The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia Review

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(More customer reviews)`The Wikipedia Revolution` (2009) is probably the first serious attempt at a book-length history of Wikipedia. Unfortunately Andrew Lih is not a trained historian, it is a journalistic account with more reporting and synthesis than original interpretation. However it is still a quick and interesting read, even if Lih is a devout Wikipedian. Certain sections stand out: the history of Ward Cunningham who invented the Wiki software; the history of Larry Sanger and his role as "co-founder" (or not, depending, but it is not resolved here). The role of Usenet, Hypercard, Slashdot and MeatballWiki in the formation of early Wikipedia. A glimpse into the vastly different cultures of Japanese, Chinese, German and other foreign language Wikipedias. An overview of some (in)famous incidents such as Seigenthaler and Essjay. Lih appears to have researched the book mostly using archival sources - I was disappointed not to find new interviews with Wales, Sanger or any number of others - it takes away from the books value in the long term as a primary source, a missed opportunity to add to the historical record.
There is a short Introduction by Jimmy Wales which is a standard stump speech heard many times before. The Afterword contains a crowd-sourced essay on the future of Wikipedia and it does contain a meaty examination of the difficult issues facing Wikipedia now and in the future. I found it to be surprisingly good. The Afterword is released under a Creative Commons BY license so it's freely available to copy - it's odd Lih did not point to where it can be found online. [UPDATE: see "Comments" below for a URL]
I would recommend this book for anyone who has been a long time member of Wikipedia and wants to learn more about 'a history experienced' over the past 8 years or so. There is so much that could be said about Wikipedia this book just grazes the surface but it's a good entry into what will certainly becoming a growing library of books about Wikipedia in the future.

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Blogs. Wikipedia. Second Life. and Beyond (Digital Formations) Review

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(More customer reviews)I read this book as part of my graduate studies in communication at the University of Utah. I stumbled upon the author, but when I read this book, I knew I was on to something.
Bruns covers a lot of ground in this book, providing a good overview of the current state of online information production. The book focuses on collaborative information production and how this is disrupting "industrial" forms of content creation. Anyone familiar with Bruns' previous book, "Gatewatching," will find this book to be an excellent extension of that work.
Bruns' key discussion in "Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond" is how the audience has moved from users to "produsers," a term he coined. Scholars and general observers alike will find his analysis helpful and well written. Most of the book is composed of insightful case studies. It's definitely worth a look.

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We—the users turned creators and distributors of content—are TIMEÂ's Person of theYear 2006, and AdAgeÂ's Advertising Agency of the Year 2007. We form a new Generation C. We have MySpace, YouTube, and OurMedia; we run social software, and drive the development of Web 2.0. But beyond the hype, whatÂ's really going on? In this groundbreaking exploration of our developing participatory online culture, Axel Bruns establishes the core principles which drive the rise of collaborative content creation in environments, from open source through blogs and Wikipedia to Second Life. This book shows that whatÂ's emerging here is no longer just a new form of content production, but a new process for the continuous creation and extension of knowledge and art by collaborative communities: produsage. The implications of the gradual shift from production to produsage are profound, and will affect the very core of our culture, economy, society, and democracy. Building on an analysis of key sites including Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube, and Second Life, it explores the intellectual, technological, and social implications of produsage, as well as the legal and economic models employed by produsage projects. In doing so, the book highlights the implications of produsage for our culture, democracy, and society.

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How Wikipedia Works: And How You Can Be a Part of It Review

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(More customer reviews)This book might also be titled "Wikipedia in Context". It tells in detail what Wikipedia is and what it is not; it even has a history of encyclopedias and talks about how Wikipedia fits into this tradition. It goes into detail on the culture and motivations of the people who work on Wikipedia. It covers the mission of the project and speculates on the global impact it will have someday.
There is an especially valuable chapter on "Understanding and Evaluating an Article" with a lot of good tips. Traditional encyclopedias are written by authorities in the field, but Wikipedia is written by a wide variety of authors, some experts, some amateurs, some fanatics, and some vandals. The appeal to authority doesn't work for Wikipedia.
There are real-life case studies scattered through the book about the internal workings of Wikipedia and its interaction with the real world. The most startling and sobering is the story of Turkish scholar Taner Akçam, who was detained at Montreal's Trudeau Airport by Canadian officials who had read in Wikipedia an incorrect report that he was a terrorist.
I only have a couple of gripes about this book. The screen shots highlight the relevant parts by graying everything else, which I like, but the gray is so dark it's hard to see the screen clearly and tell where you are. The index is lengthy but it was hard to find things in it; it seems to index only the main discussion of each topic and not any other references to it.
Compared to John Broughton's Wikipedia: The Missing Manual, this book is much broader and shallower. The Missing Manual is aimed at people who want to edit (add material and articles to) Wikipedia, and goes into great detail on both the mechanics of changing Wikipedia and the policies and customs that govern these changes. The present book has much useful material on these subjects, but it has just enough to get you started editing (roughly the middle third of the book deals with this). I have found both books extremely valuable, but they are aimed at different audiences and don't compete directly with each other. If you have a casual interest in Wikipedia, or are just getting started as an editor, "How Wikipedia Works" is the book for you. Beginning editors can also benefit from "Wikipedia: The Missing Manual" but may find the level of detail overwhelming; it is better for experienced editors.


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Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge Review

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(More customer reviews)I was initially disappointed, but adjusted my expectations when I reminded myself that the author is at root a lawyer. The bottom line on this book is that it provided a very educated and well-footnoted discourse the nature and prospects for group deliberation, but there are three *huge* missing pieces:
1) Education as the necessary continuous foundation for deliberation
2) Collective Intelligence as an emerging discipline (see the Innovators spread sheet at Earth Intelligence Network); and
3) No reference to Serious Games/Games for Change or budgets as a foundation for planning the future rather than predicting it.
In the general overview the author discusses information cocoons (self-segregation and myopia) and information influences/social pressures that can repress free thinking and sharing.
The four big problems that he finds in the history of deliberation are amplifying errors; hidden profiles & favoring common or "familiar" knowledge; cascades & polarization; and negative reinforements from being within a narrow group.
Today I am missing a meeting on Predictive Markets in DC (AEI-Brookings) and while I regret that, I have thoroughly enjoyed the author's deep look at Prediction Markets, with special reference to Google and Microsoft use of these internally. This book, at a minimum, provides the very best overview of prediction markets that I have come across. At the end of the book is an appendix listing 18 specific predictions markets with their URLs.
The author goes on to provide an overview of the Wiki world, and is generally very kind to Jimbo Wales and Wikipedia, and less focused on the many altneratives and enhancements of the open Wiki. It would have been helpful here to have some insights for the general reader on Doug Englebart's Open Hypertextdocument System (OHS) and Pierre Levy's Information Economy Meta Language (IEML), both of which may well leave the mob-like open wiki's in the dust.
Worthy of note: Soar Technology is quoted as saying that Wikis cut project development time in half.
The book draws to a close with further discussion of the challenges of self-segregation, the options for aggregating views and knowledge and for encouraging feedback, and the urgency of finding incentives to induce full disclosure and full participation from all who have something to contribute.
This book excels in its own narrowly-chosen domain, but it is isolated from the larger scheme of things including needed educational changes, the importance of belief systems as the objective of Intelligence and Information Operations (I2O), the role of Serious Games/Games for Change, and the considerable work that has been done by Collective Intelligence pioneers, who just held their first convergence conference call on 15 January 2007.
Final note: the author uses NASA and the Columbia disaster, and CIA and the Iraq disaster, as examples, but does not adequately discuss the pathologies of bureaucracy and the politicization of intelligence and space. As a former CIA employee who also reads a great deal, I can assert with confidence that CIA has no trouble aggregating all that it knew, including the reports of the 30 line crossers who went in and then came back to report there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction. CIA has two problems: 1) Dick Cheney refused to listen; and 2) George Tenet lacked the integrity to go public and go to Congress to challenge Dick Cheney's malicious and impeachable offenses against America (see my reviews of "VICE" and of "One Percent Doctrine" on Cheney, and my many reviews on the mistakes leading up to and within the Iraq war). See also my reviews of "Fog Facts" and "Lost History" and Gaddis' "The Landscape of History."
To end on an upbeat note, what I see in this book, and "Wikinomics" and "Collective Intelligence" and "Tao of Democracy" and my own "The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political," is a desperate need for Amazon to take on the task of aggregating books and building out from books to create social communities where all these books can be "seen" and "read" and "understood" as a whole. We remain fragmented in the production and dissemination of information, and consequently, in our own mind-sets and world-views. Time to change that, perhaps with Wiki-books that lock-down the original and then give free license to apply OHS linkages at the paragraph level, and unlimited wike build-outs. That's what I am in Seattle to discuss this week.

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The rise of the "information society" offers not only considerable peril but also great promise. Beset from all sides by a never-ending barrage of media, how can we ensure that the most accurate information emerges and is heeded? In this book, Cass R. Sunstein develops a deeply optimistic understanding of the human potential to pool information, and to use that knowledge to improve our lives. In an age of information overload, it is easy to fall back on our own prejudices and insulate ourselves with comforting opinions that reaffirm our core beliefs. Crowds quickly become mobs. The justification for the Iraq war, the collapse of Enron, the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia--all of these resulted from decisions made by leaders and groups trapped in "information cocoons," shielded from information at odds with their preconceptions. How can leaders and ordinary people challenge insular decision making and gain access to the sum of human knowledge? Stunning new ways to share and aggregate information, many Internet-based, are helping companies, schools, governments, and individuals not only to acquire, but also to create, ever-growing bodies of accurate knowledge. Through a ceaseless flurry of self-correcting exchanges, wikis, covering everything from politics and business plans to sports and science fiction subcultures, amass--and refine--information. Open-source software enables large numbers of people to participate in technological development. Prediction markets aggregate information in a way that allows companies, ranging from computer manufacturers to Hollywood studios, to make better decisions about product launches and office openings. Sunstein shows how people can assimilate aggregated information without succumbing to the dangers of the herd mentality--and when and why the new aggregation techniques are so astoundingly accurate. In a world where opinion and anecdote increasingly compete on equal footing with hard evidence, the on-line effort of many minds coming together might well provide the best path to infotopia.

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MediaWiki Skins Design: Designing attractive skins and templates for your MediaWiki site Review

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(More customer reviews)I wish I had this book when I first set out to design a MediaWiki skin for my own wiki. It would have saved me so much time and trouble. Nothing like this existed to my knowledge when I set out to make my skins. Documentation is often the weakest link in the open source community. This book fills an important gap that should democratize MediaWiki even more, making it more appealing to a wider swath of the web population.
The book follows my favorite format for a technical guide, taking the reader step by step through an example that resembles the kind of thing you'd want to do in real life. It breaks down everything thoroughly with plenty of pictures. Topics covered include not only CSS but also MediaWiki PHP functions that are integrated into a MediaWiki skin. As a bonus, there is information on adding on some of the latest widgets that Web 2.0 has to offer, from thickbox to twitter. To make your skin a real professional class act, you can even learn exactly how to use licensing and copyright options and exactly how to make your skin printer friendly. If you're going to be spending any time messing with MediaWiki skin design, and you're like me and don't have time to spend hours spinning your wheels, do yourself a favor and get a copy of this book.

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This book will show the reader how to customize the appearance of their MediaWiki site by creating custom skins. This book is aimed at web designers or wiki administrators who want to customize the look of MediaWiki with custom skins. The reader will already have a MediaWiki installation that they are targeting with their skin. It might be their own installation, or they might be a designer developing a custom look for a client. The book does not cover setting up or using MediaWiki, except features specifically related to skinning. The book assumes that you are familiar with CSS and HTML, but no prior knowledge of PHP is required.

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Wikis: Tools for Information Work and Collaboration (Information Professional S.) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book serves as a good introduction to wikis: their history, their possible uses, their unique characterstics, and how they are used in both corporated and educational environments. It gives lots of examples of both public and corporate wikis. If you are looking to set up a wiki, this can point you to helpful resources, but will not give you specific step-by-step instructions.

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This book covers wikis as information sources, as a form of publishing, and as tools for collaboration. The application of wikis in library and information services, education and businesses is also examined through practical guidance and real world examples. This book identifies and describes the different kinds of wikis, as well as the advantages and problems associated with their use in information work and collaboration. There is discussion of directories, search engines and other finding tools, as well as options for creating and managing wikis. The book also includes lists of resources related to wikis.

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MediaWiki 1.1: Beginner's Guide Review

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(More customer reviews)Surely you have heard of Wikipedia? That online encyclopedia has been a stunning success. Behind it was the MediaWiki engine. That is endorsement enough to have a serious look at MediaWiki. Also, many other websites have taken MediaWiki and modified it for their needs.
What this book does is given an elementary tour of MediaWiki. Starting with how to get and install it. Then various chapters go into the many customisations possible. You learn that MediaWiki sits atop a database [default=MySQL] and uses PHP as its coding language. The book deliberately does not elaborate on the theory of relational databases or the syntax of MySQL. Ditto for the syntax of PHP. The focus is plainly on MediaWiki. We have to be practical here. Otherwise we would be looking at several hundred more pages on peripheral topics.
MediaWiki uses several configuration files, and the book gives examples of how to edit these to change the look and feel of your website. There are some sample SQL statements, of considerable complexity, and some sample PHP code. These hint tantalisingly at many more involved possibilities.
But the book is mostly about the editing of configuration files. As for the logic that uses those files, and how you might change that logic, that is reserved for other books. Perhaps by the current authors, as an Advanced Guide?
Along these lines, a related book, MediaWiki Skins Design: Designing attractive skins and templates for your MediaWiki site, might be interesting to some readers. It goes further into how the skins [aka. look and feel] can be tweaked for your purposes.

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This book was written with the beginner in mind. It walks you through step-by-step exercises and makes use of illustrations to show exactly what is going on in each. You will be taken through exercises that not only help you to build a solid, secure wiki, but provide a foundation on which you can build and challenge yourself to learn even more. Throughout the book, you will follow along as a wiki dedicated to free/open source software built from the ground up.If you are a Web Designer, IT Administrator or Executive, or a Programmer and wish to gain a solid foundation in the MediaWiki software application, then this book is for you.

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Wikipedia: The Missing Manual Review

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(More customer reviews)Wikipedia, the free access online encyclopedia to which anyone can contribute, is a remarkable achievement. Started only in 2001, it now comprises over 9 million articles is written in over 250 languages, and is the first choice for reference material for millions of Internet users. Despite criticisms by some for the variable quality of its material, the value of the contributions of tens of thousands of unpaid volunteers is enormous, not only in notable and verified content accessible to the vast majority of the world's population in their native languages, but in the opportunity for everyone to contribute to this repository of knowledge in his or her own way (subject to the review and editing of others just like themselves.)
More importantly, in my view, is the model it represents in human collaboration efforts, this one in creating a repository of knowledge, but applicable more broadly to other efforts. Besides merely creating enormously useful things, the collaborative efforts result in a community of people and groups which has its own intrinsic values. Imagine thousands of volunteers committing their personal time and effort into a nonhierarchical, consensus-based collaboration having as its selfless main purpose the improvement of human society. Socialism at its best! It seems to me that the model may be useful in areas of politics, management and administration, education, and other social endeavors.. The Open-Source software movement, predating Wikipedia, operates in much the same way. Perhaps the earliest example of this collaborative model was the developmental years of the Internet.
As a casual user of Wikipedia, I had no idea of the nature of the Wikipedia project (and its sister projects - Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikinews, and Wikiversity - and no doubt others yet to come) until I read "Wikipedia: the Missing Manual," by John Broughton. He is an experienced Wikipedia editor with over 15,000 edits to his credit and is the creator of the "Editor's Index to Wikipedia" which lists every reference page on Wikipedia as well as other off site pages with information useful for serious Wikipedia editors. "Wikipedia: the Missing Manual" is an extremely thorough guide to creating and editing Wikipedia articles. The book is intended to help train new writers and editors and to improve the skills and knowledge of existing participants.
Broughton encourages people to join the Wikipedia community of researchers, fact checkers, and proofreaders. This community seems to be made up of committed, skilled, and serious people who take great pride in the project. There is little organizational hierarchy involved and a minimum of formal participatory rules, but a large set of informal mores and practices which help maintain production, efficiency, civility, and quality. There is always a need for more articles, although of the thousands created every day, nearly one half of them are deleted within 24 hours by attentive editors for a number of reasons explained in the book.
The book starts with an introduction to the basic principles of the Wikipedia project involving notability, credibility, balance, consensus, and good faith and moves quickly into the process of registering with Wikipedia, setting up a user account, and starting out practicing writing, previewing, and saving edits.
In six parts and 21 chapters, the book covers how to document sources, set up an editor's account, and personal workspaces, create new articles, use page histories, monitor changes, and dealing with vandalism and spam. It explains the value of collaborating with other editors and participants in creating and editing articles and in special Wiki Projects and other group efforts. There are several chapters describing how to deal with the inevitable conflict between editors and explains the Wikipedia editing mores of civility, ethics, legality (mostly copyright issues), and efficiency. He explains why editors disagree, in what ways, and how they resolve disputes. He also provides guidance on how disputes can be avoided in the first place.
Separate chapters of the book detail how to work with article pages and sections, tables, lists, markups and links, images and media, and categories. There are descriptions of what makes a good article and what doesn't and there are step-by-step tutorials on creating better articles and being systematic about good editing practices. A most interesting feature of Wikipedia is its large collection of free-to-use images, videos, sound clips, and other media in the Wikipedia Media Commons area which is available for article use and for non-Wikipedia use by anyone for any purpose.
Advanced topics include customizing your user account via preferences and skins and using JavaScript and templates to facilitate efficiency. There is a short 20 page appendix for those people content with being mere users of Wikipedia and learning how to get the most out of it. More involved users will benefit from Appendix C which itemizes the huge amount of Wikipedia help, reference, coaching, and other educational sources especially valuable for those determined to become better editors or higher-level participants like administrators of Wikipedia.
The presentation is thorough and articulate. It covers basic and advanced editing skills. Broughton frequently notes keyword search items and tips to be more productive and efficient. The community norms demand attentive and educated participants. Experience with coding is appreciated. The book has plenty of screenshots illustrating the discussions of Wikipedia features. Most of the sections contain Notes and Tips which provide more detailed explanations of features and an experienced editor's perspective to the prospective new editor as to how and why to do things. Broughton is (perhaps unintentionally) inspiring about participating in the Wikipedia editor community.
Although the book deserves great credit for its content and its tone a few problems with the layout and design detract a bit. The layout is dense with graphics a bit too tightly packed in with the text. Captions at the bottom of grayscale illustrations occasionally refer to nonexistent color clues resulting in some confusion. The density seems to reflect the nature of Wikipedia editing itself, which can be very involved. But, rewarding.

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Want to be part of the largest group-writing project in human history? Learnhow to contribute to Wikipedia, the user-generated online reference for the 21stcentury. Considered more popular than eBay, Microsoft.com, and Amazon.com,Wikipedia generates approximately 30,000 requests per second, or about 2.5billion per day. It's become the first point of reference for people the worldover who need a fact fast. If you want to jump on board and add to the content,Wikipedia: The Missing Manual is your first-class ticket. Wikipedia has morethan 6 million entries in 250 languages, over 2 million articles in the Englishlanguage alone. Each one is written and edited by an ever-changing cast ofvolunteer editors. You can be one of them. With the tips in this book, you'llquickly learn how to get more out of and put more into this valuableonline resource. Wikipedia: The Missing Manual gives you practical advice oncreating articles and collaborating with fellow editors, improving existingarticles, and working with the Wikipedia community to review new articles,mediate disputes, and maintain the site. Up to the challenge? This one-of-a-kindbook includes: Basic editing techniques, including the right and wrong ways toedit Pinpoint advice about which types of articles do and do not belong onWikipedia Tips on using Wikipedia page histories and reversing inaccurate editsWays to learn from other editors and communicate with them via the site's talkpages Tricks for using templates and timesaving automated editing tools Toolsfor fighting spam and vandalism Guidance on adding citations, links, and imagesto your articles You also learn about other Wikimedia services, such asWikinews, Wikiquote, and Wikibooks. Wikipedia depends on people just like you tohelp the site grow and maintain the highest quality. With Wikipedia: The MissingManual, you get all the tools you need to be part of the crew.--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Mediawiki (Wikipedia and Beyond) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is for anyone who wants to read wikis, add material to a wiki, or install and run their own MediaWiki site. Each type of user is granted their own section in this book. Part 1 of this book is dedicated to wiki readers, explaining how to navigate a MediaWiki site effectively. Part 2 is for authors, and discusses how to write and edit wiki articles, beginning with the basics and moving to more complex tasks. Part 3 is for administrators and programmers. It covers how to install and maintain a MediaWiki site, how to configure its many settings, and how to program its own features, called MediaWiki extensions. It's a pretty easy and well-organized read in the O'Reilly tradition of technical books. However, if you plan to write extensions, you'll need to know, at minimum, the PHP programming language. This book assumes you already know it. For anything complicated, you'll also need to become familiar with MediaWiki's PHP code - particularly its classes, constants, and global variables - and its database schema. The following is the table of contents, not yet available as part of the product information:
Part 1: Getting Started
Chapter 1. A First Look
Section 1.1. What's MediaWiki?
Section 1.2. A Typical Day on a MediaWiki Site
Section 1.3. When to Use MediaWiki
Section 1.4. When Not to Use MediaWiki
Section 1.5. Additional Resources
Chapter 2. Basic Use
Section 2.1. Quick Tour of a Wiki Page
Section 2.2. Articles
Section 2.3. Editing Primer
Section 2.4. Menu Reference
Section 2.5. Getting Help
Chapter 3. Your User Identity
Section 3.1. Creating an Account
Section 3.2. Logging In and Out
Section 3.3. User Pages
Section 3.4. Signatures
Section 3.5. Watchlists
Section 3.6. Tracking Your Contributions
Section 3.7. Preferences
Section 3.8. User CSS and JavaScript
Part 2: Writing and Editing Articles
Chapter 4. Editing Articles
Section 4.1. Getting Started with Editing
Section 4.2. Creating an Article
Section 4.3. Paragraphs and Headings
Section 4.4. Typestyles and Fonts
Section 4.5. Links
Section 4.6. Images and Uploaded Files
Section 4.7. Lists
Section 4.8. Tables
Section 4.9. Mathematical Formulas
Section 4.10. Escaping Wikitext with nowiki
Section 4.11. Conflicts
Section 4.12. Beyond the Basics
Chapter 5. Links
Section 5.1. Internal Links
Section 5.2. External Links
Section 5.3. Interwiki Links
Section 5.4. Interlanguage Links
Section 5.5. Graphical Links
Section 5.6. File Links
Section 5.7. Linking Tips
Chapter 6. Organizing Articles
Section 6.1. Categories
Section 6.2. Namespaces
Section 6.3. Subpages
Section 6.4. Redirects
Section 6.5. Disambiguation Pages
Section 6.6. Renaming Articles
Section 6.7. Deleting Articles
Chapter 7. Advanced Article Construction
Section 7.1. Maintaining a Consistent Wiki
Section 7.2. Variables
Section 7.3. Templates and Transclusion
Section 7.4. Logical Parser Functions
Section 7.5. Dynamic Page List
Section 7.6. Recipes for Refactoring
Chapter 8. Special Pages
Section 8.1. Maintenance Reports
Section 8.2. List of Pages
Section 8.3. Login/Sign Up
Section 8.4. Users and Rights
Section 8.5. Recent Changes and Logs
Section 8.6. Media Reports and Uploads
Section 8.7. Wiki Data and Tools
Section 8.8. Redirects and Random Pages
Section 8.9. High-Use Pages
Section 8.10. Page Tools
Section 8.11. Other Special Pages
Section 8.12. Special Pages Grouped by Task
Part 3: Running and Administering MediaWiki
Chapter 9. Installing MediaWiki
Section 9.1. Before You Begin
Section 9.2. Installing the Prerequisites
Section 9.3. Installing MediaWiki
Section 9.4. Important Optional Features
Section 9.5. A Tour of MediaWiki's Files
Section 9.6. Maintaining the Code
Chapter 10. Practical Wiki Design
Section 10.1. Adopting MediaWiki
Section 10.2. Planning
Section 10.3. Establishing Standards
Section 10.4. Governance
Section 10.5. Integrating with Other Websites
Chapter 11. Configuring MediaWiki: An Overview
Section 11.1. Administrative Roles
Section 11.2. Advanced Page Constructs
Section 11.3. Special Pages for Sysops and Bureaucrats
Section 11.4. System Messages
Section 11.5. Cascading Stylesheets
Section 11.6. JavaScript
Section 11.7. Configuration Settings
Section 11.8. Extensions
Section 11.9. Skinning
Section 11.10. SQL Programming
Section 11.11. Maintenance Scripts
Chapter 12. Controlling Wiki Features
Section 12.1. Users
Section 12.2. User Rights and Permissions
Section 12.3. Article Content
Section 12.4. Configuring the Editing of Articles
Section 12.5. Maintaining Articles
Section 12.6. Configuring Namespaces
Section 12.7. File Uploads
Section 12.8. Search
Section 12.9. Special Page List
Section 12.10. Database Configuration
Section 12.11. Email Configuration
Section 12.12. JavaScript Configuration
Section 12.13. Logging and Debugging
Chapter 13. Changing Appearances
Section 13.1. The Basics
Section 13.2. Menus
Section 13.3. Search Box
Section 13.4. Tables of Contents
Section 13.5. External Link Appearance
Section 13.6. Page Credits
Section 13.7. Overall Look and Feel
Section 13.8. International Support
Chapter 14. Installing Extensions
Section 14.1. Obtaining Extensions
Section 14.2. Installing an Extension
Section 14.3. Recommended Extensions
Chapter 15. Creating Extensions
Section 15.1. Overview of Extension Types
Section 15.2. Creating a Variable
Section 15.3. Creating a Parser Function
Section 15.4. Creating a Tag Extension
Section 15.5. Behavior Changes
Section 15.6. Creating a Special Page
Section 15.7. Useful Tasks for Extension Writers
Section 15.8. Creating a Skin
Section 15.9. Publishing an Extension
Section 15.10. Other Extension Topics
Section 15.11. Finding a MediaWiki Programmer
Chapter 16. Wiki Administration
Section 16.1. Maintenance Scripts
Section 16.2. Backups
Section 16.3. Upgrades
Section 16.4. Read-Only Wiki
Section 16.5. Performance and Scaling
Section 16.6. Security
Section 16.7. Vandalism
Section 16.8. Common Maintenance Tasks
Section 16.9. For More Information

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"A good book! It's a nice overview of wiki editing and administration, with pointers to handy extensions and further online documentation." -Brion Vibber, Chief Technical Officer, Wikimedia Foundation "This book is filled with practical knowledge based on experience. It's not just spouting some party line." -Rob Church, a developer of MediaWiki MediaWiki is the world's most popular wiki platform, the software that runs Wikipedia and thousands of other websites. Though it appears simple to use at first glance, MediaWiki has extraordinarily powerful and deep capabilities for managing and organizing knowledge. In corporate environments, MediaWiki can transform the way teams write and collaborate. This comprehensive book covers MediaWiki's rich (and sometimes subtle) features, helping you become a wiki expert in no time. You'll learn how to:

Find your way around by effective searching and browsing
Create and edit articles, categories, and user preferences
Use advanced features for authors, such as templates, dynamic lists, logical parser functions, and RSS, to organize and maintain large numbers of articles
Install and run your own wiki, and configure its look and behavior
Develop custom wiki features, called extensions, with the PHP programming language and MySQL database

This book also provides special guidance for creating successful corporate wikis. For beginners who want to create or work on collaborative, community-driven websites with this platform, MediaWiki is the essential one-stop guide. "I was a MediaWiki newbie before reading this book. Now, many aspects of the platform that were murky before are crystal clear." -JP Vossen, author of O'Reilly's Bash Cookbook

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Professional Wikis (Programmer to Programmer) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is one of the best technical guides I have encountered and I have used hundreds of them. I am not a programer, but I work with open source software regularly and I am comfortable hacking code.
I have administered simple MediaWiki sites successfully, but this book has shown me how to make major improvements with my existing sites, and will serve as a guide in the creation of many planned wikis. This book has also extended my understanding of php.
The author, not only clearly outlines how to work with MediaWiki software, but concisely and intelligently discusses the merits of options in configuring and working with the software.
Even if you are not currently administering a MediaWiki site, his discussion of formating wiki text is excellent for those seeking more than the basics.

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This book shows you how to install, use, manage, and extend a wiki using MediaWiki—the wiki engine used to power Wikipedia. You'll learn wiki terminology, how to create user accounts and new pages, and find your way around the wiki. Special focus is placed on how wikis are used in software and web development projects and how their capabilities ideally suit a specific environment and audience. You'll quickly come to discover why wikis are a valuable addition for any organization that wants to increase productivity using web-based collaboration tools.

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The Complete Guide to Wikis: How to Set Up, Use, and Benefit from Wikis for Teachers, Business Professionals, Families, and Friends Review

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(More customer reviews)Other than having heard of the ubiquitous online encyclopedia, "Wikipedia", many people may not know that a wiki- a web site that allows visitors to make changes, contributions, or corrections- is a powerful tool that is radically changing the social, educational and business climate. Brian Chatfield's Complete Guide to WIKIS is a no-nonsense, clearly written handbook to understanding what the increasing use of wikis means in terms of how information is gathered and recorded, and how to harness and utilize that power for education, business, and personal growth.
Chatfield writes intelligently, but avoids the technical jargon that can confuse what are straightforward concepts. Chapters include case studies taken from successful, well-known wikis, (Wikipedia, Baseball Reference Bullpen, Ganfyd, Project Backpack, Sourcewatch, Curriki) providing wiki novices with an introduction to wiki types, history and applications, their proliferation, and concise instruction on how first to edit and then create project-specific wikis. For those already familiar or expert with wikis, this guide expands on hosting, security, automation, tips for tweaking and tailoring wikis, comparing wikis with content management software, as well as predictions about the creative applications of wikis on the horizon.
As Chatfield notes in his guide, wikis are not just technical devices, they are also the engines driving our future organization and filtering of information. As living, collaborative documents, wikis are increasingly becoming the new model for our collective knowledge. This guide provides both the specific technical instruction necessary to create and develop wikis, as well as an awareness of how to interpret that information in light of a fair understanding of both the strengths and weaknesses of wiki technology.

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As the 8th most visited site on the Internet according to the Alexa Internet traffic ratings and with more than 30 million new words a month of content added regularly, Wikipedia has become a symbol of the web s current incarnation the collaborative project that has developed around the world to compile the knowledge and expertise of everyone. Wikis are a great tool that allow any topic, anywhere, to be compiled and crosschecked by just about anyone to great effect whether it is simply to provide knowledge or to promote a business. A wiki is a tool unlike any other. In this book, you will learn everything you need to know to unlock the potential of the Wiki format. The top secrets, techniques, and strategies used by Wiki operators every day are showcased here in a way that makes it possible for the ordinary person to pick up a Web site and start writing right away, sharing or gathering knowledge for the entire world to read. You will learn in this book exactly why the wiki concept has been so successful but also how wikis do things wrong and how they can be done correctly. The fundamental basics of writing a wiki, including how to format your posts, what to write about, the correct means of writing impartial entries, and how to reference outside sources will be covered in full. You will learn how to edit an existing wiki entry and how to start using your wiki for other purposes. Learn the top 20 strategies for wiki marketing as well as the importance of volume in your wiki and why having a great deal of posts to index in search engines is nearly as important as the writing being high quality. The author has spent time talking and listening to more than a hundred of the Internet s top wiki experts, learning their tricks of the trade and how they have been so successful in presenting their information and have compiled and presented it here for you. You will learn how to start making money with your wiki, how to track changes and revisions, and how different kinds of wikis vary and work in different ways. You will learn how to start building your very own wiki from the ground up using free software and open source tools and why linking and SEO optimization is absolutely necessary to be effective. For anyone who has ever spent ten minutes on Wikipedia wondering how they could start building their very own information compendium, this book is for you a complete guide to everything wiki.

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