New idea for Just Commodores

[danja]

Ok, so for a living a work for a large university designing, implementing and maintaining IT systems. Recently I've been working on a project to establish a knowledge base to document all the bits and pieces of information staff have about various systems we have rather and it just sitting there in their heads, where its not always being put to the best possible use.

The solution we've settled on is a wiki.

Those of you who are familiar with the "wiki" concept may have already figured out where I'm heading with this, if you're not familiar with wikis then check out Wikipedia.

So what do wikis and Wikipedia have to do with JC? Well it struck me today that JC has some of the same problems my workplace has: theres are lots of people with lots of knowledge, but no easy way to access that knowledge. Forums weren't really designed to be knowledge base, they were designed to be an area for discussion, and they do that very well. What I'm talking about isn't discussion, its documentation.

Don't get me wrong, the forums are great for discussing topics, but when you search for some information you'll get 50 different threads on the same thing and about 100's of different opinions from people about whats right or wrong (try seaching "headers" or "rough idle" to name just two).

Thats not the only problem, aside from the sheer volume of responses the standard and quality of information out there varies dramatically. Whilst a large number of members construct their responses thoughtfully and objectively, many will just blurt out the first thing that pops into their head without anything to substantiate their claims.

My idea is to setup a wiki to capture the huge amount of knowledge and experience floating around in these forums, and consolidate the information about various topics into a reliable reference source (much like Wikipedia has done!) that anyone and everyone can contribute to.

I feel that if done right this could contribute a whole lot to this community, and I'd like to see what other think too. There is a heap more I could add to this topic, but for now can I get some feedback from people and if they'd be interested in supporting this idea?

[Shortstuff]

I've seen something like it on another site. They had a 'Knowledge Base' section in the forums. Basically when someone had a problem with their cars and it got solved, the problem and cure were put into the knowledge base section so other people could use it as reference later.

[bjvan2003]

sounds like a great idea, hope you get a good response.

[vy_storm]

Have you thought about speaking to the site admin first? Just remember that you would need permission of the owners of the material to re-publish it elsewhere. You might find yourself in some trouble otherwise.

[AirStrike]

Send an email with your proposed ideas to admin@justcommodores.com.au and we'll look over it all mate.
AirStrike

[danja]

Originally Posted by Shortstuff

I've something like it on another site. They had a 'Knowledge Base' section in the forums. Basically when someone had a problem with their cars and it got solved, the problem and cure were put into the knowledge base section so other people could use it as reference later.

Somewhat like that, but with the wiki paradigm you have potential for a much more comprehensive reference which can constantly be revised and updated and doesn't require anyone to "flag" something as being worthy to move into a separate section.

Originally Posted by vy_storm

Have you thought about speaking to the site admin first? Just remember that you would need permission of the owners of the material to re-publish it elsewhere. You might find yourself in some trouble otherwise.

You're absolutely correct, and I wouldn't want to do it any other way, but I though it would be good to gauge the responses from everyone first before bothering to take it higher, as without the support of the general community the concept it destined to fail.

Originally Posted by AirStrike

Send an email with your proposed ideas to admin@justcommodores.com.au and we'll look over it all mate.

Cheers. If the idea seems popular then I definately will.

[Infin8]

this is tha way many forums are going (but not many have implemented them because of the cost & time associated with it). nearly every week someone asks the same question from last week (people dont use the search function or dont know how to use it properly). the forum should stay 'as-is' for discussion, but there should be another section - like what was said before, a 'knowledge base' - where there is a thread on as many topics as possible eg. 'How do I lower my Car', 'Which exhaust best suits my car' etc (there will be hundreds of threads obviously, the trick is to get all of them sorted into specific segments so when you search, it returns the correct results. thats my 2cents anyway, but i reckon if it can be done it will help many people (and admin)

Cheers,
Infin8

[calais_304]

im keen to see something like this setup on JC it'd do wonders for me

[craigvk]

Brilliant idea. I have seen Wiki on another forum (not a car one). I would be happy to contribute stuff to the knowledge base as I have heaps of info I could write up about what I know.

[craigvk]

Here is one example.
A arcade games building etc forum.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/

And their Wiki site:
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Main_Page

[smokey_dj]

yeah i couldnt agree more even though theres the sections broken into groups of 1-or 2 models its just still difficult to gewt what you want so a new thrread usually seems the best way to go
this im sure will help many and i fully back the idea

[R0d]

good idea but will take a while to sort out the post with information thats worthwhile and post that are just full of....... wrong information

[danja]

Originally Posted by Infin8

this is tha way many forums are going (but not many have implemented them because of the cost & time associated with it)

There are tons of flavours of wiki available, but many (or most) of them are free (the software that is) so the main costs of implementing them are the hardware and bandwidth that will host them. If JC was willing to host it on their hardware then that would eliminate the need for most, if any extra cost on top of the existing hosting, and in terms of bandwidth, if the content was good enough then I could forsee that it may actually reduce bandwidth costs, as a large amount of traffic through the forums would be eliminated if members found the answers to their questions in the wiki.

When it comes to man hours, they are to a large extent self managing and self policing (by the very nature of the thing). There would be some ongoing administrative needs, but relatively minor compared to what mods already need to do in the forums, and again hopefully the forum mods would benefit from having to deal with less threads on the same old stuff.

Originally Posted by Slim

Here is one example.
A arcade games building etc forum.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/

And their Wiki site:
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Main_Page

Yep, thats pretty much the idea I'm on about! Do you know what the community response was like to the introduction of the wiki? (PS. and thanks for the site, if I ever feel the urge to build a arcade cabinet for my Xbox I'll know where to go! )

Originally Posted by ProjectCheapVn

good idea but will take a while to sort out the post with information thats worthwhile and post that are just full of....... wrong information

Definitely, the idea is however that even if incorrect information does creep in, the article gets refined as people review it and eventually the bad stuff gets weeded out.