear for users not logged in or users who are not active PIUG members according to the wiki administration. It will not appear for users in the piug-members group after they have logged in. Until the automated member validation process is implemented later this year, I have to add users manually to the piug-members group. Active PIUG members who have the "Join PIUG" link should contact the admin at piugwikimaster@gmail.com to have their wiki members access status corrected.
- PIUG-DF is now the shorthand name for the main PIUG Discussion Forum. This is analogous to PIUG-L and should be readily accepted. Duh!
- Breadcrumbs contain another hierarchy level. The navigational breadcrumbs lie just below the top menu bar. I added another level so that it will be more obvious whether pages are in PIUG-DF or elsewhere in the PIUG space.
Other 
ideas? Add them right here in the main text box or as comments below.
Comments (5)
Jun 04, 2009
Jason White says:
You deserve kudos for bringing the discussion group into the 21st century, Tom, ...You deserve kudos for bringing the discussion group into the 21st century, Tom, I'll give you that. I must confess, though, that I find the entire concept of the new discussion forum non-intuitive. You are using a wiki-style tool for both collaboration and discussion. Wikis work remarkably well at the former, but not at all for the latter.
Might I ask why we have not gone with some standard, off-the-shelf discussion forum software? I could see why we might combine a wiki-style site with a discussion group, but I simply don't understand why we went with the wiki over standard discussion group software. I personally use the discussion forum far less than the old listserv, simply because I find this site too difficult to navigate, too hard to find what I'm looking for, and too hard to find what's new and being discussed.
Jun 04, 2009
Admin - Tom Wolff says:
Jason: I appreciate your feedback. I did originally evaluate some discussion fo...Jason:
I appreciate your feedback. I did originally evaluate some discussion forum applications and was dissatisfied with them. I believe that having three web applications--website, wiki and discussion forum--was going to be too fragmented for users to navigate effectively and too excessive for administrators to manage. The forum feature in Confluence, application for the PIUG wiki, is relatively new and we are among the first to rely on it. While there is a learning curve for using Confluence wiki well, I believe that the payoff for having PIUG-DF hosted in the wiki is that our community will use both functions effectively sooner than later. Without the integration, I believe we would have had many people contributing to only one or the other.
I don't understand why you find the wiki site difficult to navigate and search. There are many navigation tools including the main PIUG-DF page, the recently updated content page, the left-side panel's hierarchy. There are two search boxes, one for the site on every page and one specifically for PIUG-DF on its main page. You may want to rely on your email application search to find old messages just as you might have done with PIUG-L. Very few people seemed to search the PIUG-L archives because they were on yet another website, although searchable via a Google link via the PIUG website. You could still search previous PIUG-DF postings and comments by watching the whole PIUG Space or just PIUG-DF to get full content email messages that you could search within your email application.
There is no doubt that email is really, really simple and a discussion list that uses it hardly needs documentation. On the other hand, discussion forum applications are more complicated and should offer useful documentation to help users take advantage of all the features. I believe having the discussion forum on the wiki brings brings more advantages beyond the typical forum features such as threaded topics and online searching. How to use these features are explained extensively in the online tutorials (webinars) described at Wiki Training Webinars and in the Quick Reference Guides (QRG); all these help resources are available from the top menubar Help item. I especially would like to recommend the QRGs on Watching Spaces, Forums, and Pages and Adding Topics to Discussion Forums. I hope you will come around to supporting the integrated discussion forum and become comfortable participating with our patent information community online within the wiki.
Jun 04, 2009
Jason White says:
I agree that 3 sites (web, wiki, discussion) might be too much to administer, an...I agree that 3 sites (web, wiki, discussion) might be too much to administer, and probably too much to absorb all at once for an established audience. I would have much rather seen a proper discussion forum, such as phpBB or something similar, than a wiki. For all the advantages a wiki brings to the table, implementing a discussion forum in a wiki seems quite a poor fit. There are already many, many systems out there for discussion groups, with significant user and developer support behind them.
I can't adequately explain why I find the site difficult to navigate and use. First, let me say that, as a software developer, no-one reads the manual, especially software developers. Most users, if they can't figure out the site in 30 seconds, won't try again if given the opportunity. I would sooner close the site than look for the user manual. Yes, we have to have one anyway, but most people won't consult it.
I really dislike the tree menu on the left. It makes absolutely no sense to me to sort things alphabetically - it should be reverse chronological for any discussion forum, full stop. There are no pages in a tree, so the page will get really, really long eventually. You may clean things up, move them from the tree eventually, but that doesn't help me if I'm looking for something that I know was posted last week, but can't remember what it was entitled. I would simply remove the tree entirely from the DF - it adds nothing.
When I want to begin a new topic, I find myself confused about what to do. I don't want to create a new wiki page, one that anyone else may edit. I want to make my statement/ask my question, and see how others respond. It is just fundamentally non-intuitive to begin a new thread by starting a new wiki page. Look at how we are conversing now - not in the wiki page, but in the threaded comments. There's good reason why threaded conversations are popular.
The discussions should always be front and centre. I appreciate the quick link to the DF from the main page, but when I get there, the discussions are way down the list, and the tree view on the left is taking up screen real estate. The discussions really need to be prominently placed, compact but not crowded, and eye-catching, with lots of metadata about the thread available at a glance.
This list started out as a conversation - it should remain so. Trying to force a conversation into something like collaboration simply doesn't work. To maximize participation, we have to make sure the conversations are really the centre of attention.
Technology support - no RSS feeds, no support for Chrome. Sure, there aren't many people using either of these two technologies, but they are so easy to support with standard software.
I use discussion fora every day, both for work and pleasure, of varying designs and complexities. I'm afraid I just can't adapt to this one, Tom. I appreciate the hard work you've put in, but I simply can't understand this blending of conversation and collaboration.
Jun 04, 2009
Admin - Tom Wolff says:
Jason: To some extent we are going to have to agree to disagree. But I am glad ...Jason:
To some extent we are going to have to agree to disagree. But I am glad to address your points.
I did set up phpBB in my initial tests. I strikes me as very old technology. Some committees did start to us it, so I accept that it does work. I still think what we have is much improved over phpBB.
I know most people don't read the manual and don't like making more than a 30 second effort. On the other hand, over 100 people out of 800 registrants on the wiki have contributed content. The rate entry of PIUG-DF content is approaching the number of contributions to PIUG-L on an annual basis. It's still early days, but we might reasonably conclude that isn't so hard to use the wiki and DF. A fair number of PIUG people have attended my live and online workshops/webinars. I haven't tried to determine how many have opened the webinar files on the PIUG website. Perhaps you underestimate the persistence or willingness to learn of the PIUG community. As for the help pages, all I can do is make them prominent and point people there when they have issues.
The menu tree on the left strikes me as useful except perhaps when you go to the main PIUG-DF page. You may note that whenever you open any topic in PIUG-DF, the tree does not expand PIUG-DF entries. I could keep it from expanding even for the main PIUG-DF page on which it does expand by design. I expected to have to change it eventually once the number of PIUG-DF entries grew even more unless the sort options for that page tree are improved. I wouldn't want to make it chronological in general, because then the list would always appear random. I would consider setting the entries in PIUG-DF chronologically if I could.
I understand not wanting to have people edit your topic directly. I tried to address that directly in a QRG on where to put your content: "First person content => If you are contributing and expect to write in first person ("I") and do not want people editing your content even if it is incorrect, then find the right Discussion Forum to post your topic in." An earlier version of this explanation asked people not to edit others "first person" postings, but it must have gotten lost. If you noticed your text was changed, we could always revert the page to your version and ask the person who did it to stop. You also have the option of restricting your page from others editing. I am not aware of problems in the past half year.
I am not forcing a conversation into a collaboration. That is just your perspective. On the other hand, I think it's all sharing among patent information community members and it shouldn't matter what it's called. I'm sorry you don't understand it.
There is an RSS feed option but I haven't had anyone actually acknowledge that it works so I've left it buried. You can find it under View...View other pages...RSS Feed Builder. If you get it work and can help document how to use it, I'll bring it out front and center.
I was not aware of Chrome not being supported, but evidently Chrome doesn't support the Rich Text Editor. I would expect Atlassian would make wiki work with Chrome if it could. Atlassian just rolled out Confluence 3.0 this week. I won't upgrade until it is v. 3.0.2 because we don't want to get burned with unresolved problems. That version might support Chrome. In any case, I anticipate that most PIUG members don't use Chrome. Confluence supports IE7, Firefox and Safari.
You imply Confluence isn't standard software. I don't think that is fair, but if you are going to compare it to phpBB, which reminds me of DOS, then we have another point to disagree on.
Tom
Jun 11, 2009
Jason White says:
Tom, you're right, we may just have to agree to disagree. When it comes to...Tom, you're right, we may just have to agree to disagree. When it comes to discussion fora, I would point to http://forums.epo.org as a good example of a patent-related discussion forum. They are using phpBB 3, and it is much closer to my ideal that this concept can be.
I suppose it comes down to the type of content you have. For a Wikipedia-style reference site, something like Confluence is a good way to go. The emphasis is on the main page content, and the threaded discussion (such as the one we are having) is meant to focus around improving or debating the content above. Ultimately, with any wiki-style site, the ideal is to improve the content at the top/front to serve as a meaningful reference for others.
If, on the other hand, if you are interested in promoting discussions themselves, where the discussions are the content, then this interface is not the way to go. The workaround should not be to simply ask users to not change another's content. It should be no more possible than it is for me to change your replies above.
Both types of content and discussions are perfectly valid and useful, but one is a discussion forum and the other is not. IMHO, this wiki-style interface would be best to complement, but not replace, the discussions I enjoyed on PIUG-L.