Wiki

[martin]

I'm pleased to announce that it is now fully up and running again - so far there are a couple of very helpful articles - if you would like to add more, please feel free!
It may all look a bit daunting at first - the "sandbox" is there for exactly that reason , along with comprehensive tutorials - if in doubt, have a bash in that first!
Direct link - http://www.navitron.org.uk/pmwiki/pmwiki.php, or from the main website menu!

[StBarnabas]

Martin
as you may have noticed I am trying to set up a HalfBee home automation thread with best practice etc for monitoring various things . I think a Wiki might be a better place to do this. I had hoped for a clean thread but as usual things drift. What do you think? The Navitron Wiki seems to have been almost forgotten and more use should be made of this
Sean

[stephendv]

Yes yes yes yes yes!    A forum is a place to discuss things and once they've been discussed, the info should be stored on the wiki.  Then when user number 20000 joins the forum and wants to know how to build a heat dump she can go straight to one authoritative page, instead of consulting hundreds of different threads and opinions. 

[breezy]

A great initiative. Have an applaud!

[djh]

Sean, As one of the people who has side-tracked your thread, I must apologize. I think using the wiki is a good idea and I'll say a little more below. But one other possibility is to clean up the thread. I believe the forum software has the possibility for moderators to move postings to other threads but I don't know whether it's enabled or anybody has the time and knowledge.

Alternatively, Klaus and I could clean up our conversation ourselves, I guess. If Klaus starts a new topic and reposts his first message to it, he can then edit out his post in your thread. I can then move mine across etc etc.

As regards the wiki, I think you can just put the content there yourself. One difficulty is that you won't easily get the same [on topic ] involvement from other people that you have had, since people won't know what you've posted to the wiki unless they go looking for it. So as stephendv says, it will require somebody to copyedit it across.

The wiki software does include some facilities to overcome this problem, as described at http://www.navitron.org.uk/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=PmWiki.Notify and especially at http://www.navitron.org.uk/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=PmWiki.WebFeeds
I would certainly add the wiki's trail log to my RSS reader, if it had one configured.

[KLD]

Sean

mea culpa!
Dave, I've done what you suggested, and started a new thread in the "Energy Efficiency and Insulation" section. My first OT post is there, shall we do a bit of ping-pong?

Klaus

[StBarnabas]

Hi Klaus and Dave
no problem really. I am warming to the idea  of a Wiki in any event, but it may be some time before I can start.
Sean

[martin]

no probs, I'll pm you lot the password -please only pass on to bona fide contributors.......... (and if in doubt, have a "play" in the sandbox first, and please don't erase existing bits!)

[Amy]

Ive always got questions to ask and am aware that most of its been covered before. I dont want all the banter, just the answers, so I hate wading through pages.

Great idea

[dan_aka_jack]

I was very excited to re-discover the Navitron Wiki this morning.  There's some *really* useful info on there.  Just one question: how do we edit?  When I click on the "edit" tab it asks for a password.  I've tried entering my Navitron forum password but no joy.  I'm probably being dumb.

[MR GUS]

& can we have it in a more prominent colour please?, I know i'm a dumb-ass but i've only just found it! ...having looked a few times!

Cheers
(the Dumb-ass)

[wookey]

You have to ask martin for the password.

This is perfect protection against spam, but also almost completely ruins one of the main benefits of a wiki - easy editability. I never update my tanks page any more because I've fogotten the password.

Wiki spam is a serious problem, but registration moderation and non-standard human questions like 'what is 67-3' and 'who controls the lard?' are also very effective and much less intrusive.

[martin]

"You have to ask martin for the password"

"I never update my tanks page any more because I've fogotten the password"

Now there would appear to be a solution to that somewhere in there........

 The Wiki is a stand alone piece of software that doesn't include any great sophistication or such finessing as "Captcha" for entry procedure, so we have an incredibly simple and effective system, you ask for the password! - over the years it has been in operation, very few have shown an interest in editing it, all those who have asked have been provided with the password.....

[StBarnabas]

I can confirm Martin told me the password very quickly. I started some work on HalfBee but it is hard work and time consuming - much more difficult than shooting from the hip as on the forum. It would be great in my opinion if more people contributed. Whereas I like Wookey's Frotteresque suggestion the thought of some of the recent Trolls editing and contributing at will is a bit worrying. It is an acute lack of time rather than password problems that get in the way at present

[martin]

I agree - it's not easy or quick, and you have to get your head round the peculiar "wiki way" of doing things - I'd be very happy if someone who has experience of Wikis would like to become "Wikimeister", help people put info on there, and add proper indexing etc..... The moderating team really do tend to be up to their ears in spammers, separating warring factions etc, so the wiki tends to be largely left to it's own devices (which isn't ideal)