CWDF - Wiki - Opinions?

[RichM]

Before my time here, Paul C did a great job leading a project to develop a Wiki for CWDF. It was comprehensive and contained a lot of information but regrettably I was unable to help finish what he & the team had started. At the time, one technical hurdle (if memory serves me correctly) was that it didn't have direct integration with the forum software due to software limitations. This meant that users would need to create separate user accounts to access the Wiki etc. It was essentially contained separate to the forum. Unfortunately, as it stands, it would be very difficult to reinstate the Wiki project as it was. Though it may be possible for me to extract some of the content and add to a separate section within CWDF, powered by the same software we currently use for the forums. This means it would provide a more integrated / joined up user experience. 

 

I'm keen to gather opinions/feedback on whether or not you'd like to see something similar to a Wiki whereby members can contribute content (e.g. guides & tutorials and information of historical interest etc) to help further improve our online resource in relation to waterways & inland boating. 

 

Please vote in the poll but feedback/suggestions welcome.

 

 

[BEngo]

Good idea, I would be happy to contribute.  It might at least enable some perennially repeated questions to be partly dealt with by a wiki, and save Tony, Nick, Alan de E et al.  some keyboard wear and tear.

 

I Think it needs to be limited to waterways items.  We do not need a wiki that goes anywhere near overtly political type issues.

 

That means it needs some moderation, if only to vet the topics.  Can we raise enough moderators to do this, as well as moderate the forum?

 

What effect would we expect on running costs?

 

N

[LadyG]

I don't even know what this is, if I want to know something I use the search function.

[Tonka]

4 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I don't even know what this is, if I want to know something I use the search function.

No me neither

[Arthur Marshall]

Half the information supplied on here is expert advice, and half of it is opinion. Even the expert advice by known experts gets argued about and the usual suspects would delight in amending wiki entries to malicious effect.

Anything indicating that the internet is a reliable source of information is dangerous...

 

[Tony Brooks]

48 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Half the information supplied on here is expert advice, and half of it is opinion. Even the expert advice by known experts gets argued about and the usual suspects would delight in amending wiki entries to malicious effect.

Anything indicating that the internet is a reliable source of information is dangerous...

 

 

Whilst generally supportive, the above post shows why I have misgivings. Anything to help boaters understand their boats is good in my view, but it would need technical moderation by a team of accepted expert in their area members to ensure it is accurate and sensible advice. That is where the problems will be. Who selects the experts, and who decides they are experts. After all, I have on the odd occasion crossed swords with Tracy and Nick. I have also seen considerable numbers of members posting in very good faith, but on a very limited experience base, and they may well get very upset if their entries are edited or deleted. I think it may cause more problems for the form than it solves.

[howardang]

47 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Half the information supplied on here is expert advice, and half of it is opinion. Even the expert advice by known experts gets argued about and the usual suspects would delight in amending wiki entries to malicious effect.

Anything indicating that the internet is a reliable source of information is dangerous...

 

I must be even more cautious/cynical than you. Although I have been a member of this forum for many years (joined 2004) apart from reading many and various contributions over the years there are only very few so called experts who I know personally and whose advice I would trust implicitly, I have never knowingly met them and I have zero knowledge of their actual knowledge and/or expertise, so I couldn't be quite so positive in saying that   "half the information supplied on here is expert". Your comment that the advice would be argued about I would agree with and I think the WIKI might cause more argument than it would solve.

 

Howard

[doratheexplorer]

59 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Half the information supplied on here is expert advice, and half of it is opinion. Even the expert advice by known experts gets argued about and the usual suspects would delight in amending wiki entries to malicious effect.

Anything indicating that the internet is a reliable source of information is dangerous...

 

This is exactly the problem.

 

This is a discussion forum.  People post their opinions.  Other people disagree.  Very little to do with boating is absolutely factually true in all cases.

 

Yet a wiki would cast in stone the opinion of whomever wrote the entry. 

 

This is asking for trouble.

[Tony Brooks]

Just now, doratheexplorer said:

This is exactly the problem.

 

This is a discussion forum.  People post their opinions.  Other people disagree.  Very little to do with boating is absolutely factually true in all cases.

 

Yet a wiki would cast in stone the opinion of whomever wrote the entry. 

 

This is asking for trouble.

 

And it is made even more difficult by the vast range of equipment and layouts of the systems on inland boats. To make a truthful entry is likely to involve a lot of caveats and "ifs and buts" so it becomes confusing. Example - the current Lister warning lamp topic. At the start I think we all assumed it was a typical bulb type warning lamp installation and only later it became clear it uses flashing LEDs and electronics. Any Wiki entry for warning lamps would have to address this possibility so be come longer and more complex.

[Boaty Jo]

1 hour ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Half the information supplied on here is expert advice, and half of it is opinion.

 

.... and half of it is nonsense.

[IanD]

44 minutes ago, Boaty Jo said:

.... and half of it is nonsense.

But which half? 😉

[Arthur Marshall]

3 hours ago, IanD said:

But which half? 😉

Half expert, half opinion and half nonsense. But what about the rest?

 

Actually, what tends to happen in the real boat advice discussions is that you end up with a consensus, or at least some new ideas to investigate further,  and you do in time get the feel for whose knowledge to respect. You wouldn't get that on a wiki,  just whoever edited it last. And the discussion thread about wiki entries doesn't bear thinking about.

Edited February 9, 2023 by Arthur Marshall

[howardang]

27 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Half expert, half opinion and half nonsense. But what about the rest?

 

Actually, what tends to happen in the real boat advice discussions is that you end up with a consensus, or at least some new ideas to investigate further,  and you do in time get the feel for whose knowledge to respect. You wouldn't get that on a wiki,  just whoever edited it last. And the discussion thread about wiki entries doesn't bear thinking about.

Your point about discussion threads concerning wiki entries  is well made! For that reason alone, heaven forbid the wiki ever becoming a reality.
 

Howard

 

 

Edited February 9, 2023 by howardang

[Ray T]

Back in 2016 I wrote a "potted" history of British Waterways, relating to canals for a CWDF Wiki. This ran to some 10 pages from "The beginning" to public ownership and leisure use.

 

Fortunately, I still have this on my PC.

 

I voted to abstain as I am ambivalent, never even getting a "thank you" for the graft I put in.

 

Edited February 9, 2023 by Ray T

[Paul C]

The whole structure of a wiki is far better suited to providing useful technical/other information than the rather chaotic/messy way threads form and evolve on a forum. There was no particular issue in who was an editor, because in the trial phase 100% of the volunteers were editors, we didn't have an excess of people willing to volunteer, so we simply didn't encounter "edit wars" or the type of crap that infects lots of threads on here. It was a convivial atmosphere. 

1 hour ago, Ray T said:

Back in 2016 I wrote a "potted" history of British Waterways, relating to canals for a CWDF Wiki. This ran to some 10 pages from "The beginning" to public ownership and leisure use.

 

Fortunately, I still have this on my PC.

 

I voted to abstain as I am ambivalent, never even getting a "thank you" for the graft I put in.

 

PM sent

[Adam]

I’d be interested in reading that, if you wouldn’t mind…..?

5 hours ago, Ray T said:

Back in 2016 I wrote a "potted" history of British Waterways, relating to canals for a CWDF Wiki. This ran to some 10 pages from "The beginning" to public ownership and leisure use.

 

Fortunately, I still have this on my PC.

 

I voted to abstain as I am ambivalent, never even getting a "thank you" for the graft I put in.

 

I’d be interested in reading that, if you’re wouldn’t mind…..?

[system 4-50]

There is no need for a Wiki.  ChapGPT will have all the answers very soon.

Caxton should be prosecuted.  There has been so much printed misinformation since he had his brainwave.

On a more serious note, my fear is that a Wiki, if successful, would remove the basis for 60% of the posts on the forum, and the forum would lose volume and become not worth checking.

A Wiki would take time to get right but is inevitable sooner or later.  The trouble with our expert posters is that all of them are going to drop dead, with the waste of knowledge that that entails.

[enigmatic]

I think a FAQ and basic technical advice on boats would be useful to point people towards frequently asked questions and definitions, to save certain people typing the same advice again and again, and newbies from the "didn't you do any research" complaints, "are you from London snark" and randomness that inevitably breaks out in their threads.

 

Happy to contribute, as I did start jotting some notes on things I'd learned from the forums down, both as part of my own learning process and because I thought a FAQ would be useful.

 

If it gets popular, I can see mods having to lock the pages talking about sensitive subjects like toilets though  

[RichM]

11 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

I think a FAQ and basic technical advice on boats would be useful to point people towards frequently asked questions and definitions, to save certain people typing the same advice again and again, and newbies from the "didn't you do any research" complaints, "are you from London snark" and randomness that inevitably breaks out in their threads.

 

Happy to contribute, as I did start jotting some notes on things I'd learned from the forums down, both as part of my own learning process and because I thought a FAQ would be useful.

 

If it gets popular, I can see mods having to lock the pages talking about sensitive subjects like toilets though  

This could be controlled by some extent by requiring members to join a "Contributor" group before being able to post content in the Wiki. I know this may be somewhat contentious given the idea of a Wiki is having a platform whereby anyone can contribute to it. But equally it would make sense to have some level of protection in place to prevent against anything malicious. 

[Arthur Marshall]

20 hours ago, system 4-50 said:

There is no need for a Wiki.  ChapGPT will have all the answers very soon.

Caxton should be prosecuted.  There has been so much printed misinformation since he had his brainwave.

On a more serious note, my fear is that a Wiki, if successful, would remove the basis for 60% of the posts on the forum, and the forum would lose volume and become not worth checking.

A Wiki would take time to get right but is inevitable sooner or later.  The trouble with our expert posters is that all of them are going to drop dead, with the waste of knowledge that that entails.

The point about a wiki is surely that anyone can edit it, even idiots. That makes it about as reliable as, I dunno, Wikipedia. The first time someone blows their engine up following the forum's wiki there might be some complaints. If you put a disclaimer on it, "Follow any advice on here at your own risk" what's the point?

2 minutes ago, RichM said:

This could be controlled by some extent by requiring members to join a "Contributor" group before being able to post content in the Wiki. I know this may be somewhat contentious given the idea of a Wiki is having a platform whereby anyone can contribute to it. But equally it would make sense to have some level of protection in place to prevent against anything malicious. 

I can see that causing a bit of discussion. There's enough moaning about who gets to be a mod. Arguing who is a valid expert on what would be quite a spectator sport...

[Ray T]

20 hours ago, Adam said:

I’d be interested in reading that, if you’re wouldn’t mind…..?

You have a PM.

[RichM]

13 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

The point about a wiki is surely that anyone can edit it, even idiots. That makes it about as reliable as, I dunno, Wikipedia. The first time someone blows their engine up following the forum's wiki there might be some complaints. If you put a disclaimer on it, "Follow any advice on here at your own risk" what's the point?

I can see that causing a bit of discussion. There's enough moaning about who gets to be a mod. Arguing who is a valid expert on what would be quite a spectator sport...

 

The requirements for joining the "Contributor" group have not been defined. It could be something simple, e.g. with the only requirement being that they have been a member for X days with good record. (i.e. not a history of submitting spam/job ads etc) 

 

That said with the way the poll is going, it may not come to fruition. It's a lot of work and an expensive one too if only a small minority are interested. 

 

[MtB]

11 minutes ago, RichM said:

This could be controlled by some extent by requiring members to join a "Contributor" group before being able to post content in the Wiki. I know this may be somewhat contentious given the idea of a Wiki is having a platform whereby anyone can contribute to it. But equally it would make sense to have some level of protection in place to prevent against anything malicious. 

 

One of the reasons I contribute very little to the gas threads is the reams of half-truths and total tosh posted by so many people with total confidence.

 

There is so much ol' shyte gets posted that countering it takers up more effort than I'm willing to make, so I just back out. 

 

[Tony Brooks]

52 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

One of the reasons I contribute very little to the gas threads is the reams of half-truths and total tosh posted by so many people with total confidence.

 

There is so much ol' shyte gets posted that countering it takers up more effort than I'm willing to make, so I just back out. 

 

 

You have my sympathy, I often feel like that.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

You have my sympathy, I often feel like that.

 

I think though because you generally dont get involved in any 'forum politics' or criticise other members or try to goad them people take you more seriously.

 

A few on here might try to do the same and their advice might just be taken more seriously.